The headlines in the media are all about a stronger and more widespread Taliban, but it's the Taliban who are increasingly getting hammered. There hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last three years, and the key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, has been under heavy attack for the last year. The opium crop declined 25 percent this year, and drug gang income even more. The Taliban expected drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance, and Pakistani reinforcements to turn the tide. But al Qaeda is a very junior, and unpopular, partner, and the Pakistani Taliban are sending refugees, not reinforcements. With all that, violence nationwide was up, mainly because there are more foreign troops in the country, being more aggressive against the Taliban and drug gangs.
Sure you read news analysis that says the Taliban are "resurgent" and all that, but our press really can't do more than notice that something is blowing up and point a camera at the flaming wreckage. Few reporters can offer useful context of what the report on. But Strategypage explains that, too:
Reporting tends to be distorted by how accessible wars are, as well as how easily your viewers could identify with the combatants. The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed and the war was won. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted.
And this doesn't even address the ideological bias of most of the press reporting.
So in this new year, pay attention to the news of what happens in the world--it's the only game in town, after all, for looking at the world. But don't be too quick to assume they really understand what they are reporting on. Alas, you fight a war with the press corps you have and not the press corps you'd like to have.
