Ashley Jackson

This could be just me -- but the Taliban appears to have shifted its messaging (and the way they are transmitting those messages) in recent weeks/months. I'd be curious to hear what @ThJohnsonNPS or others have to say about it...

The @washingtonpost photos are striking not just because @LorenzoTug is a phenomenal photog – but because they are showing their faces, staring straight at the lens. This is new. They are more comfortable, open, and confident in showing themselves off to foreign journalists

And they have a clearer message. This video kills me. A fighter casually remarks that their detention practices aligned with the Geneva Conventions. And that, of course, they support their leadership in peace talks. https://twitter.com/baryalkunduzai1/status/1208333353495216128?s=21 …

That isn’t quite the story I’ve heard on the ground, but it’s the story they need their fighters to tell now. It is, of course, strategic. However much the roughness of their image allows people to underestimate them, they are incredibly good at strat comms.

I'm just finishing @mirkel and Matt Farwell's American Cipher. Even I’m stunned at how Taliban propaganda set the western media narrative on Berdahl’s captivity – even though evidence of his collaboration, etc. was completely and obviously manufactured