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It’s been a rough couple of weeks in Afghanistan: Monday, Angiza Shinwari, a Nangarhar provincial council member and one of the brighter spots in non-Kabul politics, died of injuries suffered in a bomb attack last week. And yesterday more than 25 people died in attacks directed against police stations in Logar and in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Which prompted Nathan Hodge of the Wall Street Journal to point out that Afghanistan kind of needs the cricket World Cup to go their way.
Another sad reminder why Afghanistan needs a cricket win: http://t.co/lHjHIXnNiI
— Nathan Hodge (@nohodge) February 18, 2015
Cricket has a World Cup, apparently
For those of you in places where cricket isn’t a thing, today the Afghans are playing Bangladesh in the World Cup. It’s like the football (soccer, for us ‘mericans) version, but more like baseball. Because cricket is just like baseball. That is, if baseball were played with an aberrant combination of croquet equipment, hockey face masks, jockey helmets, and a ball you can safely catch with your hands. And every single game took more time to play than your average World Series. In some parts of Afghanistan, cricket is huge. And a win would be…fantastic. Which is probably why this happened.
Congratulations to #Afghanistan for their win over #Bangladesh in the Cricket World Cup #CWC15 #AFGvsBAN — U.S. Embassy Kabul (@USEmbassyKabul) February 18, 2015
It’s not a game I fully understand, and fortunately, I’m not alone in this. Our fine public diplomacy folks over at the US Embassy in Kabul also do not grasp the finer points of the game. “Finer points” in this case being that the game, as of this tweet, was not, in fact, over.
@ArifCRafiq Hey, @USEmbassyKabul just declaring premature victory in Afghanistan out of habit ok? — Muneeb Ansari (@ansarim) February 18, 2015
Afghan national team. (Harrias, via Wikimedia)
@USEmbassyKabul this tweet may prompt some conspiracy theories … — Nathan Hodge (@nohodge) February 18, 2015
Only thing missing from this @USEmbassyKabul tweet is an aircraft carrier. https://t.co/8pvO6fsbjO — Gary Owen (@ElSnarkistani) February 18, 2015
And they did, eventually, get around to correcting the error:
Premature posting but we are still cheering for team Afghanistan at the #CWC15! #AFGvsBAN — U.S. Embassy Kabul (@USEmbassyKabul) February 18, 2015
Which is actually a bit of a policy shift:
Once, @USEmbassyKabul and @larrysampler were bigger fans of Bangladesh. http://t.co/dOH8MBRXFq pic.twitter.com/DWGpokZm6Z — Gary Owen (@ElSnarkistani) February 18, 2015
We don’t get this place
I get the silliness of attributing entire policy processes to how a tweet is worded, but this works for me on a couple of levels, because there are so many things the Americans didn’t understand in dealing with Afghanistan. I’m not even talking about the multi-layered nature of local politics and how it’s about the tribes, sure, but if the tribes don’t want you there in the first place, then it’s not going to be about anything. No matter how badly you may want it to work. I’m not talking about an ambassador who after 12+ years of US direct engagement here has no language skills. I’m talking about not understanding things like cricket. The most basic way to reach people is through sport. Everyone gets that, even the Taliban.
In his no less wonderful book about Pakistan cricket, Wounded Tiger, Peter Oborne relates how the Afghan army, backed by the West, have sent in heavy machinery to clear ground for the Taliban to play there. A modus vivendi is being built, by cricket.
So why get upset? It’s just someone in the Public Diplomacy office. The people who should be, in theory, the most connected with ways to reach out to a population that might care about things like Twitter. We’re so desperate to find a win, any win, that we’ll send out tone deaf tweets. We’ll declare victory while the fight is still on. Why? Because it’s the American way. After all, we’ve had some practice. 
Update
The Afghans did, in fact, lose to Bangladesh. So far the Embassy Twitter feed has been silent on the subject.