"Today, every village, no matter how isolated, has a battery-powered radio and every day and every night someone listens to the BBS or VOA and learns the news. The Afghans are illiterate, but they are not naive. After 30 years of war they understand international politics. They understand war. They form their opinions by what they see, or hear about, happening in their country.
And by now, every Afghan, no matter how isolated, will know that U.S. soldiers again have been mocking dead Afghans. U.S. soldiers have been disrespecting the dead.
"What kind of men are these Americans that mock those who souls have gone to Paradise," every Afghan will ask. "Who are these barbarians who claim to have come to help us, to install what they call 'democracy,' this Western religion?"
The most damaging part of the photos is the U.S. soldiers and what appears to be a translator, holding up the severed legs of suicide bombers, and laughing. In another photo, a handsome young soldier is grinning like a boy as a fellow soldier puts a severed hand on his shoulder. Everyone is laughing.
The Taliban will not laugh, and neither will the millions of Afghans who see again and again that U.S. soldiers are treating Afghans with disrespect."
"The U.S. can once again win all its battles, but it is slowly losing the war. It is losing the hearts and minds of the people it came to save from the Taliban. The U.S. is showing, no matter what the truth is, that it does not care about Afghans, and does not care about Islam.
The Taliban will use this latest incident as they will go at night to every village and say, "Here is yet more proof that the U.S. is an insensitive infidel invader. It does not care about or understand Afghan culture, our culture. Come with us. We have God on our side."
Losing the media war in Afghanistan - World Watch - CBS News
