LA Times Reporter Rides With Taliban

I don't know what is more interesting about this article in the LA Times: the fact that a western journalist (or at least an Afghan stringer working for a western paper) was able to meet with a Taliban tribe without losing their head, or the amazing exemplification this article is of the Taliban's ability to utilize and manipulate the media to their ends.

It is clear that the Taliban understands the power that articles like this one have in convincing people that the insurgency is thriving in Afghanistan, and that NATO and the US have a long way to go there. Convincing one country to withdraw 1000 soldiers is certainly easier than killing or wounding them.

The Taliban has been controlling how they are portrayed in the media using less subtle methods as well, i.e. beheading pro-western Pakistani journalists and threatening others with death.

Meanwhile they have been selling professional-quality DVDs of beheadings and bombings in the tribal regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The DVDs are used as recruitment tools (kind of like the commercial where the Marine fights the fire monster I guess [or this one where the cool Ukrainian army guy gets the babe]).

It's pretty interesting to see how well a religious movement that wants to roll back all the social progress of the last millennium is able to adapt so quickly to the modern media machine.