How come that a pathetic propaganda puke poignantly polluted the pristine pages of a prestigious publication on Xmas Eve?
Christmas marks the 30th Anniversary of the USA’s “Wilson’s War” opening in Afghanistan against the USSR, and a dolce duo of impersonators, Owen Matthews & Anna Nemtsova, posing as military experts, duped Newsweek into buying their malicious innuendo, innocuously but duplicitously titled “Learning From the Soviets.”
Agitprop booby-trap
Concocted in full compliance with USIA gray propaganda recipe of information warfare against the USSR, this IED tries to blow up the armor of common sense by denigrating the Soviet lessons to spin the Afghan surge and to “suggest that America may just manage to succeed where Russia (sic!) failed(?).”
Sugarcoated poison pill
Under the cover of well-intentioned “learning” lessons from the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, which includes, but is not limited by a COIN campaign, hides unabashed “gloating” over the Soviet legacy, which successfully defied the worst & the boldest expectations against heavy odds for almost 3 years.
Subliminal message
Negative advertising, “us good guys vs. them bad guys,” is old Madison Avenue shtick, widely used in US electioneering and psychological operations overseas, but it is hardly appropriate for an unbiased news magazine.
To equate Russia with the USSR and USA with NATO in the context of CIA/ISI anti-Soviet insurgency, against the backdrop of anti-American insurgency in Afghanistan, is a reckless call for Cold War redux to sabotage “the reset” in Russian-American relations.
Suspension of disbelief
To claim that “Najibullah’s government… disintegrated under the twin evils of tribalism and corruption,” “Karzai is… a huge asset” and “democracy may be the solution” is to mock the lessons of the past and jinx the US’s face-saving exit strategy in Afghanistan.
Collateral damage
Speculating that Soviet vets “are rooting for the US to lose” in Afghanistan is a cheap shot to antagonize Russian & American veterans and subvert bilateral military & security cooperation.
If anything, our vets will back up American comrade in arms 100% -- to root out the “freedom-fighters” from their lairs in Pakistan and to terminate “without prejudice” their narco-network in Afghanistan.
That, finally, would be a right retribution to put a full stop to a long-overdue “Wilson’s War.”
The silver lining
Luckily, this duo’s unfortunate case of disinformation is rather an exception than a rule in the US media – to detox your mind from the Cold War prejudices, here’s the short list of thought-provoking articles about Afghanistan:
1. “Take the War to Pakistan” by Seth G. Jones, The New York Times
2. “Doubts About Certitude” by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
3. “The Soviet Victory That Never Was” by Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Foreign Affairs
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