Taliban 2.0 Gentler, softer… more softened in hiding, in cave, in Pakistan…read-up on US-issued ammo manuals, on the Koran, on Madison Avenue (re-branding), on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, twitter …anything and everything about modern life in the past 20 years…
The softer side of Sears (Blue-light specials)… Coke is it. Might as well hire Paris Hilton to pull a car-wash on left-behind Hummers.
A lot to catch up and to re-brand….Steve Jobs died. I phone is now in its 13th version. Austin Powers’ Dr Evil cannot ask for an amount of 6 million-dollar ransom. Biden is now the President (and the buck stops with him). No more pivoting nor prolonging the terror war + nation-rebuilding …Please read “Don’t give the dog a donut”…Please read anything Vietnam…Please read.
Or else we keep “Waiting for Superman”…Superman, superman, fly away! I watched porno on campus at Public School (and weekend sex-ile). So I figured I enrolled in private Liberal Arts College, where they MADE me attend chapel every morning. I listened to the likes of Chuck Colson (“I would run over my grandma for Nixon”….The speaker conveniently capitalised on going to jail for him – without pardon (Cohen, as Colson 2.0?).
But at least I read something…learning from the art of persuasion/re-branding. But trading my marketing for Taliban opium? They would have to pay young ad execs from Madison or Milan to do their dirty works (or home-grown ones).
I know what they would do. They first buy some time, to shed their image: underemphasising the negative (kill at will) and inflating their positive (we allow safe passage to foreigners and female medical workers …). They will target the young expats, Westernised ones whose command of the English language is above board…They will come up with similar “Softer side of Sears” campaign, data-driven and Ad-sense, with catchy slogan…to get and hold attention.
In today’s parlance, they will have to conduct a guerrilla and digital ad campaign (for EU to unfreeze their overseas bank accounts). Their spokesperson and statesman will have lived in the West, with dynamic equivalent for Press briefing and news cycle. They will buy air time, pop up ads and learn to overcome “Skip Ad”…In short, the terrible Taliban will eat and sleep with technology of the 21st century while preserving their Islamic core belief. They will learn to be evangelists on top of being Jihadists.
They will learn to enlarge their sphere of influence, taking a page from Turkey and Egypt (already sheltering Al Qaeda and cousins, take a lesson from them – why be dogmatic? Look at the damage done by OBL, trained and adaptable). They will retain and be uncompromising about being Taliban tribal with mediators and mullahs. It’s their way of life: smoke some, shoot some and say something at the women.
To the West, Taliban are terrible. To them, the West are infidels. Unbelievers to be maimed, wiped out. The West, meanwhile, with split personalities and culture-war i.e. Protestantism vs Pluralism, are uncertain about its mission: the Great Commission for Christ, or Civil Society after Jefferson and Rousseau (separation of Church and State). Both sides are waiting for Superman. Only China, Russia and N Korea are pretty clear and upfront about it: their Leaders are God-sent, and what he (male) says carries the weight. They are immortal, all-knowing and will reign forever (now that their leader has been released; think Genghis Khan, of Nelson Mandela) . Sounds like Systematic Theology 101 about the return of God to reign on Earth.
In or out of prison, time has always been on their side: Taliban 2.0 are now riding high (on Hummers) to attract young, eager and tech-savvy recruits. Tik Tok Tik Tok…Patience and Time are on their side, not ours. Maybe it’s our turn to re-brand, regroup and re-examine our premises.
Instead of waiting for Superman (Reeves is dead) 2.0, ALL of us should get back to the drawing board…admit our errors of judgment and conduct in a hurried war (highest-ranking Adm Mullen has just said so on Salon), a war that lasts so damm long and deep into the unknown unknowns that Leo Tolstoy resurrected couldn’t even offer any advice. War and Peace 2.0 will be in two volumes, side by side, like the Twin-Towers that started it all.
Thang Nguyen 555 