Reading today's Times article about the Taliban trying to prevent Afghans from participating in the upcoming elections, you get a sense of just how important "strategic communications" are to the Taliban's overall strategy. The Taliban has been doing everything from disseminating threatening leaflets to warning voters in mosques that any ink stained fingers they see will be amputated. A key part of the intimidation campaign is the radio stations they're using to broadcast threats:
Mahmood Mirza, 35, a villager from the Kajaki district in the adjoining province of Helmand, said the Taliban had rigged up a radio station and were broadcasting to a radius of three to four miles from their base, warning people not to take part in the election or to support a government that they said was destroying their houses and bombing their people.
The Taliban say they have prepared 200 suicide bombers to attack polling stations on election day, Mr. Mirza said. “Now people are scared and won't take part in elections,” he said. “I myself will not vote and will not leave my home on the day of elections.”
Will the Taliban actually be able to field 200 suicide bombers on election day? Who knows? And that's almost beside the point. The point is to frighten people away from the ballot boxes and delegitimize the elections -- whether or not the attacks actually occur may be less important to their overall strategy than making sure people don't vote.
One final point -- yesterday Richard Holbrooke, in response to questions from the press about possible unrest or election irregularities, glibly responded that we hadn't seated a senator from Minnesota until a few weeks ago. It should be obvious that, given conditions in Afghanistan, where the government may not even be able to place ballot boxes in rural areas because of the danger from the Taliban, that statement is an obscene trivialization.
-- A. Serwer