Thomas H. Johnson - Taliban Narratives

with Matthew DuPee and Wali Shaaker

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Copyright Thomas H. Johnson, Matthew DuPee and Wali Shaaker, 2017

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Thomas H. Johnson, Matthew DuPee and Wali Shaaker.

Taliban Narratives: The Use and Power of Stories in the Afghanistan Conflict

ISBN: 9780190911676

I would like to dedicate this book to Lt. Col. John Darin (JD) Loftis, a student, friend, and outstanding military officer who was murdered while helping the people of Afghanistan whom he loved and respected dearly.

I also dedicate this book to Ryan and Courtney, whose love and inspiration maintain me.

Ambassador Peter Tomsen

This book was initially conceived at the US Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)s Program for Culture and Conflict Studies (CCS), which I direct. The research associates and assistants on the program played an indispensable role in the conceptualization of data and notions concerning many of the analyses presented in this book. I would like first to thank Matthew DuPee. I came across Matts tremendous self-taught knowledge of Afghanistan by reading his articles published on the influential blog, the Long War Journal. I found his articles full of data and knowledge concerning Afghanistan that appeared in no other media outlet. It was very evident that he had valuable Afghan contacts and used them extremely effectively. I was so impressed with his scholarship and his writing that I eventually contacted and offered him a research position at CCS and a stipend to enter the MA program in National Security Affairs at NPS. He proved to be an outstanding student, graduating with highest honors, as well as being a tremendous colleague and researcher. His self-initiative, smarts, and outstanding analytic and writing capabilities proved invaluable. He co-authored a number of peer-reviewed journal articles with me and made invaluable contributions to nearly every chapter presented in this book. He now serves as an important Department of Defense Afghan analyst. The country is fortunate to have his services.

I would also like to thank Wali Ahmed Shaaker, an important and well-known Afghan-American poet who was initially hired as a translator for the CCS. I quickly learned that his intellectual tool chest relative to Afghanistan was vast. He basically taught me the essence of Afghan poetry and its many variants, as well as important Afghan poets that we needed to consider in assessing the role of poetry in Afghan IO. Walis research was critical for those sections of this book that deal with Afghan and Taliban poetry. His translations of Taliban materials, especially poetry, proved extremely important and are presented in this book. In addition, his support of my field research in Afghanistan proved extremely valuable.

Other CCS members also played critical roles in the research presented here. I would like to thank especially Ahmad Waheed and Amina Kator-Mumbarez. Ahmad, a Kandahari Afghan, now a US citizen, who initially came to study in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, helped to bring Afghan nuance to almost all of the analyses presented in this book. He served as a CCS Research Associate for over five years, and his contributions to the research presented here were numerous. Like the other CCS members suggested above, his self-initiative and dedication was infectious. Like Matt DuPee, Ahmad served as my co-author for peer-reviewed journal articles on a variety on subjects relevant to Taliban information operations. He translated most of the Pashto materials assessed in this book, including the hundreds of shabnamah whose summaries are presented in Appendix B (available online at www.hurstpublishers.com/book/taliban-narratives). Amina Kator-Mumbarez, another Afghan-American, was hired shortly after her graduation from the University of California in Berkeley where she organized important conferences and workshops on Afghanistan. Amina served the CCS as an invaluable colleague, proving to be a very gifted writer and researcher. She, like the other dedicated CCS colleagues, played a critical role in assessments of Taliban IO materials, data collection, analysis, and review. Keely M. Fahoum, a former NPS student, also played a significant role in educating me concerning the early US IO and PSYOP campaigns in Afghanistan. She had a wealth of knowledge concerning early OEF IO and PSYOP, some of which is reflected in this book. Elizabeth (Betsy) Hulme, an outstanding student intern from the University of North Carolina, made valuable contributions during the final push of finishing the book. Finally, I would like to thank Matthew Dearing, one of the first CCS research assistants, for supporting some of the early research relevant to this book.

Very importantly, most of these CCS scholars proved also to be tremendous friends and colleagues and played significant roles in the production of this book on their own time.

This book also benefited from conversations with NPSs Center of Excellence for Information Dominance. I would like to thank especially Professors Hy Rothstein and John Arquilla. I was told that John once stated that the war in Afghanistan would eventually become a battle of poetry, and I believe the reasoning underlying this statement is quite prophetic and extremely relevant to the major thesis of this book.

Chris Mason, Harold Ingram, Graeme Smith, and Larry Goodson also helped to frame my ideas on many subjects presented here. This group of Afghan scholars regularly communicate with each other and me via emails discussing a variety of important Afghan subjects and personalities. They are also all valued friends. Chris Mason played an especially important role in my understanding of Afghan messaging and narratives, as well as the naivet of US messaging and information operations.

I would also like to thank all my students at NPS that I have had the opportunity to interact with over the years. Many of these students have had multiple deployments to Afghanistan, and their experiences taught me valuable lessons concerning Afghanistan. In addition, many of my students had unique and real world experience with information operations conducted by both the US and the Taliban that proved important to developing my knowledge and ideas concerning Afghan IO.