Is BBC doing war propaganda?

EVEN President Karzai has doubted the findings of a self-contradictory polling by BBC/ABC/ARD televisions on Afghans’ perceptions of governance, development, security and popularity of the warring parties. Although the debatable opinion survey gives the embattled president top marks in leadership and performance yet in an interview with ABC Mr. Karzai said: “I don’t know…we’ve been in power for eight years and that’s a long time. People get tired of seeing the same faces and the same performance…so I hope the 70 percent is true.”

The polling says 67% of the 1,534 respondents said billions of foreign aid dollars have not eased their sufferings but 66% said their living conditions have improved over the past eight years. Over 76% said corruption is a major problem, but 70% approved the performance of their corrupt government. It says optimism on the future direction of the country hiked from 40% in 2009 to 70% in 2010 but it does not mention what on earth prompted 30% to change opinion after some of the bloodiest and most controversial months since the ouster of the Taliban?

Let’s contextualize the polling’s extraordinary assertions beyond basic mathematics.

Over the past one year Washington’s fierce criticisms of corruption and inefficiency in Kabul’s regime yielded no good but raised serious questions in the West whether it was necessary to prop up the regime with blood and treasure.

Amid the electoral crisis in September-November two realities vexed policy-makers in Washington and London: First, Karzai was intractably alienated and there was almost no leverage on him, and second, the anti-Karzai rhetoric was fueling the Taliban’s propaganda. In fact, in September both Washington and the Quetta Shura were united in lashing out at Karzai as ‘corrupt, inept and illegitimate’.

President Obama spent months before presenting a rationale for the deployment of additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan to safeguard the Kabul government. He boasted about the end of “blank cheque” era and promised to return soldiers home in 18 months.

As U.S. and its European allies seek to formalize devolving responsibilities to Afghans through the London Conference on 28 January – in order to facilitate a graceful exit – the conditions in Afghanistan must be depicted ripe for this major policy shift. U.S. and European citizens must be convinced that almost nine years after the Taliban and with billions of dollars and thousands of lives spent Afghans are happy and ready to say goodbye to foreign troops.

To depict a favourite picture and breathe live into a failing Kabul government nothing could do better than a least expected polling from BBC/ABC/ARD channels at a critical juncture. After all, what part of the BBC’s charter allow the broadcaster to do sensitive polling in other countries?

The self-deceptive survey would be used as a tool by participants of the London conference to justify policies which aim to drag the ill-prepared Kabul government into the midst of the exit project.