A War of Perception and Misinformation: The Siege of the Fictional City of Marja

[FourScore]

A War of Perception and Misinformation
The Siege of the Fictional City of Marja
By GARETH PORTER

For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.

"It's not urban at all," an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted on Sunday. He called Marja a "rural community".

"It's a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds," said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards.

Richard B. Scott, who worked in Marja as an adviser on irrigation for the U.S. Agency for International Development as recently as 2005, agrees that Marja has nothing that could be mistaken as being urban. It is an "agricultural district" with a "scattered series of farmers' markets," Scott said in a telephone interview.

The ISAF official said the only population numbering tens of thousands associated with Marja is spread across many villages and almost 200 square kilometres, or about 125 square miles...

http://counterpunch.org/

[NJmaverick]

1. Officials never claimed Marja was a city

this is just some false propaganda

[FourScore]

2. From the article:

The rest of the news media fell into line with that image of the bustling, urbanised Marja in subsequent stories, often using "town" and "city" interchangeably. Time magazine wrote about the "town of 80,000" Feb. 9, and the Washington Post did the same Feb. 11.

As "Operation Moshtarak" began, U.S. military spokesmen were portraying Marja as an urbanised population centre. On Feb. 14, on the second day of the offensive, Marine spokesman Lt. Josh Diddams said the Marines were "in the majority of the city at this point."

He also used language that conjured images of urban fighting, referring to the insurgents holding some "neighbourhoods".

[maxsolomon]

3. when i looked at it on Google Maps

i kept thinking i was missing a town - but its just an irrigated farming region. fairly dense by american rural standards, but there isn't a "main street".

the actual town, Laskar Gah, is northeast.

[hfojvt]

4. Marja, marja, marja

it's a collection of villages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

I had to think there

[arcadian]

5. and DU's chief propagandist decides to post in this thread.

go figure. :eyes: spin, spin, spin

[DCKit]

6. Wag The Dog

The second I saw pictures of the "city", I knew the whole thing was staged. Unless, of course, you subscribe to the thought that all Al Qaeda and Taliban live in foxholes. In which case, there's probably millions of enemy combatants there.

[Echo In Light]

7. k/r

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. But, it's another glorious victory.... against a bunch of farmers... in a lost war.

I should say "another" lost war.

[Fumesucker]

9. A Potemkin City, what a surprise!!1!1!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

[EFerrari]

10. So, we ran a bunch of farmers off their land. USA!

[DFab420]

11. Oh Nos!!!1!

The army lied!! This whole war is a sham! There isn't even a country called Afghanistan!! :sarcasm:

Seriously ..this is kind of a non-story IMHO. So they called it a city, instead of a "rural province made up of small developments and towns of mostly resettled Pashtun nomads" OMG!!

There are alot of things wrong with our two wars. Mis-labeling a province a city in order to make it sound better is definitely on the low end of the war propaganda machine...