US PsyOps unit asks locals to review propaganda video скачать в хорошем качестве

US PsyOps unit asks locals to review propaganda video

(22 Dec 2002) STORYLINE: Since helping overthrow the Taliban last year, US forces in Afghanistan have done everything from bombarding enemy positions to building schools across the country. But one thing they've never done in the war on terror is ask Afghans what they think - at least not by way of an official questionnaire. On Thursday, two soldiers of the US Army's 9th Psychological Operations Battalion began doing just that in a survey - albeit a very brief one - of Afghan impressions and attitudes in Salang, a tiny northern village surrounded by towering mountain crags. Much of the questionnaire focused on a five-minute propaganda video in Dari the Americans played for 100 villagers on a 21-inch TV they whipped out of the back of a green camouflage Army Humvee. Beside it were two destroyed Soviet-era tanks - rusted relics from two decades of war that have wasted the country. The video shows terrorists crashing planes into the World Trade Centre, US planes bombing Taliban positions last year, and US troops handing out boxes of humanitarian aid from the back of a truck. "We want to see if they understood, if they got the gist of it," said 23-year-old Spc. Adam McDaniel of Chino Hills, California. "We want to see if they understand why we're here." Most residents in Salang have heard of the September 11 attacks, but few among them have ever seen the World Trade Centre towers - much less the two planes that crashed into them. Television is a rare commodity in rural Afghanistan, where electricity itself is hard to come by. "At the beginning I didn't know what it was. I just saw these two tall buildings coming down," 70-year-old Sayed Faqer said of the video. "I asked my friend, 'What is this?'" Once the video was played a few times - most people, especially the children, were enthralled by it - 26-year-old Sgt. Cesar Petriz of Brownsville, Texas, went down a list of questions, posing them just once to a crowd through a translator. Six of the 21 questions, produced by the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based PsyOps unit, ask what Afghans think of the video. Five go further, asking Afghan views toward US and coalition forces operating in the country. One question asks simply: "How do you view/see the U.S./Coalition forces?" Another is existential: "Do you understand why the U.S./Coalition forces are here?" The boldest query was posed this way: "Do you feel threatened at any point by the presence of the U.S./Coalition Forces? If so, why?" Salang, though, was an easy place to start asking. The area is a major stronghold of the Afghan northern alliance, a US-backed group whose forces captured Kabul last year with help from a withering US air campaign. Most people in Salang aren't opposed to the American presence, and as a result, most of the answers were predictable. The men-only crowd, which included Afghan police, said they were happy with the American presence and were glad they'd got rid of the Taliban and al-Qaida. At the end of a chaotic question and answer session - the questions were answered by whoever spoke loudest - Petriz threw in one for the road: "Tell me, what do you need?" "We just need peace," said sixty-year-old Mohammad Aslam. "But we also need aid and reconstruction. We want you to rebuild our school. You must understand, we are ... very poor." That theme, echoed staunchly by almost every Afghan in Salang, overwhelmed the small convoy of Americans, which included a US Army Civil Affairs team that was, fortunately, examining potential humanitarian aid and reconstruction projects in the area. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...