“Manufacturing Consent” as coined by Edward C. Herman and Noam Chomsky, implies manipulating and shaping public opinion. It establishes conformity and acceptance to political and social hierarchy. It seeks compliance to an established order. “Manufacturing Consent” describes the submission of public opinion to the mainstream media narrative, to its lies and fabrications. “Manufacturing Consent” therefore, constitutes a modus operandi with the Karzai government’s politically expedient decision to designate September 9th as Massoud Day, in commemoration of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Afghanistan’s Quisling

The truth be known, Ahmad Massoud was a traitor and wholesale collaborator who served as a proxy militia for the Soviet 40th Army for the entire duration of the Soviet/Afghan War, spanning the decade beginning 1979 and ending in 1989.The compilation of historical evidence that chronicles Massoud’s duplicity is indisputable and of massive proportion. Among this body of empirical information lies a direct quote attributed to Massoud that is historically significant, notable, and remarkable for what it reveals about the parochial, politically ambitious mindset of Afghanistan’s notorious Quisling. While engaged in conversation with Atta Muhammad Noor, one of his top commanders, Massoud reiterated that he believed the Fortieth Army would leave within a year and opined that; “I hope the Russians stay another four years”, he said, in context of the fact that the Soviet’s scorched earth policies were eliminating his political adversaries in the predominantly-Pashtun south. (See: “The Great Gamble”, Gregory Feifer, Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2009, p.250) It can be logically argued therefore, that Massoud’s wartime role in protecting Soviet supply lines along Salang, and acting as a force-multiplier by attacking and preventing other Mujahideen groups from engaging the enemy, lengthened the duration of the war and hence the suffering of the people.

Massoud-O-Mania

The observance of “Massoud Day” represents a victory of symbolism over substance, of propaganda versus truth, and a distortion of history perhaps unequaled in Afghanistan. However, to counter mounting skepticism and academic inquiry, and to blunt the plethora of evidence of this duplicity, cohorts and acolytes of Massoud have resorted to admitting that Ahmad Shah had contracted with elements of the Fortieth Army, but paint this self-serving accommodation or collaboration with the enemy as a stroke of strategic genius.

Discrimination against Pashtuns

Serving as conspirators in this historical façade is the Inquisitional Obama Administration, in tandem with the major media organizations, who as with the Bush foreign policy wonks, supported not only the “Lion of the Panjshir” mythology, but the strategic aims of Massoud as a counter to Pashtun rule as well, and to render Pashtun as synonymous with Taliban and al-Qaeda to justify their neo-colonial war camouflaged as the “War on Terrorism”.

Anti-Terrorism or Colonialism

”Peripherally,” terrorism” has morphed into the most abused word in the English language, has spawned explosive growth in government, led to two wars in the past ten-years, and has resulted in the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of people who had neither attacked the United States nor its interests

In my view this disinformation and ethnic cleansing campaign citing the Pashtun majority as ungovernable, amounts to nothing less than unlawful, intellectual and discriminatory-genocide against the Afghan people. We have spent decades constructing that body of treaties, statutes and conventions known as international law only to ignore it when it is most needed. How often has any state or rather, how many powerful Western states have been brought to account for breaking international law? And how many exempt themselves from the laws while insisting that others abide by them? The world record for upholding its own laws is poor.

Media as Government’s Ministry of Information

The incongruities of war, as history demonstrates, provide a fertile ground for the commission of blatant propaganda. This assault on the intellectual freedom, however, is not exclusive or unique to Afghanistan. American and European history as well, is replete with the posing of war criminals as distinguished and celebrated statesman. Examples extraordinaire: Winston Churchill, Cecil Rhodes, Theodore Roosevelt, General George Custer, infamous butcher of 19th century Native Americans, and George W. Bush. Complicit and co-conspiratorial are the media who serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.

Truth will Prevail

In the final analysis, the “Manufacture of Consent” strategy is destined to fail, notwithstanding the fact that the major media and ranking politicians are currently monopolizing debate and contorting truth. This larceny of history will, in time, be uncovered as a pernicious plan to achieve hegemonic superiority.