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U.S. struggles to counter Taliban propaganda
By Ernesto Londono Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 1, 2010; 10:39 PM
KABUL - The Taliban in recent months has developed increasingly sophisticated and nimble propaganda tactics that have alarmed U.S. officials struggling to curb the militant group's growing influence across Afghanistan.
Alleged Bin Laden Tape Hits Internet
VOA News October 1, 2010
A U.S.-based terrorism monitoring group says a new audiotape allegedly featuring the voice of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has surfaced on the Internet and addresses the recent flooding in Pakistan.
Militants in Pakistan attack supply trucks bound for Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Attacks in Pakistan on trucks carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan damaged about two dozen trucks and killed two people Friday, authorities said.
Ignoring Afghan rot
Obama punts on corruption
New York Post By ANN MARLOWE September 30, 2010
News broke this week that federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District are investigating Afghan President Hamid Karzai's older brother Mahmoud on charges that may ultimately include tax evasion, racketeering or extortion. But the recent history of US anti-corruption efforts for Afghanistan raises fears that this probe, too, will be quashed.
Four Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 1, 2010
Georgia's Defense Ministry says four Georgian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, in the biggest loss for the country's military since it deployed in the war-torn country.
NATO boasts rosy result for September's operations against insurgents in Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- A press release issued Friday by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lauded Afghan and coalition forces as having witnessed "another successful month in Afghanistan."
High-profile Gov. Officials' Salaries must be Recorded: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 30 September 2010
Afghan president Hamid Karzai has ordered the Ministry of Finance to register the salaries of high-ranking government officials and their relatives
NATO airstrike kills 15 insurgents in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- An airstrike launched by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed 15 insurgents in the Tsowkey district of Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province Friday.
Why is Obama sending troops to Afghanistan?
Washington Post By Charles Krauthammer Friday, October 1, 2010
From the beginning, the call to arms was highly uncertain. On Dec. 1, 2009, commander in chief Barack Obama orders 30,000 more Americans into battle in Afghanistan. But in the very next sentence, he announces that an American withdrawal will begin after 18 months.
Afghanistan: A war without end, or rationale
The Washington Post - Opinion By Eugene Robinson Friday, October 1, 2010
Could somebody please remind me just what it is that we're achieving in Afghanistan? Don't all speak at once. No, I mean what good things we're accomplishing. Anybody? Hello?
Australian, Afghanistan forces open new base in Mirabad Valley
CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian and Afghanistan forces on Friday opened a new patrol base in the dangerous Mirabad Valley of Afghanistan.
Afghan Village Fights To Keep Taliban At Bay
September 30, 2010 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Muhammad Tahir
TARBUZ GUZAR, Afghanistan -- The village of Tarbuz Guzar nestles in a forest along the banks of the Konduz River.
Fraud Alleged In Afghan Parliamentary Election
NPR By Quil Lawrence October 1, 2010
Election results are still trickling in after Afghanistan's parliamentary vote two weeks ago, but the jury is still out on how clean the election was.
Q&A: Grim reality of honour killing brought to the screen
OTTAWA, Canada, September 30 (UNHCR) – Former refugee Nelofer Pazira's latest feature, "Act of Dishonour," presents the grim reality of honour killing in Afghanistan, where she grew up before fleeing with her family in 1989. The award-winning Afghan-Canadian director's film, which was shot in an abandoned village in Tajikistan
Video game drops Taliban label amid protests
By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer – Fri Oct 1, 6:02 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The makers of a new video game based in Afghanistan said Friday they have removed the option for players to call themselves members of the Taliban when pretending to shoot at U.S. troops.
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U.S. struggles to counter Taliban propaganda
By Ernesto Londono Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 1, 2010; 10:39 PM
KABUL - The Taliban in recent months has developed increasingly sophisticated and nimble propaganda tactics that have alarmed U.S. officials struggling to curb the militant group's growing influence across Afghanistan.
U.S. officials and Afghan analysts say the Taliban has become adept at portraying the West as being on the brink of defeat, at exploiting rifts between Washington and Kabul and at disparaging the administration of President Hamid Karzai as a "puppet" state with little reach outside the capital. The group is also attempting to assure Afghans that it has a strategy for governing the country again, presenting a platform of stamping out corruption and even protecting women's rights.
As the radical Islamist movement steps up conventional grass-roots propaganda efforts and polishes its online presence - going so as far as to provide Facebook and Twitter icons online that allow readers to disseminate press releases - the U.S.-led coalition finds itself on the defensive in the media war.
"It's been getting better," a U.S. intelligence official in Kabul said of the Taliban's media strategy. "It's become increasingly complex. It's definitively something we worry about."
NATO has stepped up efforts to counter the Taliban's multimillion-dollar, Pakistan-based propaganda effort by translating some of its press releases into Dari and Pashto and by condemning the group for its frequent attacks that kill and maim Afghan civilians.
In his guidance to troops issued on Aug. 1, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander here, urged his troops to "fight the information war aggressively."
Last month, Taliban leader Mohammad Omar issued a statement that heralded the imminent defeat of NATO forces in Afghanistan and outlined how the Taliban would govern when it returned to power. The bluster was not unusual; the insistence that the Taliban has a specific plan for leading the country again was.
"These days their propaganda has changed," said Afghan political analyst Jelani Zwak, who has studied Taliban propaganda for years. "They are not only talking about the occupation and civilian casualties. They are acting like an alternative to this government."
In a clear reference to Karzai's administration, which many Afghans view as corruption-ridden, Omar vowed that the Taliban would "bring about administrative transparency in all government departments."
Omar also promised the new regime would respect the rights of "all people in the country, including women," an apparent effort to dispel the widely held belief that the return of the Taliban would be dismal for women's rights.
The U.S. intelligence official, who agreed to be quoted on the condition of anonymity, said he believes the reference to women's rights was an attempt to mitigate the bad publicity from a recent Time magazine cover story containing a haunting photo and an article featuring a woman whose face was reportedly mauled by Taliban members.
"That really stuck it to them," he said. "Now they're softening their tone regarding women."
The Taliban applauded the withdrawal of Dutch troops this summer and suggested that Germany, Canada and Australia - three important coalition allies in countries where the war is unpopular - follow suit.
"It [is] rational that the U.S. forces be left in Afghanistan alone to stew in their own juice and suffer the dire and dangerous consequences of their violation and invasion of another country," the group's statement said.
In press releases and articles appearing on its Web site, the Taliban has sought to reinforce the notion that the Afghan government is subservient to Washington, commonly calling Afghan troops and other government employees "puppets."
"Broadly speaking, Karzai, under the foreign domination, is heading a puppet multidimensional administration whose members are morally, politically and financially corrupt," said a Taliban statement released in response to a Washington Post report in August that several Karzai aides were on the CIA payroll.
The Taliban continues to rely heavily on decentralized, conventional propaganda efforts, which U.S. military officials say is the crucial battleground. These include the distribution of leaflets with threats or pleas, sermons in mosques and clandestine radio stations.
"They've co-opted the religious narrative for the last several years," Rear Adm. Greg Smith, NATO's communications chief in Afghanistan, said in an interview. "They've used that narrative locally very effectively."
Foreign troops, meanwhile, are ill-equipped to offer counterarguments in mosques and other gatherings, forcing them to rely on Afghan officials to do so, Smith said.
So far, that effort has been slow in the Taliban's southern strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, even as Taliban influence has spread in the east and the north, Afghans say.
U.S. officials say the Taliban has built relationships with Afghan journalists that help the group shape the storyline. The Taliban's propaganda operation is headquartered in Pakistan, where the Taliban has sanctuaries in ungoverned areas near the Afghan border, Smith said.
"They are not fighting a war that involves military victories," Smith said. "Everything they do is to create a perception that the government can't win."
Zwak, the analyst, said he has been struck by a change in the "psychology of Afghan people" as he traveled around the country in recent months.
"People in provinces and tribal areas mostly accept this narrative, that [the Americans] are leaving Afghanistan and the Taliban is coming back," he said.
He said recent public sparring between Karzai and U.S officials and President Obama's announcement that the United States will begin drawing down forces in July 2011 has bolstered the Taliban's standing in contested parts of the country.
"The propaganda war is already won by the Taliban," he said, because "the Afghan government and America are too busy doing propaganda against each other."
Smith, the NATO communications chief, said commanders recognize the importance of projecting a unified front.
The latest row between Karzai and U.S. officials was over the detention of two al-Jazeera cameramen for allegedly distributing Taliban propaganda.
"Coalition and Afghan forces have a responsibility to interdict the activities of these insurgent propaganda networks," a NATO statement justifying the arrests said.
Over the weekend, Karzai criticized the move and demanded the release of the journalists, whose employer is one of the most popular news sources in the Islamic world. The network has denied they were distributing Taliban propaganda.
The men were released Friday, although a NATO spokesman insisted Sunday that U.S. intelligence "indicated a level of complicity" in the journalists' dealing with insurgents.
The Taliban was quick to weigh in.
"The occupying American troops . . . on the one hand claim and call for the freedom and respect of journalism," the group said in a statement. "Then on the other hand they shut the mouths of free independent news agencies."
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Alleged Bin Laden Tape Hits Internet
VOA News October 1, 2010
A U.S.-based terrorism monitoring group says a new audiotape allegedly featuring the voice of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has surfaced on the Internet and addresses the recent flooding in Pakistan.
The 11-minute tape, posted on militant websites Friday, focuses on relief efforts and what can be done to prevent future natural disasters.
The SITE Intelligence Group says the message is heard in a video featuring a photograph of bin Laden superimposed over images of aid distribution.
In the recording, bin Laden reportedly calls for the creation of a relief group to study Muslim regions located near rivers and low-lying areas. He also calls for a greater investment in agriculture.
There has been no independent verification of the tape's authenticity.
More than 1,700 people have died in the flooding in Pakistan, with hundreds of thousands of others displaced.
The last bin Laden address to be released was a threat to kill any American captured by al-Qaida if the United States executes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. That tape surfaced in March.
Osama bin Laden's whereabouts have remained a mystery since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Militants in Pakistan attack supply trucks bound for Afghanistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Attacks in Pakistan on trucks carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan damaged about two dozen trucks and killed two people Friday, authorities said.
Militants torched dozens of supply trucks in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh Friday morning, police said. No one was hurt, but 25 of 27 trucks were damaged, officials said.
On Friday night, attackers with automatic weapons struck a NATO supply truck, killing two people and damaging contents, Pakistani police said.
Saeed Ahmed, a senior police official in the Khuzdar district of Baluchistan, said the truck was apparently separated from a convoy heading to Afghanistan.
The Friday morning attack took place in the Shikarpur district when four militants used fire crackers and petrol bombs to damage the trucks, said Muhammad Hanif, a senior police official in the district.
The trucks carry crude, diesel and petrol for NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, NATO convoys were still barred Friday from going into Afghanistan through the Torkham Gate checkpoint.
The supply route to Afghanistan has been closed by the Pakistani government after fighting that led to the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers, and a military spokesman said Thursday that United States is hopeful the situation is only temporary.
Pakistan banned NATO supply convoys from entering Afghanistan after the deaths of the three soldiers, whom the government says were killed in Pakistani territory during fighting between NATO troops and militants, according to a military official from the NATO-led command in Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. John Dorrian, an ISAF spokesman, said the Torkham Gate in the Khyber Agency has been closed since about midday on Thursday. Chaman Gate, the other border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, remains open.
"We don't think it's a very serious problem," Dorrian said. "It's a throroughfare we use a lot so it is significant. But we can work around it."
"We do expect these matters to be resolved."
Supply convoys are all-important for the Afghan war effort, and officials from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were trying to persuade Pakistan to lift the ban. Coalition forces rely heavily on convoys from Pakistan to bring in supplies and gear.
Torkham Gate is one of the main ports of entry for material coming into the war zone. But it is not the only way of getting supplies in. Khyber Agency is one of the seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region.
About half the cargo that flows into Afghanistan comes in via one of the two gates from Pakistan, the Defense Department says.
Another 30 percent uses two major routes through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, one via Russia and the other via the Caucasus. The remaining 20 percent -- mostly sensitive items like weapons, ammunition and other critical equipment -- comes in by air.
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen and Nasir Habib contributed to this report.
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Ignoring Afghan rot
Obama punts on corruption
New York Post By ANN MARLOWE September 30, 2010
News broke this week that federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District are investigating Afghan President Hamid Karzai's older brother Mahmoud on charges that may ultimately include tax evasion, racketeering or extortion. But the recent history of US anti-corruption efforts for Afghanistan raises fears that this probe, too, will be quashed.
The word is that the Obama administration has decided to let Karzai "deal" with higher-level corruption while we focus on the local level. As anyone who has followed Karzai's actions knows, this is a bad joke.
In July, two US-advised task forces in Afghanistan, the Major Crimes Task Force and the Special Investigative Unit, arrested a senior Karzai adviser, Mohammad Zia Salehi. Salehi was allegedly using bribery to obstruct a probe of the New Ansari Exchange for laundering opium profits and aiding the Taliban.
This was not minor stuff: New Ansari has moved $3.1 billion in cash out of Afghanistan since 2007. But Karzai yelped about violations of sovereignty, and the United States turned a blind eye when Salehi was released.
Then, early this month, Afghanistan's largest bank, Kabul Bank, part-owned by Mahmoud Karzai, nearly collapsed amid allegations of insider loans gone bad. America pressed for a probe of the bank, which our government uses to pay the Afghan army, police and schoolteachers -- but there has been no word recently on what's happening.
There's also Task Force 2010, a military effort launched in June under the leadership of Rear Adm. Kathleen Dussault. This was to oversee Pentagon contracting to ensure it wasn't benefiting Afghan thugs or subverting our war strategy. It was focused on southern Afghanistan and the delicate role of another Karzai brother, Ahmad Wali, who is suspected of links to the opium trade and the insurgency. But Dessault, a logistics expert who holds two-star rank, was just replaced by an Army brigadier with no contracting experience after only four months on the job.
In yet another failure of American nerve, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee decided this summer not to release a potentially explosive report on Afghan corruption.
"The US stand on corruption within the Afghan government lacks consistency and continuity," says 2009 presidential runnerup Dr. Abdullah. (Like many Afghans, he has just one name.) "In Afghanistan, concerns about deep-rooted corruption are beyond the issues of good governance and rule of law, it also fuels insurgency and jeopardizes the efforts against terrorism."
That is, tolerance of corruption among Afghanistan's rulers is the quickest way to further destabilize Afghanistan.
In a land that has no system of political parties and precious little civil society, stolen money translates directly into political clout. Many Afghans fear that President Karzai has used the vast financial resources we have put under his control to buy this month's parliamentary elections, just as he bought last year's presidential vote.
Afghans are largely uneducated, but not stupid. A June poll of Kandahar citizens found 70 percent believe that local officials make money from drug trafficking, and an astonishing 64 percent state that government administrators in their area were connected to the Taliban insurgency.
Yet even in the alleged Taliban heartland, Afghans value democracy: 40 percent stated that democracy was important to them, and 72 percent would prefer their children to grow up under an elected government rather than the Taliban.
As if to quash such hopes, US commanders in Kandahar brought the entire militia of Afghan warlord Gul Aga Sherzai into the Kandahar police in July. Indeed, we've empowered a variety of Afghan thugs -- such as Border Police boss Abdul Razik, widely rumored to be a player in the heroin trade -- on the thin rationale that they provide useful intelligence.
Gen. David Petraeus' Counterinsurgency (COIN) Field Manual says with simple good sense: "The primary objective of any COIN operation is to foster development of effective governance by a legitimate government."
Or as Col. Brian Mennes of the 82nd Airborne says of his Afghan deployment, "What I found is that the most we could hope to do was to impress the Afghans that we were good people. That we would live out our values in front of them . . . and leave them with the impression that the flag on our uniform was a symbol of hope, like it has been for so many throughout history."
We need to show Afghans that everyone is subject to -- and no one above -- the law. Otherwise, as Afghan diplomat Ahmad Wali Masoud says, "The culture of corruption Mr. Karzai has encouraged will continue probably for decades."
The existing anti-corruption teams must be urged forward with the same vigor they would use in the United States. The mess at Kabul Bank -- and allegations of equally lax procedures at other privately held Afghan banks -- must be scrutinized just as they would be here.
After all, American taxpayers are footing the bill for the Karzai family's shenanigans. The next time President Karzai whines about sovereignty, President Obama should remind him in no uncertain terms at whose grace he became and remains president. If he doesn't like his situation, he's more than free to leave.
Ann Marlowe, a Hudson Insti tute visiting fellow, reports fre quently from Afghanistan.
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Four Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 1, 2010
Georgia's Defense Ministry says four Georgian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, in the biggest loss for the country's military since it deployed in the war-torn country.
It was unclear whether the Georgians were among six international soldiers that NATO announced on September 30 had been killed in Taliban attacks.
The ministry said in a statement that the four soldiers were killed by an explosive device, but provided no other details on the circumstances of their deaths.
About 1,000 Georgian soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan, mainly in Helmand Province alongside U.S. Marines.
compiled from agency reports
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NATO boasts rosy result for September's operations against insurgents in Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- A press release issued Friday by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lauded Afghan and coalition forces as having witnessed "another successful month in Afghanistan."
The press release said Afghan and coalition security forces spent the month of September continuing to capture and kill keyTaliban and other insurgent leaders, ensuring civilians were able to cast their votes in the Sept. 18 parliamentary election and clearing traditional insurgent strong holds.
September marked a total of more than 438 suspected insurgents detained and 114 insurgents killed in security force operations, said the NATO press release.
More importantly, it added, the security forces captured or killed more than 105 insurgent leaders including Taliban's shadow governors, leaders, sub-leaders and weapons facilitators.
Afghan and coalition forces in the month completed 194 missions, 88 percent of them without shots fired.
The NATO press release said the month of September ended on a high note when a precision airstrike in eastern Kunar province Sept. 25 killed Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, an al-Qaida senior leader who coordinated the attacks of a group of Arab fighters in Kunar and Nuristan province.
The al-Qaida facilitators and extremists al-Qurayshi worked with throughout the Middle East directly threaten the safety and security of Afghan civilians, according to NATO.
He routinely facilitated the travel of foreign fighters, including Arabs, into the region.
Additionally, Abu Atta al Kuwaiti, an al-Qaida explosive expert, and several Arabic foreign fighters were killed in the strike.
Leading up to the parliamentary election on Sept. 18, Afghan and coalition security forces conducted 11 operations in seven Afghan provinces in the week of Sept. 10 to 17 against insurgents actively planning to disrupt the parliamentary elections, said the NATO press release.
The largest pre-election operation was in Nangarhar province when a security force targeted a Taliban operation leader who participated in intimidation campaigns and assassinations including a suicide bomber attack that killed a local tribal elder, Haji Zaman.
Qari Wali and four other insurgents were killed, after forces conducted a call for the insurgents to surrender peacefully. When they demonstrated hostile intent toward the force, they were engaged and killed.
Qari Wali was planning to conduct rocket attacks against regional voting centers during the elections and the force discovered multiple weapons and a grenade on the scene.
In the week following the Sept. 18 elections, Afghan and coalition security forces conducted seven operations in five Afghan provinces against insurgents who actively participated in the relatively low number of election attacks.
Clear rules of engagement and extreme measures were taken to avoid civilian casualties resulted in 87 percent of the election- specific operations conducted without shots fired and no civilian causalities, said the NATO press release.
Afghan-led operations resulted in 10 insurgent leaders captured and eight killed, all actively planning attacks during the elections.
Afghan and coalition security forces conducted five deliberate clearing operations aimed at disrupting the Taliban's freedom of movement in Kandahar city, Helmand province and Kunduz province.
The Taliban are known to use intimidation and threats to force their way into these targeted areas to stage their attacks.
In Kandahar area operations, 19 insurgents were killed, three detained, several house-borne improvised explosive devices along with a large homemade explosive IED factory were destroyed.
A precision airstrike was used in order to destroy the IED workshop after ensuring no civilians were present in the area.
On Wednesday in Kunduz province, joint security forces continued their efforts to disrupt safe havens by targeting a series of compounds in Chahar Darah district.
The force killed two insurgents and wounded one, who used intimidation and threats to establish safe havens for their attacks.
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High-profile Gov. Officials' Salaries must be Recorded: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 30 September 2010
Afghan president Hamid Karzai has ordered the Ministry of Finance to register the salaries of high-ranking government officials and their relatives
Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance said according to president Hamid Karzai's decree, the Ministry is assigned to investigate the documents of all private companies and domestic and foreign institutions that pay the salaries of high-profile government officials.
According to president Karzai's decree, the Ministry of Finance has urged these companies and institutions to hand over the identities, the amount of salaries and the work scope of high-ranking government officials and their relatives, including the close relatives of Karzai and his cabinet members to the Ministry.
"After president Karzai issued a decree, the Ministry of Finance has urged all companies and foreign and domestic institutions to hand over the list of all high-profile government officials, including the president, vice-presidents and the cabinet ministers to the Ministry of Finance within a month," Najib Manali, an advisor to the Ministry of Finance told TOLOnews reporter.
"The purpose of this step was to recognise those who work for foreign and domestic institutions," he added.
The Ministry added that all the documents and data of these companies and institutions will be treated as confidential, but warned that if the companies do not reveal the sufficient required information to the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry finds it out, the perpetrators will be sued as those involved in administrative corruption.
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NATO airstrike kills 15 insurgents in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- An airstrike launched by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed 15 insurgents in the Tsowkey district of Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province Friday.
A press release issued by the ISAF said the insurgents were attempting to set up an attack position in the district while being struck by an ISAF air weapons team.
Initial reports indicate all rounds were on target, and there were no injuries to civilians in the area, said the press release.
Kunar province has been seeing increasing violence recently.
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Why is Obama sending troops to Afghanistan?
Washington Post By Charles Krauthammer Friday, October 1, 2010
From the beginning, the call to arms was highly uncertain. On Dec. 1, 2009, commander in chief Barack Obama orders 30,000 more Americans into battle in Afghanistan. But in the very next sentence, he announces that an American withdrawal will begin after 18 months.
Astonishing. A surge of troops -- overall, Obama has tripled our Afghan force -- with a declaration not of war but of ambivalence. Nine months later, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway admitted that this decision was "probably giving our enemy sustenance." This wasn't conjecture, he insisted, but the stuff of intercepted communications testifying to the enemies' relief that they simply had to wait out the Americans.
What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal? One who doesn't have his heart in it. One who doesn't really want to win but is making some kind of political gesture. One who thinks he has to be seen as trying but is preparing the ground -- meaning, the political cover -- for failure.
Until now, the above was just inference from the president's public rhetoric. No longer. Now we have the private quotes. Bob Woodward's new book, drawing on classified memos and interviews with scores of national security officials, has Obama telling his advisers: "I want an exit strategy." He tells the country publicly that Afghanistan is a "vital national interest," but he tells his generals that he will not do the kind of patient institution-building that is the very essence of the counterinsurgency strategy that Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus crafted and that he -- Obama -- adopted. ad_icon
Moreover, he must find an exit because "I can't lose the whole Democratic Party." This admission is the most crushing of all.
First, isn't this the party that in two consecutive presidential campaigns -- John Kerry's and then Obama's -- argued vociferously that Afghanistan is the good war, the right war, the war of necessity, the central front in the war on terror? Now, after acceding to power and being given charge of that very war, Obama confides that he must retreat, lest that very same party abandon him. What happened in the interim? Did it suddenly develop a faint heart? Or was the party disingenuous about the Afghan war all along, using it as a convenient club with which to attack George W. Bush over Iraq, while protecting Democrats from the charge of being reflexively antiwar?
Whatever the reason, is it not Obama's job as president and party leader to bring the party with him? This is the man who made Berlin coo, America swoon and the Nobel committee lose its mind. Yet he cannot get his own party to follow him on what he insists is a matter of vital national interest?
Did he even try? Obama spent endless hours cajoling and persuading individual members of Congress to garner every last vote for health-care reform. Has he done a fraction of that for Afghanistan -- argued, pleaded, horse-traded, twisted even a single arm?
And what about persuading the country at large? Every war is arduous and requires continual presidential explication, inspiration and encouragement. This has been true from Lincoln through FDR through Bush. Since announcing his Afghan surge, Obama's only major speech that featured Afghanistan was an Oval Office address about America leaving Iraq -- the Afghan part being sandwiched between that and a long-winded plea for his economic policies.
"He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out," writes Woodward. One can only conclude that Obama now thinks Afghanistan is a mistake. Maybe he thought so from the very beginning. More charitably and more likely, he is simply a foreign policy novice who didn't understand what this war was about until being given the authority and duty to conduct it -- and then decided it was all a mistake.
Fair enough. But in that case, what is he doing escalating it?
Sen. Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked many years ago: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.
"He is out of Afghanistan psychologically," says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.
Some will not come home.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
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Afghanistan: A war without end, or rationale
The Washington Post - Opinion By Eugene Robinson Friday, October 1, 2010
Could somebody please remind me just what it is that we're achieving in Afghanistan? Don't all speak at once. No, I mean what good things we're accomplishing. Anybody? Hello?
The more we learn about the war -- both from the battlefield and from the White House -- the more depressing it all becomes. The portrait that emerges is of a failing military campaign whose course is being determined by momentum, not by logic. Everyone seems to appreciate this fact, but no one is willing to stop the madness. So on we go.
For me, the most striking revelation from uber-journalist Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," is the extent to which the officials who are planning and prosecuting this war recognize how unlikely it is to end well.
Begin with President Obama. He campaigned on the position that the United States should end the war in Iraq so that more attention and resources could be focused on Afghanistan, which he subsequently has called a "war of necessity." Once in office, he quickly approved an urgent Pentagon request for 21,000 additional troops. But before making any further commitments, he sensibly ordered a comprehensive review of the war's goals, strategy and prospects. Fine so far.
But then, according to Woodward's account, the president looked at the two major options that were being presented, decided they wouldn't work and proceeded to devise a strategy of his own. The generals wanted 40,000 additional troops to pursue an all-out counterinsurgency program based on winning the goodwill and allegiance of the Afghan people. Skeptics, led by Vice President Biden, argued for a "hybrid" option -- essentially, a counterterrorism strategy of destroying al-Qaeda -- that would require just 20,000 added troops.
By that point, you will note, the issue had become how sharply to escalate the war -- not whether to escalate at all.
Obama was deeply concerned about the costs, both human and financial, of an open-ended military commitment. Dissatisfied with the way the Pentagon was trying to manipulate the discussion, the president took it on himself to author a six-page "terms sheet" that Woodward describes as a "lawyerly compromise." He capped the increase at 30,000, replacing the word "counterinsurgency" with the new mantra of "target, train and transfer," and decreed that the troops sent in this limited surge would begin to come home in July 2011. All this was supposed to eliminate any "wiggle room."
But the Pentagon wiggles better than the dancers at what is euphemistically called a "gentlemen's club." Almost immediately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the brass began telling anyone who would listen that next July is just a date to begin a withdrawal -- perhaps of relatively few troops, and only if "conditions" allowed. Woodward quotes Gen. David Petraeus, Obama's commander in Afghanistan, as saying privately, "You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. . . . This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
Can anyone explain how that differs from the open-ended commitment that Obama claims to have rejected? I thought not.
This jumble of contradictions might make sense if we were accomplishing something. But the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai is as erratic and corrupt as ever, the Taliban remains robust and has expanded its sphere of operations, and even the most optimistic supporters of the war see whatever progress we have made as limited and fragile. Hawks criticize the president for setting his deadline -- telling the enemy, in effect, to just wait us out -- but if you assume that U.S. troops will ever leave, the specific date is irrelevant. It's the enemy's homeland, not ours.
But this war is only tangentially about Afghanistan. The real problem is nuclear-armed Pakistan, our supposed ally, which has played a double game -- accepting billions of dollars from the United States to fight terrorism while giving clandestine advice and support to the Taliban and tolerating the presence of al-Qaeda's senior leadership. Pakistan's civilian government is weak; its military establishment calls the shots; and its national security focus is on India, not Afghanistan or the threat of international terrorism.
"We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," Obama said during his war-strategy review, according to Woodward's book. But if the purpose of this war is really to influence events in Pakistan, we're not doing a very good job.
One last question: Isn't it time for another strategy review?
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
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Australian, Afghanistan forces open new base in Mirabad Valley
CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian and Afghanistan forces on Friday opened a new patrol base in the dangerous Mirabad Valley of Afghanistan.
The new patrol base has been constructed over three weeks by engineers from the Australian 1st Mentoring Task Force (MTF-1) and the Afghan National Army.
According to the statement from Australian Defense Force, built from the ground up by the Australians and their Afghan partners, the base has given the troops somewhere new to live and operate from in the dangerous region in Uruzgan province.
The construction, however, did face certain challenges.
On Aug. 20, partway through the construction of the facility, insurgents launched a major attack that lasted an hour, with Australian troops and engineers calling in support from a coalition Apache helicopter, which fired its 30mm cannon and Hellfire missiles.
Commander of the Australian mentoring task force Lieutenant Colonel Mark Jennings said the insurgents were threatened by by the impact of the patrol base, unsuccessfully attacking it a number of times over the course of its construction.
"Obviously the insurgents did not want this base to proceed and tried their hardest to slow down its construction," he said in a statement.
"The Mirabad Valley is a strategically important region with a history of violence in recent years.
"Combined with two nearby outposts, the base will have a significant and enduring impact on security in the Mirabad Valley and will empower the Afghan Security Forces to protect their communities long into the future."
Project manager Major Carl Miller said the local community was consulted throughout the construction process along with key government stakeholders in Tarin Kowt.
He said from inception back in April, the plan was to build a patrol house that could accommodate the Afghan National Army and coalition force presence in the Mirabad Valley.
"And that's what we've done - it's like a big, significantly fortified house," he said in a statement.
"The base can accommodate over 50 people and is strengthened by a ringed perimeter fence, two guard towers and an over-watch position. It includes air-conditioning and kitchen facilities."
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Afghan Village Fights To Keep Taliban At Bay
September 30, 2010 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Muhammad Tahir
TARBUZ GUZAR, Afghanistan -- The village of Tarbuz Guzar nestles in a forest along the banks of the Konduz River.
It is surrounded by green, even in the heat of summer, giving it little in common with the images of rolling arid land in many other parts of Afghanistan.
But if the village looks idyllic, and its good farmlands make it relatively wealthy, it is living a nightmare.
For over a year, Tarbuz Guzar has been on the frontline of the fight to keep the Taliban spreading further north in Konduz Province. It is a lonely fight, waged by the village's own militia force and funded almost entirely by the villagers themselves.
It is also a desperate fight. The villagers are too poor to sustain their force of 50 militiamen forever. The commander of the militia estimates that if it does not get outside help, he cannot continue to fight the Taliban for more than another three to four months.
The precise frontline is a mud-and-brick fortress that stands a few kilometers south of Tarbuz Guzar and is the militia's stronghold. It has a commanding hilltop view over flat land that changes from the forest by the river into desert scrub farther out. The walls of the fortress are pockmarked with bullet holes from repeated Taliban attacks.
Nadir Sheikh, the leader of the militia, is a slight man in his mid-40s with a mild but commanding appearance. He has been fighting all of his adult life, beginning as a mujahedin against the Soviets. But with his own family living in the village he is defending, the fighting has never been as personal for him as it is now, or the future as threatening.
"I hope we can stand firm until the end of this year. God willing, we will try. By then we hope the government will have made its decision [to help]; if they haven't, then how long can we hold up? It has been 14 months now; I think we can only stay for four more months. Our number of fighters is growing but the villagers do not have enough resources to continue to support us."
In The Grips Of The Taliban
The Afghan government announced in July it would begin recruiting thousands of militiamen nationwide to strengthen security forces against the resurgent Taliban. The militiamen, operating under the auspices of the Interior Ministry as a kind of local police force, were to be supplied with weapons unless they already had their own and were to be paid 60 percent of a regular police salary.
But despite continuous talks with officials, Tarbuz Guzar's fighters have yet to see any significant assistance. And the Taliban, who already partially or fully control much of Konduz Province, including Chahar Dara district just south of Tarbuz Guzar, is continually increasing its pressure.
Just a few hundred meters from the front of the fortress is a small village -- Zlum Abat -- which already has been partially taken over by the Taliban. It is in no-man's land, belonging to the Tarbuz Guzar militia by day and to the Taliban by night. The disputed village succumbed to the Taliban when it first began getting ultimatums from the resurgent force, the kind of ultimatums Tarbuz Guzar refused.
"The Taliban came to our district of Qala-i Zal," Khawaja Murad, one of Nadir Sheikh's fighters, describes the way the ultimatums arrive. "They didn't even go to talk to the people, they just informed the imams of the mosques by letter that people should pay ushur and zakat [religious tithes] from their agricultural products, such as grain. With one letter, they were able to collect 24,500 kilograms of grain."
He says they also got similar tithes from other agricultural products before demanding payments of 1,000 afghanis from each married couple.
"Then they ordered us to elect a commander and to create a 10-member local Taliban force," Murad says.
Murad also has a family in Tarbuz Guzar. He says his fellow villagers met and decided to resist the Taliban demands, even though they knew the consequences of taking up arms. If the Taliban ever take their village by force, it will kill the families of all those who opposed them.
Murad wears dark glasses and doesn't take them off to talk, even though that is considered impolite in Afghanistan. The glasses hide one shattered eye, which he lost fighting during the mujahedin times. He is one of the militia's most motivated and capable warriors, frequently volunteering for night duty.
Taliban Tactics
It is at night when the Taliban usually attack, creeping up through the trees and scrub to surround the fort on three sides. Mostly, they wait for a night when informants in Zulm Abat tell them the fort is undermanned. Those are the times when many of the militiamen have gone off to attend a wedding in their village or on other personal business.
A few nights ago, when only Murad and two novice fighters remained behind to guard the fort, the Taliban arrived almost immediately. Murad fought them off by racing between the fort's single heavy machine gun in one tower and its single rocket launcher in the other. Only his years of experience at reading how a battle is evolving allowed the three men to keep their attackers at bay until other members of the force got back to help them.
But even as the local militia is able to hold off the Taliban in firefights, it cannot stop the Taliban from conducting their own version of a hearts-and-minds campaign to weaken the population's resistance.
Last month, the Taliban killed the district chief of Qala-i Zal with a roadside bomb placed near to this office. Two weeks earlier, a bomb went off in the bazaar of one of Tarbuz Guzar's neighboring villages, Ak Depe, killing three civilians and injuring many others.
Perhaps more worrisome, says militia commander Nadir, the Taliban have sympathizers even in Tarbuz Guzar who help spread their message that Afghanistan is being conquered by foreign troops. He says one of the Taliban's most powerful propagandists is the village's own mullah, who runs a boarding-school madrasah next to the mosque.
The mullah, who used to also be the mosque's imam, or prayer leader, once gathered together his pupils to collect stones and wait for a German army convoy which was scheduled to visit Tarbuz Guzar. When the trucks arrived, the boys stoned them. After that, Nadir and other village elders removed the mullah from his post as imam but the religious man's stature in the village prevents taking any further steps against him.
Occasionally, Nadir says, young men defect from the village to join the Taliban. Some go because of their own convictions, some because their families feel it is safer to have representatives on both sides of the conflict. The uncertainty of whether the government will finally help the militia only adds to the frequency of the defections.
Desperate Appeals
The government's inaction is a source of constant complaints from the militiamen, who formed their group approximately 14 months ago. The inaction is particularly galling because, Nadir says, government officials at the time were among those urging the village to raise a defense force.
"We got ready and from the other side the government encouraged us to arm ourselves. District government officials promised to help us, but so far nothing has came from them," Nadir says. "It is the villagers who have done everything and the majority of our bullets are even purchased for us by the people. Our weapons were also purchased by the people. Some rich people of the village helped us, they bought us motorbikes and weapons, all of them were made available by our people."
The German military, which is the NATO force responsible for defending Konduz as well as several other northern provinces, has been a little more helpful.
The fighters say that sometimes as battles rage, the Germans send a helicopter to fly low over the battlefield, not firing but making a lot of noise. That is enough to force the Taliban to retreat for better cover and turn the tide of the fighting. After a battle is over, a German helicopter sometimes also evacuates the badly wounded. But the fact the Germans don't take any part in the fighting themselves strikes the militiamen as mysterious.
By contrast, the Taliban have proven to be both a determined and well-coordinated force that appears able to bring in fighters as needed from other parts of Konduz and even farther afield.
The Tarbuz Guzar militia is a mixture of ethnic Turkmen, Uzbeks, and Tajiks, the three other main communities which share Konduz Province with the Pashtun.
That ethnic difference might suggest that the creeping Talibanization of northern Afghanistan is due to the Taliban using ties within the Pashtun community to reassert itself. The Taliban in southern Afghanistan has its core in the Pashtun population and many Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan have family as well as linguistic and cultural ties to the south.
But the fighters who are holding the Taliban back from Tarbuz Guzar, and who know their enemy well, say the story is more complicated than that.
Murad says the Taliban are able to recruit across community lines because they offer one thing that all Afghans want equally: security.
"Regardless of who rules the area, the people of Afghanistan only care about security and the Taliban seemingly do provide security. So people are easily taken in by the Taliban," Murad says. "But once the villagers let them into an area, the people become hostages, because after taking charge of the region, the Taliban force them to obey their demands. So in this case, people are left with only two options: to leave their homes or bow to the demands of the Taliban."
Ironically, the men who are fighting the Taliban now face virtually the same desperate choice, despite the fact that they took up arms expressly to avoid it.
As the militia's supplies dwindle and the government continues to delay without explanation, the prospect that the militiamen's fort could be over-run increases. And then the choice would be simply between flight and joining the Taliban.
For those with extended families, joining the Taliban would likely be the better choice. It would spare their kin revenge killings and allow the village as a whole to continue its life.
The prospect that even the Taliban's bitterest foes could one day switch sides to save their relatives does not strike those who know the rules of the game as even strange.
A leading politician from Qala-i Zal who does not want to be named says that if the militiamen "do not want to put the lives of their fellow villagers in danger, they may negotiate with the Taliban by sending their elders to them."
"But in this case, I am afraid the negotiations would be according to the Taliban's terms," he says, "which means that if the militiamen do not want to be killed, they will be forced to join the Taliban and attack the government in Konduz."
For now, such reversals are far from the militiamen's minds as they say they are both determined and able to fight the Taliban advance. But whether they ultimately will succeed in their effort now depends as much upon what happens in Kabul as upon the battlefield -- and about that they have no certainty.
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Fraud Alleged In Afghan Parliamentary Election
NPR By Quil Lawrence October 1, 2010
Election results are still trickling in after Afghanistan's parliamentary vote two weeks ago, but the jury is still out on how clean the election was.
In Kabul, authorities are examining hundreds of complaints of fraud and irregularities. Whether Afghans will accept this election as better than last year's troubled presidential poll may boil down to how the complaints are settled, and whether everyone's complaints are considered equally before the law. Some Afghans have their doubts.
In a public park near the presidential palace in Kabul, two dozen men and women gathered this week to make their case. They all came from sparsely populated Farah province, hundreds of miles west of Kabul, more specifically a remote mountain district called Purchaman.
Purchaman district had around 20,000 registered voters, and in an election with mediocre attendance nationwide, preliminary reports say that 100 percent, or maybe closer to 150 percent, voted in the elections.
The people in the park are all candidates who ran for election in Purchaman and lost.
Muhamad Hashem Majboor says he campaigned for a month there, but when election day came he and his supporters were chased away from the polls by men loyal to the local warlord who took over the polling stations. Other candidates have similar stories: Their official observers were arrested and their telephones confiscated.
When the preliminary results came out, the people of Purchaman had apparently voted for two men who are virtual unknowns there, as well as the son of the same local warlord. One electoral official from the province said that the ballots were collected and simply doled out for cash payments by the local warlord.
Majboor says the election was stolen.
"The people of Purchuman have two options -– either to surrender to Taliban, or move out of Purchaman," he said through a translator.
Sentiments like that fit a pattern, which analysts say is driving many Afghans into the arms of the Taliban when they lose faith in the institutions of the Kabul government. Majboor says people here want democracy, but are getting none from Kabul.
He and the other candidates have presented their testimony to Afghanistan's electoral bodies, but they don't have much faith they will get a fair shake.
One of the candidates who won in Purchaman though he has never set foot there is the brother of President Hamid Karzai's deputy national security adviser. That candidate, Haji Shah Mahmoud Spinzada, told NPR by phone that there was no fraud in his province. He acknowledged he has never been to Purchaman, but claimed the 5,000 or so votes he got there are legitimate.
Another apparent winner in Purchaman, Massoud Bakhtawar, allowed there could have been a few irregularities, but said the complaints are coming mostly from sore losers.
Bakhtawar, the son of a powerful former mujahedin commander in the province, said it's human nature to complain against the winner when you lose.
The winner of the most votes in Purchaman, the son of the local warlord, also told NPR that there had been no fraud.
All three of the main vote-getters asked to see the evidence, which is presumably now in the hands of the Electoral Complaints Commission.
Ahmad Zeya Rafhat, a spokesman for the commission, said all complaints will be considered equally.
"What will we do with powerful people? Our judgment will be equal to all, and we won't look at who is strong and who is weak," Rafhat said.
The complaints against the warlords from Purchaman as well as the brother of Karzai's Cabinet member have been before the commission for a week already, but no ruling has been issued so far.
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Q&A: Grim reality of honour killing brought to the screen
OTTAWA, Canada, September 30 (UNHCR) – Former refugee Nelofer Pazira's latest feature, "Act of Dishonour," presents the grim reality of honour killing in Afghanistan, where she grew up before fleeing with her family in 1989. The award-winning Afghan-Canadian director's film, which was shot in an abandoned village in Tajikistan, also draws on some of Pazira's own experiences and it examines the challenges faced by refugee families returning to the complexity and volatility of modern Afghanistan. UNHCR provided some help during the making of the film for scenes involving refugees. Pazira, star of the 2001 film "Kandahar" and co-director of the 2003 documentary "Return to Kandahar," is on an international tour to promote the film. She spoke recently to UNHCR Public Information Assistant Gisèle Nyembwe. Excerpts from the interview:
Tell us about the film and why you made it
"Act of Dishonour" is about honour killing. It is based on the true-life story of a woman who acted in a short film that one of my friends made in Kabul. Her husband was in Pakistan at the time of the filming, but he returned to Kabul as the crew celebrated the completion of filming. He shot his wife dead because she had left her home and had acted in a film.
Marina Golbahari, who plays the lead in "Act of Dishonour," faces similar pressures in her own life. She is among a growing number of women in Afghanistan who remain utterly committed to cinema and who brave threats to appear in films. During my research and subsequent writing of the script, I heard from these women, again and again, that they hoped the world see the reality of their lives through this film.
But the film opens with a young boy shooting an older man. It's a revenge killing. I have added this because honour killing is an issue that is not just related to women. Honour and revenge are overriding priorities in this culture. Yet the film is also about forgiveness. The young bus driver who had avenged his father's death wants to spare the life of his fiancée – the woman he believes has betrayed him. There is also a story of a refugee family returning to their village to find that their home has been taken.
What message did you want to convey to viewers?
Having grown up in Kabul and then emigrated to Canada, I live on the border of two different cultures – Afghan and Canadian – and I am very much a product of both. To this end, I wanted to condemn honour killing as well as examine the very idea of honour. Originally, I wanted to do this in book form, but in 2003 I decided that film was the best way to tell this story. Images travel faster than the written word, crossing geographical, tribal and cultural borders.
But it was important to do more than just condemn honour killing and the suffering of women. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it, to understand men who are forced by the traditions of their community – and by their own failures – to murder those they love.
Did you cast any refugees in the film?
Most of the cast members in "Act of Dishonour" are not professional actors. I liked the challenge of working with them. I was searching for people whose real-life stories mirrored aspects of my characters. I wasn't just basing the characters on real-life people, but wanted to find people who could bring their own stories to the script. One actor, for example, was a refugee in Iran who returned after 26 years of exile. He found out at first hand that it wasn't easy to return to his home town in [eastern Afghanistan's] Wardak province. There are Afghan refugees that live in Tajikistan, near the Afghan-Tajik border and in other areas. A number of these refugees came and helped on the film set – either in front of or behind the cameras.
I played the role of Mejgan, based on my own experience filming in Afghanistan over the past decade. Trapped between embarrassment and idealism, I was struggling to show how Afghans could be progressive. During the filming of Kandahar, we discovered the difficulty of finding women willing to take part in the film. I was constantly ashamed of the backwardness of my own culture. At the time, I was trying to persuade Afghan village women to help me prove that Afghans could be as cultured as anyone else.
Fortunately, we didn't have tragic endings like the fate of Mena in "Act of Dishonour." But we had terribly sad situations where young women were prevented from returning to the film set out of fear. Gradually, I started understanding the culture that once caused me such embarrassment. I developed more sympathy for women and men in that country. Working with foreign film crews enabled me to experience their Western naivety about the Muslim world and the one-dimensional way in which they judged others.
Do you think people will relate to the film?
Stories of honour killings have become commonplace . . . I recall another incident [of honour killing] in 2001, when I returned to the region to act in "Kandahar," which was filmed along the Iran-Afghanistan border. We worked mostly in refugee villages. A teenage girl loved being on the set. We had filmed a few scenes with her as one of the four wives of a man in the film. But one day she fled the set for fear of being seen by her father and her two younger brothers. She was severely beaten by her father for dishonouring his name. We had to throw away the footage and start again.
Today, in various parts of the world, women are faced with all sorts of violence – crime of honour is just one. Crime of honour is not restricted to the Muslim world. A number of honour killings in recent years have been carried out in the Western world – sadly mostly among refugee families. They had escaped war, atrocities and yet, after arriving in a safer environment, the gap between their practices and those in their new home become obvious. The burden is often placed on women to safeguard their families' name and honour.
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Video game drops Taliban label amid protests
By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer – Fri Oct 1, 6:02 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The makers of a new video game based in Afghanistan said Friday they have removed the option for players to call themselves members of the Taliban when pretending to shoot at U.S. troops.
Electronic Arts, a major game developer based in Redwood City, Calif., said it has dropped the Taliban label from a version of its "Medal of Honor" video game after families of troops complained it was offensive.
Military bases across the U.S. had banned the sale of the game in reaction to those family protests.
"We are making this change for the men and women serving in the military and for the families of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice," wrote Greg Goodrich, the game's executive producer, in a blog post on the game's Web site.
"This franchise will never willfully disrespect, intentionally or otherwise, your memory and service," he said.
Karen Meredith, who lost her son in Iraq in 2004, said she appreciated the patriotic tone used by Goodrich. "But we still feel strongly that the option for shooting and killing U.S. troops is wrong," Meredith said of herself and her friends.
Past versions of the game have been set in World War II, allowing players to act as either members of Allied forces or Nazi troops.
The latest version, scheduled to be released on Oct. 12, is set in modern-day Afghanistan, where some 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops are fighting the Taliban.
The game's story line is told through a small group of characters known as "Tier 1" operators, elite fighters who take their orders directly from the president and defense secretary.
As is common in many video games, players can switch sides to play the bad guy.
Electronic Arts said the art and graphics for the game would remain the same, including realistic depictions of fire fights between U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan insurgents.
Spokesman Jeff Brown said the only difference will be seen in the version of the game that allows multiple players. When opting to play as part of the anti-U.S. force, the player will select "OPFOR" — a military term for opposing force — instead of "Taliban."
Brown said it was the Taliban label that seemed to upset consumers most.
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