ISAF / USAID and Messaging

Some wars are won in the public arena not on the battlefield. The Vietnam conflict in the 60s and early 70s is ample proof of that. Unfortunately - when looking at Afghanistan, the U.S. military and evidently, USAID, is not that adapt at messaging. They both have been getting hammered by all sorts of sources to include Karzai, the Taliban, the press, Congress, SIGAR, and others. A key tenet of public relations and information operations (or inform and influence activities) is to base your message on the facts - and there is the rub. Read more in "No news is good news from Afghanistan", USA Today, February 13, 2014.