Offensive in Marja directed at US public opinion

Porter: The attack on Marja is meant to prepare Americans to accept negotiations with Taliban



Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, coming to you from Washington. Now joining us in our Washington studio is Gareth Porter. He's an investigative journalist, a historian, and often contributor to The Real News, and he just got back from Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for joining us, Gareth.

GARETH PORTER, INVESTIGATIVE HISTORIAN AND JOURNALIST: Thank you, Paul.

JAY: So the offensive, American-NATO offensive in Marja continues. But while you were there, there was all kinds of talks about negotiating with the Taliban. So what is happening? An offensive, and all this background about negotiations.

PORTER: Well, in my view, this offensive has to be viewed as more of an effort to shape public opinion in the United States than to shape the politics of the future of Afghanistan, the reason being that no matter how you slice it, this is too small a slice of Afghanistan, even too small a slice of that part of Afghanistan that is controlled by the Taliban, to really make a difference in the long run, to shape, to make a difference in terms of the kind of negotiations that are going to take place, inevitably, to settle this war.

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