My book below is published by Bloomsbury and available in hard copy or digital format from their website here.
About US Politics, Propaganda and the Afghan Mujahedeen: Domestic Politics and the Afghan War
Influential fundraising groups and senators in the US made enormous efforts in the First Afghan War to present the Mujahedeen as ‘freedom fighters’ – even while the CIA secretly armed them with surface to air missiles and other weapons.
A mass propaganda effort was launched, aimed at portraying parts of Afghanistan as victims of communist aggression. As we know now, many of those groups that were armed became the seedbeds for organisations like Al-Qaeda.
Dr Jacqueline Fitzgibbon, through a forensic investigation of the American PR of the period, argues that this militarised and fractured Afghan society for a generation – partly resulting in the mess today.
This book will look specifically at the American efforts to suppress any reports which showed these forces as anti-western or anti ‘American values’, and instead to portray the arming of partisan groups, often an extremely dangerous course of action, as an example of American values in action.
You can see a preview of the book on my publishers website here.
Review
“40 years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Jacqueline Fitzgibbon demonstrates how the US response did not resolve conflict but added to it — highlighting the folly today of the question, ‘Do we get to win this time?’”
Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham, UK
“Fitzgibbon’s work provides mature and penetrating analysis and deserves a place in the modern library of Afghanistan, alongside Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars and the work of Ahmed Rashid”
Angus Mitchell, Historian, Review in History Ireland, Issue 6, Vol. 20, Nov/Dec 2020
Table of contents
Introduction
1. US Foreign Policy and Afghanistan: History, Context and Carter
2. The Reagan Administration: Foreign Policy influences and the Importance of Propaganda
3. The Reagan Doctrine, Propaganda and the Afghan Conflict
4. Justifying Escalation in Afghanistan
5. The Afghan Media Project
6. ‘The Road to Geneva and Beyond’: The Superpower Summit, Public Diplomacy and the Afghan Conflict
7. The Beginning of the End: The Geneva Accords and National
Reconciliation
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Afghan Media Project
Chapter five of my book focuses on the Afghan Media Project (AMP) which was established as some in the United States did not believe the war was garnering enough news coverage. My research into this fascinating project benefitted greatly from my interviews with one of the directors of the AMP in Afghanistan, Stephen Olsson. Stephen and others involved have created an extensive archive of images, including video and audio, from the project which can be accessed here.
Jacqueline Fitzgibbon 