Taliban say Harry killed civilians

[Falalalalalalaetc]

In totally totally unsurprising development.

Taliban says Harry killed civilians

“We checked and found that the days on which Prince Harry is mentioning the killing of 25 mujaheddin, we did not have any casualties in Helmand,” Taliban leader Anas Haqqani told Al Jazeera on Friday. “It is clear that civilians and ordinary people were targeted.”

Fair enough from those who questioned the Palace doing this at the time.
I hate the hypocrisy though - yayy patriotic Harry fighting and brilliant photos in all the tabloids, boo treasonous Harry for revealing what war is actually like.

The fact Harry had killed Taliban people had already been in tabloids and he was styled as a hero. This time though he talks about the reality of killing people in a war i.e. that you are trained not to see them as real people.

Except the taliban and the whole of the country KNEW Harry had killed taliban because the headlines shouted it when he returned a good few years ago. Harry the hero stuff!

None of this is new to the taliban,

What is new is how the media are talking about it!

Generally speaking with propaganda it's ideal not to gift a golden opportunity to your enemy.

Why is this so difficult for so many to understand?

Virtually no-one in the US or UK will believe the Taliban (although there may be some who do....) but for people in other countries it might not be so clear cut. There are other countries, you know...... do we really want to gift the Taliban this opportunity? Further deflecting from what they're doing to women and girls.

Why is this so difficult for so many to understand?

It's not. Some just don't want to say that Harry's made a massive mistake and his actions here were wrong

I'll be amazed if he killed anyone. In the photo of him sitting on his bunk with a Fruitshoot,the rifle on the wall behins him as a BFA on it. The little yellow bit at the end. This means it can only fire blanks. Used a lot in training but unusual to see in a combat zone.

If you can't trust the Taliban, who can you trust?

I don't believe a British publisher would have allowed those comments to go to press.

I didnt think those pictures should be released either. From memory our press were not allowed to report on Harry being in Afghanistan but media outlets in other countries blew it.

Also the situation is vastly different now. Harry had far more protection then compared to now, he was in the military who had protection measures around him and he had royal protection. Harry now lives in a country that has the right to bear arms with private security

Exactly. Whether anyone on this thread believes the Taliban is very much not the point.

Truth is definitely NOT the point here. When dealing with any terrorist organisation, you deal PERCEPTIONS.

The Taliban perceive Harry as dehumanising their own fighters and that can be enough reason for them to target him again. Doubtful they've given him much thought since his last tour there a decade ago.

Also, PERCEPTIONS again, the Taliban will be using Harry's words to recruit more Afghans by using him as an example of Western hate and dehumanising towards them. This kind of thing works very well.

Harry was an idiot for reopening a can of worms that definitely didn't need to be opened at all. He must own the consequences AND pay for his own security as a result of his foolishness.

Not the British Taxpayer.....

Firstly, the first casualty of War is truth
secondly, never believe a word coming from the mouths of your enemies

What a total shit show. All he wanted was a quiet life in Africa doing conservation work instead he's sold his soul.

And yes, he has handed the Taliban a propaganda bonanza on a plate.

Fearing and being paranoid about the media is nothing compared to this hornet's nest he's kicked up.

ALSO it's a VERY different political landscape now in Afghanistan to when people are saying the previous 'revelations' (which didn't include a kill count) were made . In 2013 this would not have had the same repercussions because the Taliban were not the FUCKING GOVERNMENT & in charge of the country

WHEN propaganda happens is important - do I have to say this? I truly despair.

In Chris Ryan's book 'Safe' he describes enemy soldiers as 'targets' to hit. Perhaps some level of dehumanisation of the enemy, at least temporarily, is inevitable but it makes me very uncomfortable - how decide if the war is right and the enemy really are evil if you have decided not to see them as people? That sort of attitude can't be switched on and of, and if people around you are all doing the same, it must make it even harder to be able to think if the commanders and the government are telling the truth about the war being right. I still think Harry was foolish to provoke the Taliban and open old wounds more generally, but I think his accusers are hypocritical and the passage is not as bad as it's been made out to be.

On other threads there are posters saying 'what about women and girls in Afghanistan?'. Yes, what about them? Do we think this sort of shit and gifting a propaganda opportunity to the Taliban who are in charge and making the lives of women and girls a misery will help or make the lives of women and girls worse? Hmmmm?

It will give them a degree of legitimacy in some people's minds (not MNetters, obviously, there are other people in other countries). They are saying 'look - everything we've said about the imperialist West is true - a representative of that establishment has confirmed it'. His book is hardly painting a picture of the West as not debauched either is it?

My son is an army officer and he says that very much what they are taught is not to dehumanise targets. Other people with military experience both in threads on here and in the media have said the same thing. Chris Ryan is Special Forces which is an entirely different thing. It would seem Harry and his “chess piece” mentality is out of step with the British Military. Obviously, I don’t know if this is different in the US.

The pagesin the book may be very different but when you write this type of thing, you need to give very close consideration to the headlines and pull outs it will generate.

That's what you employ a Comms team for....but this pair don't have a great record with not falling out (or bullying depending which version you believe) their media advisers. Did they not sack the PR team on this too?

Soldiers on the ground are taught to distance themselves emotionally from targets.
Dehumanise can mean different things so not that useful a word. Strictly speaking they are not taught to dehumanise them. But they are taught to kill and not think about the consequences of that death to family and friends of the person they killed.

Interesting that the Uk media don’t seem to be running the story about the Taliban saying he killed civilians.

Let's hope it stays that way and we learn the UK media does still have some decency to not repeat the propaganda (and obvious lies) of the Taliban. It's on al jazeera though.

Presumably so they don’t rule up potential jihadis

What is also new is that the Taliban are now back in power. That is why the security risk is much, much higher.

Omid Scobie has tweeted the entire two pages where that excerpt came from and whinging about people taking it out of context. To be honest, it was pretty much exactly in context. The only addition is a gushing paragraph on the emotional impact of 9/11, which furthers the theory that they mistakenly thought that section would just endear him to the American public.

The two pages in context is even worse in my opinion. The paragraph before the ‘number’ was very interesting, explaining how they knew they had killed militants and not civilians, and how he knew what his number was. He should have left it at that.

Instead he starts the next paragraph with “So ,my number: 25”. Just not needed. It’s almost like a stealth boast.

He could have written about the camaraderie of the army, how it gave him new understanding of the difficulties of life, seeing what women and girls are subjected to in Afghanistan, an appreciation of the mental health burden (as well as horrific physical injuries) carried by our armed forces.

The minute you put in a kill tally it inevitably makes that the focus. It's absolutely basic stuff that anyone with any understanding of the media should have been able to tell him. That they didn't suggests that listening is not their strong suit and that they are now surrounded only by those who agree rather than offering the professional advice so clearly needed. I feel it's their own doing but sad that it's ever reached this point.
Though I do wonder what the former royal press officers and subjects of the palace bullying allegations make to all this. I expect they are a few wry smiles this weekend.