Alternative Universe: Western media’s propaganda on Afghanistan

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Muharram 09, 1443 2021-08-18

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Western corporate media’s coverage of the evolving scenario in Afghanistan mimics Saddam Hussein’s tragic-comical Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

He became the butt of many jokes over his denial of reality in Iraq.

As the Taliban movement ended NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan and toppled the fraudulent Western-imposed regime, the civilizational crisis, of the white man’s burden narrative immediately began playing out in the information sphere.

It is history 101 that no insurgency could last 20 years without popular support.

The way the Taliban came to power clearly reflects the reality that most Afghans do not view them as an enemy.

True, there are some people in Afghanistan who are opposed to the Taliban, but the Western media makes it seem as if hardly anyone supports them.

This farce puts North Korea’s propaganda tactics to shame.

Most Afghan cities simply allowed the Taliban to take over while possessing an abundance of weapons and manpower to fight them.

Local administrators and the people chose not to oppose the Taliban.

It is clear to all fair-minded observers that the Afghan people wanted the humiliating Western occupation to end even if it meant the Taliban returning to power.

The above reality is deliberately excluded from the narrative of the Western corporate media.

The reason for this is partly civilizational and partly political.

Western “do-gooders” cannot accept the reality that the movement they spent billions of dollars in projecting as ‘barbaric’, outperformed them in every aspect, including the triumph over Afghan hearts and minds.

As stated by the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan during his interview with Echo of Moscow radio station – “Kabul is much more stable under the ‘terrorists’, [Russian legal system considers the Taliban a terrorist organization, a legal formality likely to change] than Ashraf Ghani’s government.”

For political reasons, the Western media will continue to focus on everything that malfunctions in turbulent Afghanistan as their top news because success by the Taliban will further undermine confidence in the Western dominated global order.

Considering that the Taliban are a mass movement, naturally it will be difficult to coordinate the actions and policies of all their functionaries.

Thus, missteps will occur for some time.

The corporate media’s constant focus on malfunctions will aim to highlight factionalism and keep the door open for Western intervention of some sort.

Anyone who assumes that NATO regimes will simply sit idle and accept history’s natural turn of events is naïve.

Unstable Afghanistan is a geopolitical “gem” for Western powers to undermine the Belt and Road Initiative project.

Volatility in Afghanistan will create headaches for China, Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran and Russia.

Based on the simplistic reaction of some Muslims on the social media, the biggest leverage of destabilization of Afghanistan is likely to emerge from gung-ho Salafi-minded Muslims already preparing to make hijrah to Afghanistan.

The Taliban leadership seems to understand this well and will likely nip it in the bud to avoid another Al-Qaeda-type scenario.

It is obvious that the path to a stable and peaceful Afghanistan will not be smooth.

No country can jump from 40 years of war into stability and prosperity right away.

It took Russia a decade to do so after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The best the outsiders can do is to not contribute to igniting divisions and factionalism in Afghanistan.

Prudence requires that the Afghan diaspora not allow itself to be used as tools of imperialism.

This will be key to whether Afghanistan will become stable or continue to suffer instability into the foreseeable future.

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