Rumors
ALAN NAFZGER’s Rumors
Rumors – Pecan Street Press
Rumors: War in Afghanistan — Lubbock ● Austin ● Fort Worth
Rumors: War in Afghanistan is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Amazon edition – Rumors: War in Afghanistan
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Copyright © 2013 Alan Nafzger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781072072560
RUMORS OF FAHRAN
Written by Alan Nafzger
EXT. Paktia AFGHANISTAN RURAL AREA – DAY
The Paktia region is under American/NATO occupation, and local Taliban are fighting a brutal resistance campaign.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
As the opening credits flash we see the rugged and punishing Paktia. Endless and infinite. Steep stone mountains. Bottomless valleys. Cold and dry.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
In the distance, we see the outskirts of a Afghani village near the Pakistani border. We see American soldiers are leading prisoners into the village.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
Some prisoners have bloody faces and some do not.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
INT. Commando Solo
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
Commando Solo is a U.S. Air Force special operations EC-130 plane flying overhead part of the psyops war. It’s packed with all kinds of broadcasting gear.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
An officer is showing a new enlisted man the plane.
Rumors: War in Afghanistan
AIR FORCE OFFICER
(pointing to equiptment)
Secure faxes and computers, cassette decks, compact disks, VHS tape players, and powerful transmitters.
enlisted man
Yes, Sir. This is a regular airborne Radio Shack.
AIR FORCE OFFICER
The hardware allows us to jam broadcasts and to substitute on any frequency radio and TV messages intended to confuse, deceive or inform.
enlisted man
I see.
AIR FORCE OFFICER
And, so there will be someone to listen to Commando Solo, the CIA is supplying portable radios that are being air dropped or trucked into Afghanistan.
EXT. Paktia region VILLAGE – AFGHANISTAN
There is a truck there in the village with free radios. The personnel are instructing villagers in their use.
Most villagers are all watching the prisoners. There is an American command post in a building there and the suspected Taliban are being taken there. There are pigs and chickens, people living very simple lives. There are rudimentary shacks for housing.
An Afghani woman runs into the group and hugs one of the prisoners. The soldiers about jump out of their skin; however they don’t fire their weapons.
AMERICAN SOLDIER
Stop! What are you doing?
The soldiers pull the woman from the man.
AFGHANI WOMAN
No!
AMERICAN SOLDIER
Go away! Stay away?
The woman falls to the ground when she is pried from the man. The men continue through town.
RADIO
(in Dari language)
Citizens. We are here to take measures against terrorists who have rooted themselves in your country. It is not you, the honorable people of Afghanistan, who are targeted, but those who oppress you, seek to bend you to their will, and make you their slaves.
On 11 September, 2001, terrorists of the al-Qaida (the Base) group, some trained and financed by Saudi Arabian exile-in-hiding Osama bin Laden, attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC. Bin Laden was a long-time terrorist who was known under such alias as Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden, Usama bin Laden, the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mjhahid Shaykh, Hajj, the Director, the Contractor, and still more names. In response to the terrorist attacks, the United States launched the Global War on Terrorism.
The Coalition Forces came to arrest those responsible for the terrorism against America. They also come to arrest anyone that protects them.
More than 3,000 people in the United States of America were murdered in these attacks.
Over 2,800 People were killed and 3,000 children lost their parents.
Foreign Terrorists do not believe in any borders. New York – U.S.A. or Harat – Afghanstan.
The villagers simply watch. They have no emotions. They are afraid.
RADIO
A grave crime has been committed against the United States. Four of our planes have been hijacked, several building in our economic centers destroyed and more than 3,000 innocent people, hundreds of which were Muslim were murdered by the hand of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaida, his supporters, and the Taliban.
We see these actions as acts of war. We will not sit idly by and do nothing in these times. However, we do not wish to spill the blood of innocent people, as did the cowardly terrorists. We do not blame the Muslims or Afghans for these attacks.
We do not hold those who follow true Islam responsible. We will hunt down and punish these terrorists. They will pay with their blood. America is not against the beliefs of Islam, nor is it against Muslims. More than 6 million Muslims live and worship Allah in peace in the United States, a number equal to almost half the population of Afghanistan.
In the United States people of all religions live side by side in peace. Muslims living in America have the same rights to worship as any other citizen of any other religion.
We know where the Taliban and Al-Qaida are hiding. Do no help them.
We hope that you will take an active part in our efforts to build a better Afghanistan.
The soldiers arrive at the command post with the prisoners.
LATER…
EXT. RURAL AREA – DAY
Housmand and Omaid are making their way though a mountainous area. They move slowly. It appears they are armed and are aligned with the Taliban.
They cross a ravine on a rickety bridge. Housmand almost falls. Omaid looks at him sternly as a warning to be careful.
Housmand
It isn’t very deep.
They cross the ravine and stop. They take their boots off and rest. They aren’t wearing any socks.
They begin their progress again. But suddenly they stop. They see something. A dog barks.
Omaid
Do you see it?
Housmand
Over there?
(pause)
I see it.
Omaid
We will wait until nightfall.
Housmand
Do you think he expects us?
Omaid
Probably not.
Housmand
Maybe he ran off already.
(pause)
To join the American police.
We then see, in the distance, a house. A military helicopter flies by at a far distance.
LATER…
EXT. RURAL AREA – NIGHT
The men approach the home slowly, even casually.
Omaid
Wait here.
Housmand
Is there anything wrong?
Omaid
I will shoot.
Housmand
Don’t be long.
Omaid
I won’t be. Not long.
Omaid walks to the house.
War in Afghanistan
The War in Afghanistan was a conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021 in the Central Asian country of Afghanistan. It began when the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. The war ended with the Taliban regaining power after a 19 years and 10 months-long insurgency against allied NATO and Afghan Armed Forces. It was the longest war in United States history, surpassing the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately five months.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, then-US President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban, then-de facto ruling Afghanistan, extradite Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks and who was, until then, freely operating within the country. The Taliban’s refusal to do so led to the invasion of the country; the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies were mostly defeated and expelled from major population centers by US-led forces and the Northern Alliance. Despite failing to find bin Laden after his escape to Pakistan, the US and a coalition of over 40 countries (including all NATO members) remained in the country and formed a UN sanctioned security mission called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to consolidate a new democratic authority in the country and prevent the return of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to power.[77] At the Bonn Conference, new Afghan interim authorities (mostly from the Northern Alliance) elected Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan Interim Administration. A rebuilding effort across the country was also made following the expulsion of the Taliban.
The Taliban reorganized under Mullah Omar and in 2003 launched an insurgency against the new Afghan government. Insurgents from the Taliban and other groups waged asymmetric warfare with guerrilla raids and ambushes in the countryside, suicide attacks against urban targets, turncoat killings against coalition forces and reprisals against perceived collaborators. Violence eventually escalated to a point where large parts of Afghanistan had been retaken by the Taliban by 2007.[78][79] ISAF responded by massively increasing troops for counter-insurgency operations to “clear and hold” villages, reaching its peak in 2011 when roughly 140,000 foreign troops operated under ISAF and US command in Afghanistan.[80]
Following the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 (the original casus belli), leaders of the NATO alliance commenced an exit strategy for withdrawing their forces.[81][82] On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and officially transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. Unable to eliminate the Taliban through military means, coalition forces and separately the government of president Ashraf Ghani turned to diplomacy to end the conflict.[83] These efforts culminated in February 2020, when the United States and the Taliban signed a conditional peace deal in Doha which required that US troops withdraw by April 2021. The Taliban, in return, pledged to prevent any group in the territory of Afghanistan from attacking the US and its allies in the future.[84] The Afghan government was not a party to the deal and rejected its terms regarding release of prisoners.[85]
The target US withdrawal date was extended to 31 August.[86] The Taliban, after the original deadline had expired, and coinciding with the troop withdrawal, launched a broad offensive throughout the summer in which they captured most of Afghanistan, finally taking Kabul on 15 August 2021. The same day, the president of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani fled the country; the Taliban declared victory and the war ended.[87] The reestablishment of Taliban rule was confirmed by the United States and on 30 August the last American military plane departed Afghanistan, ending almost 20 years of western military presence in the country.[88][89]
According to the Costs of War Project, the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; 46,319 civilians, 69,095 military and police and at least 52,893 opposition fighters.[90] According to the UN, after the 2001 invasion, more than 5.7 million former refugees returned to Afghanistan.[91] However, since the renewed Taliban offensive of 2021, 2.6 million Afghans remain refugees or have fled,[92] mostly to Pakistan and Iran, and another 4 million Afghans remain internally displaced persons within the country.[93][94]