In response to the ever-increasing groundswell of voices in the media questioning the continuing wisdom behind the British role in Afghanistan, General Sir Richard Dannatt said on the BBC flagship Nine O’Clock news programme last week:
“There are those out there who would challenge our way of life; they are challenging it in Afghanistan, they are challenging it in Pakistan.”
Who was that statement aimed at? A huge number of people around the world will have heard that and felt ever more certain that neo-colonialism or, at least, cultural imperialism is the aim behind deployment. People in Afghanistan and Pakistan should follow “our way of life”, to paraphrase what will be widely understood here.
However, Dannatt was a victim of very unfortunate editing. His statement above was taken from a longer interview, and was in fact the third point of a list of three which also included persuading “the people of Afghanistan that there is a better life than being under the influence of the Taliban.”
His soundbite was pared down by an editor in order to produce a yet more concise soundbite. The news editor asks himself why his viewers should care about what Dannatt has to say, and surmises that when time is scarce, only the point that is directly related to Britain is relevant. In practice, however, the audience is global, and damaging editing such as this makes the job that much harder.
This highlights a crucial tension in stratcomms when things get difficult; the relationship between domestic audience (who need to be convinced of continued deployment) and foreign audience (who also need to be convinced of the deployment, but for different reasons). The message given to one constituency will quite often be heard by the other, and in ideal times, this relationship should be as symbiotic as possible: both constituencies would be convinced of the need for deployment, and so talking to one is in harmony with the other.
In the current reality, the two constituencies are approaching antagonism. In this case, now that the potential consequences caused by the dissonance of the message are looking to become more serious, the mutual siege that has characterised the campaign Afghanistan in recent times will gradually worsen, with the British people ever more inclined to sue for withdrawal and the Taliban more resolute. The political violence that has accompanied the elections will only entrench these positions.
The initial successes of Afghanistan have had a shadow cast on them by stories similar to ones coming from Iraq: suicide bombings, widespread political violence, kidnappings of foreigners, bombs at NATO headquarters: all in the service of a nation that caused uproar over laws that subjugate the place of women in society firmly to male whimsy. However essentialised this conception may be, the media often selects the most sensational characteristics of a story and this nonetheless what we have to work with.
At any rate, even when appearing in its full context, Dannatt’s statement smacks a bit of desperation, as it appeals for acquiescence from a population on a more existential level – a ‘way of life’ being ‘challenged’ [by terrorists, which is the inference]. This contains echoes of the discourse from the early stages of the ‘War on Terror’ when populations were fairly readily convinced that foreign wars were necessary in order to preserve the Western way of life from a terrorist onslaught.
Now this is much harder, especially given the reversals of Bush’s second term in which the ‘War on Terror’ floundered, and the grand narrative was found out for its naivety. The stains of Guantanamo, where the first prisoner was received as early as January 2002, and Abu Gharaib [among other things] have had a hugely detrimental effect on credibility. The inescapable message for the Muslim world was that it was all about foreign domination and double standards.
Britain’s commentariat is now split between the ‘finish the job’-ers and the ‘pull out now’s, though the former rarely specify what the ‘job’ entails. When so much of the Afghanistan story and media focus – and support – is invested in the British forces largely in abstract and irrespective of their task, the editorial space for expressing the considerable non-military aspect of the campaign is limited. Dannatt did try to express this, but as if things weren’t hard enough already, an editor on the BBC news compounded the situation.
Is there a solution? Perhaps a soundbite that just can’t be edited? I have no real answers, but suggest a closer examination of the domestic and foreign constituencies: increased focus on the similarities and common ground between the two should provide a few clues as to why this deployment is of mutual benefit, not mutual siege. In addition, the relationship between military strategy and political success need to be linked in the public conception; currently, Afghanistan is about military deployment alone.
Whatever the best practice forward, the job is increasingly difficult and morale-sapping when the political wisdom that is supposed to underpin the deployment is patchy and under attack itself. It is crucial that the centre holds in any endeavour.
Guy Gabriel is a journalist and adviser to Arab Media Watch.