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What the Washington Post Gets Wrong About the United States and Afghanistan – Lawfare

Editors Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.

It is a serious charge to accuse U.S. officials of deceit and duplicity in their dealings with the American people. That is arguably what happened in Vietnam, to a large extenthelping explain why the 1960s were among the worst decades in American history in terms of domestic cohesion and trust. Now, the Washington Post has accused U.S. officials of both parties and several recent administrations of a similar pattern of untruthfulness in regard to the American-led mission in Afghanistan since 2001. Does this charge hold up?

The short answer is no. The Washington Post did a disservice with this report. At a time when trust in American institutions is already weak, and U.S. officials accuse each other of lying all the time, the country does not benefit from yet more of its trusted voices being wrongly demeaned and diminished.

Yes, the Afghanistan experience these last 18.5 years has been marked by tragedy, frustration, many failures, and a general sense of disappointment. Even those of us who generally have supported the mission would acknowledge as much. But no, there has not been a campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal.

It is fine to accuse many elected leaders, ambassadors, generals, and other officials of endorsing bad policiesand not seeing clearly or quickly enough when those policies were failing. That is much different, however, than an assault on the integrity of those individuals. To be sure, wishful thinking afflicts public servants as much as other human beings, and people who favor one policy or another sometimes spin the facts to suit their pre-determined argument. But that is much different than intentional and concerted efforts to lead the country astray. And for every person attempting positive spin about the Afghanistan mission over the years, there have usually been several harping on all the problems.

Indeed, very few American leaders have ever seen Afghanistan through rose-colored glasses. Consider:

The Washington Post is right to document, for the umpteenth time, the lack of progress in fighting opium production, making Afghanistan safer for its citizens, reducing government corruption, and building Afghan security forces that can handle the job without us (though it is worth noting that those forces now do in fact hold all major and mid-sized cities, and do perhaps 95% of the fighting and more than 99% of the dying among coalition forces these days). It is wrongbadly wrongto claim to have proven that the Bush, Obama, and/or Trump administrations, as well as top military and diplomatic leaders charged with the Afghanistan mission, systematically and intentionally misled the country about what was going on.

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What the Washington Post Gets Wrong About the United States and Afghanistan - Lawfare

Welcoming the progress made by UNAMA in Afghanistan – GOV.UK

Thank you very much, Madam President. And thank you to the Special Representative and Ms Khurram for their really helpful briefings and nice to see Ms Khurram here again. And thank you to my colleague, the Afghan Ambassador. Were very pleased to be part of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan and its very heartening to hear so much support from colleagues around the table. So thank you very much for that. And also, big thank you to the Indonesian Foreign Minister for her guidance as well.

First of all, I think for the Special Representative, its a huge thank you once again for what youre doing and for the work of UNAMA in incredibly challenging circumstances. So thank you for that. And Id like to come on in a minute to the three main issues of today: the peace process, the elections and economic development.

But at first, I just wanted to add the United Kingdoms voice to all those condemning the attack on the UN vehicle in Kabul last month and the recent attack that killed Dr. Nakamura. We join all those who lament the loss of these fine colleagues. We send our sympathies and our condolences to their families and to all those who knew them. There is absolutely no justification for these disgraceful acts of violence. The Taliban claim to speak for the people of Afghanistan and yet if they do not take part directly in such attacks, they certainly create an environment where such attacks become possible. And in that connection, I would like to mention the Taliban attack on Bagram last Tuesday, which killed two civilians and injured many more. And the United Kingdom calls on the Taliban to end such attacks in order to give Afghans a chance for the stable and just peace that they so much deserve.

Turning to the peace process, we share the view of other members that only a political process can deliver a lasting and just peace. And a deal between the US and Taliban is crucial to unlocking intra-Afghan talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The United Kingdom also hopes talks can resume soon, but its clear the Taliban need to firmly commit to a concrete reduction in violence as a matter of urgency. The Taliban needs to show its serious about peace, the Afghan people need respite from the awful violence, and we need to create a conducive environment for these crucial intra-Afghan talks to succeed.

Madam President, Ive mentioned the vital role that women have to play in the peace process and I join my colleagues in once again underscoring that. I wanted to commend you now on the opening of the Nationwide Global Open Days on women, peace and security with the symposium in Kabul in October.

My second point concerns the Afghan presidential elections. Madam President, we join others in calling on all stakeholders to respect and uphold the integrity of the electoral management bodies as they work to complete the process and deliver the results in a timely manner.

We welcome UNAMAs continued engagement around the elections with national and international partners. And we likewise support UNAMAs call for transparency, impartiality and independence as the results of process. It was good to see that the Independent Electoral Commission will be able to move forward with recounts in the remaining provinces. We hope this process can move forward expeditiously and transparently and we look forward to preliminary results.

My last point, Madam President, is on Afghanistans economic development needs, regardless of what happens in the months ahead. Afghanistan will continue to have considerable economic development and humanitarian needs, as the Indonesian representative so clearly set out. Financial commitments made at the Brussels Summit in 2016 will run out next year. The UK supports the holding of a pledging conference in 2020 to address the financing gap and identify development priorities for the remainder of the transformation decade. And we therefore welcome, Madam President, the work that UNAMA is doing with the Afghan government in preparation for the 2020 Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan and the initiation of discussions with potential hosts for that event.

Thank you.

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Welcoming the progress made by UNAMA in Afghanistan - GOV.UK

There are lies, damn lies, and even more damn lies about Afghanistan – Task & Purpose

Since the Washington Post first published the "Afghanistan papers," I have been reminded of a scene from "Apocalypse Now Redux" in which Army Col. Walter Kurtz reads to the soldier assigned to kill him two Time magazine articles showing how the American people had been lied to about Vietnam by both the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations.

In one of the articles, a British counterinsurgency expert tells Nixon that "things felt much better and smelled much better" during his visit to Vietnam.

"How do they smell to you, soldier?" Kurtz asks.

The Washington Post's reporting reveals that top government officials have known for years that the Afghanistan war has been unwinnable, yet they have continued to support it in public, going so far as to twist statistics to make things appear to be better than they really were.

The stories confirm that the U.S. military's strategy has been to "muddle along" and continue to send troops to fight a conflict that cannot be won on the battlefield.

Yet rather than owning up to the truth, several prominent supporters of the Afghan war, who have invested their reputations in its outcome, have instead attacked the Washington Post.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, of the left-leaning Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, accused the Post of doing a "disservice" by reporting that U.S. officials have been less than forthright about the prospects of success in Afghanistan.

"It is wrong badly wrong to claim to have proven that the Bush, Obama, and/or Trump administrations, as well as top military and diplomatic leaders charged with the Afghanistan mission, systematically and intentionally misled the country about what was going on," O'Hanlon wrote in a Dec. 10 post for the Brookings Institution's blog.

Oh really? Let's play a fun game and count the number of times defense officials have claimed that Afghanistan has turned the corner.

This is what then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during his December 2011 visit to Afghanistan: "I think 2011 will go down as a turning point here in Afghanistan. We've weakened the Taliban. We've been able to secure more areas here in Afghanistan. The Afghan army is asserting itself, becoming more operational. We're transitioning areas. Over 50 percent of the population has now been transitioned to areas of Afghan governance and security."

In May 2014, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Afghanistan's elections a "turning point in the confidence" of Afghan security forces.

And Army Gen. John Nicholson, who led all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, said this during a November 2017 Pentagon news briefing: "Now, looking ahead to 2018, as President Ghani said, he believes we have turned the corner and I agree. The momentum is now with the Afghan Security Forces and the Taliban cannot win in the face of the pressures that I outlined. Again, their choices are to reconcile, live in irrelevance, or die."

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pointed out during the June 2018 confirmation hearing for the current U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, "We've supposedly turned the corner so many times that it seems now we're going in circles."

But others insist that the Afghanistan war is still worth fighting, citing the good the United States has accomplished there, such as advances in education.

Ryan Crocker, who served as charg d'affaires to Afghanistan in 2002 and later as the U.S. ambassador from 2011 to 2012, wrote in the Washington Post that only 900,000 children were in school all of whom were boys when the U.S. military initially toppled the Taliban government.

"When I left Afghanistan as ambassador in 2012, 8 million Afghan kids were in school, a third of them girls," Crocker wrote. "Does that sound like a disaster?"

However, it is still extremely difficult to be a woman in Afghanistan, especially outside of Kabul and Jalalabad, said John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

"Go out into the hinterlands," Sopko told reporters in April. "Women are still treated very poorly, and we have to remember that."

Still, it is impossible to argue that life would improve for Afghans if the United States withdrew all of its troops from the country.

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who also led troops in Afghanistan, noted that Afghan security forces continue to fight the Taliban even though more than 28,500 of their troops and police have been killed since 2015.

"Why is that army still fighting having suffered that many casualties if the whole thing is just a waste and it can't be successful?" Mattis told David Ignatius of the Washington Post. "You couldn't fight many armies that could take those casualties and stay in the brawl."

Mattis also said he was perplexed at the notion that the U.S. government tried to hide how bad the situation in Afghanistan really was.

"I have walked the ground with your reporters beside me, who were embedded in the units, who were watching this close up," Mattis said. "The reporting, I thought, was pretty accurate."

True, but those embeds ended several years ago and Army Gen. Austin Miller, who has led all U.S. troops in Afghanistan for more than a year, has not held a single Pentagon press briefing.

The U.S. military has also stopped making public how much territory the Afghan government actually controls and other metrics for success have become classified, Sopko said in April.

"Embarrassing things tend to get classified in this town," Sopko said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. "Governments don't usually classify good news. If they do by mistake, it's leaked."

All of this is a long way of answering the question posed by Col. Kurtz. How does the party line about Afghanistan smell? Like bullshit.

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Jeff Schogol covers the Pentagon for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 14 years and embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and Haiti. Prior to joining T&P, he covered the Marine Corps and Air Force at Military Times. Comments or thoughts to share? Send them to Jeff Schogol via email at schogol@taskandpurpose.com or direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter.

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There are lies, damn lies, and even more damn lies about Afghanistan - Task & Purpose

Using social media marketing to extend music beyond the concert hall – CMO

The Queensland Symphony Orchestra is investing in social media and digital marketing to make music more accessible to all Australians.

Through digital marketing, Alpha Digital and Queensland Symphony Orchestra hope to overcome the financial, social, physical and geographic hurdles that can limit peoples access to both music and community.

The work commenced earlier this year when Alpha Digital helped Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) promote its first broadcast of an entire concert live to Facebook.The livestream was played across the state, including in Wesley Mission communities. The pair are now driving Christmas appeal donations through Facebook advertising to give children in regional Queensland the opportunity to learn directly from the Orchestras musicians.

Dynamic creative has also been used across campaigns. Using Facebooks artificial intelligence (AI), QSO can dynamically deliver high-performing and highly relevant combinations of its creative assets to each individual Facebook use,director of sales and marketing at Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Matthew Hodge, said.

In the case of QSO's livestream, the team created a dedicated event page and event-responses advertising campaign to create a direct communication channel with audiences in the lead-up to the concert and drive additional ticket sales.

Facebooks advanced AI and targeting capabilities are also being used to connect audiences and build communities. For example, Alpha Digital is using Facebooks look-a-like audiences to find new listeners with a similar digital footprint to the Orchestras existing audience. This has been layered with orchestral and show-specific interest targeting.

2019 marked our first year of broadcasting an entire concert live to Facebook. It reached over 50,000 people and we know that a good part of that reach was due to the excitement generated in the lead-up to the stream, Hodge said. It was our previous conductors initiative that we should live streaming concerts, so the reason for Facebook was to a chance for people to see what we're about. It has a reach to help showcase us to the world.

This wider QSO mission is to become the orchestra for everyone. Getting there means breaking down perceptions about orchestral music and changing up the way the brand markets its offering.

We're trying to position the orchestra, and adopted a tagline a couple years ago with this in mind, as the orchestra for everyone, Hodge told CMO. I've been in the classical music industry for 30 years. We want to change the perception that orchestral and classical music is just for certain types of people or if you have a certain amount of money.

So the orchestra for everyone something we believe in. It drives everything from physical programs to marketing, to demystifying the experience. That's now become the official mission of the company."

All this makes it vital QSO allow people to experience the music before they come to an actual concert.

"It's important to let people know what we do and let them hear us performing. And so something like a live stream gives us a chance to showcase to social media followers what we do," Hodge continued.

Its important to recognise we are not the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra, we are the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, so we need to be available widely across the entire state. Being able to stream this performance not just on Facebook, but to places like the Wesley Mission, gets us into various homes, nursing homes and residences, because music is good for peoples well-being."

For Hodge, live streaming saw QSO a bunch of people who for various health or physical reasons would not be able to make it into the concert hall.

"Plus, also by shooting it, we put a lot into the camera work to create a really great production that will be put on YouTube, which actually allows us to position ourselves internationally as a great orchestra. So it achieves a lot of ends for us, he said.

As with all of QSO's digital marketing plan, there's an emphasis on segmentation, A/B testing and working closely with Alpha to ensure every digital activity is optimised.

We have data coming in from our performances and we combine it with whos looking at advertising. If youve got to spend money on these advertisements, you want to know that they go to the right place and reaching the right audience, and the audience is similar to the audience you want," Hodge said.

And the dynamic advertising has been interesting. We use different imagery and copy and test the waters. We do this because... the only form of advertising you would ever see for classical music would usually be a headshot of your visiting conductor or visiting artist. Sometimes they have great dynamic photos and are very engaging. But other times, it might just be a photo of a person staring into space and it doesn't always grab you.

Music speaks to people in these deep emotional ways. So a very simple idea was to adjust our digital marketing to reflect this and experiment."

For instance, QSO has tried using a landscape or eye-catching image to better reflect what the music is about.

We recently played a music concert where the theme was water, and so the all the music is about water, called Sounds in the Deep. Instead of a picture of the conductor, we had a picture of rolling water," Hodge explained.

We actually get to experiment with a whole bunch of images and copy, because what attracts people in is different for different people. It allows me to market a show from a number of different angles, which I find really useful.

Sometimes there have been shows where the abstract imagery has worked really well. And then there's been other shows where it might be an off the cuff photo of the musician."

What all this has proved is that you don't just have one stock standard photo of the conductor to get people's attention.

"It's helped us to be creative, like we all feel we can make each concert look different," Hodge said. "Only having one type of imagery for every call might lead you to believe that every concert is the same. But actually every show is a completely different musical experience.

Moving into 2020, the QSO hopes to continue with what Hodge called his working model of why people like music. His three Ps are: Purpose, personal connection and pattern matching.

Purpose means it fills a certain purpose you want that music for, for instance when you are jogging or when you want to relax," he said. So we can position things in different ways. For instance, if you want to go hear a live music experience because it's evocative and exciting.

"However, if I put a picture of a very serious looking musician on my marketing, the message is that the only purpose is to hear the music played excellently by a great musician. It might not suggest it's fun and evocative, or whatever it is that you're looking for. So by choosing different types of imagery and copy, I can position the purpose of the show to reach a broader range of purposes."

Hodge's second P is personal connection." If you are between the age of 35 and 65, you have probably grown up being pegged by your musical choice and there are certain types of music that are for people like you," he said.

Personal connection is about how I send the message that this music is for people like you. I get to build a sense of personal connection between the musicians and you. We're just now starting to ramp up digital content to do more of this personal connection targeting.

The third p is pattern matching, which is the idea that your brain tends to like music which sounds similar to music you already like or music your brain can follow. It tends to not like it as much if its unfamiliar, which can be difficult with classical music because it's so long form and most people are used to listening to songs which are four minutes long.

So knowing a little bit more about the music and the different types of patterns, like what's the difference between a symphony and a concerto, simple stuff like that... and demystifying actually helps your brain process the music so you find it a little easier to enjoy.

I think there's great room for expansion in this, so more people are listening and exploring in their own time.

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Using social media marketing to extend music beyond the concert hall - CMO

Falcon.io Releases 2020 Digital Marketing Trends Handbook, Exploring Trends That Will Shape the Future of Digital and Social Media – PRNewswire

CHICAGO, Dec. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Falcon.io, a Cision company, has released the latest edition of its annual Digital Marketing Trends Handbook. This is the fourth edition of the handbook, which lists the 15 trends most likely to affect marketers in 2020.The trends are based on industry research, Falcon.io's expertise, as well as input from customers, partners and influencers.

While the trends vary, they all represent both the challenges and opportunities for digital marketers in 2020 and beyond. Some of the topics explored include:

"The sheer volume of digital and social media formats now available can be overwhelming, and digital marketers are working in an industry that's changing every day," explained Rachel Kador, Content Marketing Specialist at Falcon.io. "Added to which, marketers have to also contend with how quickly customer behavior is changing."

"To succeed in today's landscape, it's crucial that marketers stay knowledgeable about not only current trends, but what to prepare for in the future."

Falcon.io will host a webinar addressing the social media trends covered in the 2020 Digital Marketing Trends Handbook on January 23rd. The webinar will be co-hosted by social media consultant and influencer Matt Navarra. Registration for the webinar can be found here.

In addition, the handbook will form the basis of a Roadshow to take place in selected cities around the world, beginning in January 2020. Each session will cover the key trends with ample room for discussion and knowledge-sharing.

"The Roadshow will provide us with the opportunity to connect even more closely with our peers, and discuss how marketers all over the world are approaching similar challenges," said Kador.

Roadshow locations and agenda to be announced soon on http://www.Falcon.io.

To download and read the full 2020 Digital Marketing Trends Handbook, click here.

About Falcon.io Falcon.iooffers an integrated SaaS platform for social media listening, engaging, publishing, advertising, analytics and benchmarking. The company enables its clients to explore the full potential of digital marketing by managing multiple customer touchpoints from one platform. Its client portfolio includes Carlsberg, Toyota, William Grant & Sons, momondo, Panasonic and Coca-Cola.

About Cision Cision Ltd (NYSE: CISN) is a leading global provider of earned media software and services to public relations and marketing communications professionals. Cision's software allows users to identify key influencers, craft and distribute strategic content, and measure meaningful impact. Cision has over 4,800 employees with offices in 22 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. For more information about its award-winning products and services, including the Cision Communications Cloud, visitwww.cision.comand follow Cision on Twitter @Cision.

Media Contact: Rebecca Dersh PR Manager, Cision cisionpr@cision.com

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Falcon.io Releases 2020 Digital Marketing Trends Handbook, Exploring Trends That Will Shape the Future of Digital and Social Media - PRNewswire