NATO vs the Taliban: on YouTube
p2pnet news | Movies:- NATO is taking Marshall McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message” to heart.
Embarrassed by terrorists’ skilful use of the Net to get their messages across, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation plans to put things right.
“When NATO put out a call for more equipment in southern Afghanistan, it was expecting guns and helicopters,” says the Canadian Press.
Instead, from Denmark it got an offer of 1 million euros, or about C$1.4 million —- so it could buy cameras and video-cataloguing gear.
What’ll it be used for?
To deliver “documented Taliban outrages to a television near you – or to the popular video website YouTube,” says CP, going on:
“At the end of a two-day informal meeting of defence ministers in the Netherlands, NATO’s secretary general reiterated Thursday that the alliance needs to do a better job in public relations both in home countries and Afghanistan.
Faced with sagging support in countries such as Canada and the Netherlands for the Afghan mission, “NATO sees the videos as a way of shoring up public opinion,” says the story.
“Public debate over civilian casualties in Afghanistan has been limited almost exclusively to criticism of NATO for misdirected air strikes and inadvertant shootings by western troops,” says CP, going on:
The Taliban has been quick to exploit the resentment of Afghans over civilian casualties while portraying carnage caused by insurgent tactics as justified.
Unlike al-Qaida, which has a sophisicated production company posting hard-line Islamist messages on the Internet, the Taliban are relative newcomers. Last winter, in conjunction with Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, the Taliban released footage of what it claimed was a successful attack on a U.S. position in southern Afghanistan.
Videos of Taliban suicide bombers alledgedly being dispatched to western countries received breathless coverage last spring from North American and some European media. Insurgents in Iraq have long used videos of roadside bombings as a propaganda and recruiting tool.
Western media are “quick to pick up on Taliban claims and the occasional video,” CP has NATO spokesman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sayinh, but by the time NATO responds, “the news cycle has usually moved on”.
The NATO web site promises, “A short video highlighting the main topics discussed at the Noordwijk meeting”.
However, when we went for a look, it only delievered a blank page.
Meanwhile, “Sources say NATO will put new emphasis on Web videos, including the declassification of images previously thought too sensitive to publicize, and place a premium on fleet-footed communication, possibly using rapid-reaction teams to mobilize when Taliban-conceived falsehoods hit the press,” says the Toronto Star.
Also See:
Canadian Press – NATO wants to publicize Taliban outrages; gets Danish funding for video gear, October 25, 2007
Toronto Star – NATO to battle Taliban on YouTube, October 21, 2007
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for the download, and here for details. Click here or here to learn how to by-pass censorship in your area.
