War for the Technorati

Recently, the United States Institute of Peace sponsored an event to talk about the alleged progress and the future of media in Afghanistan.  While the political issues and the sophistication of the American society makes discernment a complex task, a look and listen at Afghanistan produces a picture as clear as a mountain stream. 

Ambassador James Dobbins gave the keynote address in which he described the progress of establishing an elections system that is intended to provide for the peaceful transition of power, the focusing of the national dialog on issues rather than tribal and ethnic conflict, the status of women, the beginnings of education and health systems, the economic status and the status of the 'security' - military/police.   Succinctly, he was describing the status of institution building to bring 21st century organizational structure to 19th century tribal people.  Significant indicators that Dobbins gave were the fact that Afghanistan exports were valued at $398 million while their imports for telecommunications technology were valued at about $1.2 billion.     

One of the segments of the USIP event was a panel discussion of the future of media in Afghanistan.  This segment begins with a seven minute clip of a television program set in Afghanistan produced by an Australian media company.  The interesting part of it is the moderator's description of the political purpose behind what on the surface appears to be entertainment television for an Afghanistan audience.  If anybody ever had any doubts about the use of television for indoctrination and social messaging, they need to watch this segment.

From an anthropological point of view, the United States and NATO have set about the mission of breaking tribal loyalties and to get the people to put trust in a bureaucratic regulatory system with defined policies and practices that supposedly will provide order and security that replaces tribal order and security. 

As I watched these three programs on Afghanistan juxtaposing what the U.S. has been doing there with the situation on the home front, I couldn't help thinking about The Three Faces of Eve.  It was a movie produced in 1957 starring Joanne Woodward about a woman with a split personality - two distinctly different people residing in the same body with a third personality emerging.  The United States is suffering from the same symptoms of split personality.  In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, their objective is a turnkey democratic model that they market to be the savior for those people.  In the United States, they encourage tribalism and in fact, the State Department is importing diaspora communities to further balkanize the country along tribal lines.  The big tribes are the black tribe, the hispanic tribe, American Indians, the female tribe, the gay and lesbian tribe.  The only people who are not allowed to be in a tribe are white males.  Just guessing, but I would think the reason would be that a white tribe would blow the cover of the elite leaders of the global systems.  They wouldn't be able to present as the neutral managers of the global totalitarian system. 

U.S. policy in the United States and policy that the U.S. presents for Afghanistan proves the point that the U.S. government does not operate from a position of moral principle.  Rather, they operate from the confidence game principles of whatever works to gain technocratic control of a country.  If the culture of a country is tribal or religiously based, break it up.  If the country is a republic - use tribalism to break it up and to cause dissension.   While breaking up the country - steal everything.  While rebuilding a country gorge on government contracting while putting the people in a debt noose to pay for the systems that will make them slaves of the global Technorati. 

Vicky Davis
March 1, 2014

http://www.c-span.org/video/?318048-2/usafghanistan-relations