Taliban Scrambles to Stem Bad Publicity After Civilian 'Massacres'

Taliban Scrambles to Stem Bad Publicity After Civilian 'Massacres'

KABUL -- Taliban leadership is scrambling to stem the public-relations fallout from recent suicide attacks that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The insurgent movement has launched an internal investigation, and some commanders now blame an autonomous faction for the "massacres" of civilians.

This dissension within the Taliban, described by multiple insurgent commanders and officials, illustrates a similar problem faced by the U.S.-led coalition: how to fight a war in which winning over Afghan public opinion matters more than killing your foes.

Talk about bad staff work... At least people are starting to open their eyes that the Taliban are not quite the angels they make themselves out to be.

Dissention in the ranks over types of people they can kill. Massive protests in the Middle East..

Dare I say it, but it looks like common sense might possibly be taking hold, and it looks like people are tired of being oppresed and having their religion hijacked by cowards who order others to blow themselves up while skipping out on the plan themselves.

Either way - cautious optomism.

LOL

LOL!



Like having people strap explosives to themselves and sending them into large population centers and detonating their human confetti bombs wasnt already bad publicity?

Really?

The world has lost its mind

reply to post by Xcathdra


Okay, so it's not just NATO forces killing civilians. That's the trouble with any weapon if you go firing it around civilians the bullets do not discriminate.

I saw a doumentary about the Taliban a while back and it was showing how the insurgents would lay IED's and plan ambush's. They were the biggest inept bunch I had ever seen. They paniced on several occasions and claimed they had killed several NATO soldiers. The truth was they laid the their IED's miles off track and they were endangering shepherds more than the enemy.

There were a number of experienced leaders, but like our very own Generals, these never went out on any sortees.

i think one of the major problems here is that ppl are willingly blowing themselves up. i blame the perversions of religions, and as an atheist, blame religion in it's entirety.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


The point though is NATO does not intentionally target civilians. Taliban / Al Queida killing civilians and blaming foreign forces is not a new tactic for them. When they fight from schools, hospitals and mosques what are our forces suppose to do? Stand there and die because shooting back would violate ROE?

Targeting civilians does not exactly win the hearts and minds of the people.

reply to post by Xcathdra


I wasn't attacking NATO forces, please re-read my post.

If you look at the number of people who have lost their lives in Afghanistan civilian casualties far outweigh any others.

NATO did know that any guerilla war would involve civilian casualities, you only have to look at Vietnam to see this, yet we still insist that we can crush the insurgents.

IMO we can't and we won't. We will only see more deaths on all three sides, but with the main losers being the civilians.

So far you are absolutely right.
The civillians are the ones who suffer the brunt of the action, and many more times than not it is the children who get the very worst of it.
They are neither big enough to defend themselves from adult predation, nor strong enough to fend for themselves in survival mode.
They are the least cared about, and most traumatised by the violence and perversions which abound in these civil wars.So it is the children and innocents, who pay the price while the combatants often emerge unscathed from the atrocities,having the most protection for themselves.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


No I understand what you are saying. My response was with my 2 cents about NATO and their actions. I was saying the civilians are massacred by the Taliban / Al Queida, who then turn around and say NATO forces are responsible for it. They finally got caught doing that with the recent suicide bombings, where they were caught on CCTV.

Sorry about that.. I will try to be a little more clear in my responses.. Its been a long week.