Mind-Munitions

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The New World Information Disorder
target for ‘regime change’. American and British special forces were
inserted on the ground to conduct a manhunt for al-Qaeda and
Taliban fighters, working alongside local forces in the Northern
Alliance. A $25 million reward was offered for the capture of bin
Laden and the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. The operation, initially
dubbed a ‘crusade’ under the label of ‘Infinite Justice’ – both spectacular
propaganda own-goals – was quickly re-labelled ‘Enduring
Freedom’. By December, the Taliban had fled the Afghan capital,
Kabul, and dispersed in the mountains. Captured prisoners were
taken to the American military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
and the slow process of rebuilding Afghan civil society began.
The conflict in Afghanistan was but a small part of the ‘war’
against terrorism. Other fighting ‘fronts’ were in the realms of
intelligence, law enforcement, finance, homeland defence, diplomacy
– and propaganda. In Afghanistan itself, PSYOPS teams
dropped more than 80 million leaflets declaring that ‘The Partnership
of Nations is Here to Help’. Commando Solo was deployed to
broadcast radio messages into the region, especially after Taliban
radio was bombed and taken off the air. The Taliban had banned
television, which meant that most people in Afghanistan had never
seen the images of the twin towers collapsing. It was therefore
imperative that the Americans explained why they were in the
country, not as an invading force like the Russians before them (or
even the British before that) but to seek justice for the crimes committed
against them. Rather, they suggested, it was the Arab al-
Qaeda fighters who were the foreign invaders holding the country
to ransom by payrolling the Taliban. An important ingredient of
this campaign was the humanitarian aid dropped by the ton in
yellow packets. The Taliban countered by warning that the food
was either poisoned or that the packets were really cluster bombs
(which were also yellow). The colour was changed to blue. The
coalition was clearly attempting to divide Afghan civilians from
the Taliban leadership with messages such as: ‘Do you enjoy being
ruled by the Taliban? Are you proud to live a life of fear? Are you
happy to see the place your family has owned for generations
become a terrorist training site?’ Leaflets were dropped over towns
depicting a Taliban whipping a woman dressed in a burkha and
bearing the words: ‘Is this the future you want for your women and
children?’ Other messages tried to convey a sense of solidarity
between the ordinary people of the USA and of Afghanistan. As