If your child exhibits two or more of these symptoms, chances are he’s already a member of the Taliban:

Dramatic changes in clothing or hairstyle

Sudden bursts of anger

Loss of interest in popular music

Really dirty face

Can’t keep a girlfriend/boyfriend

Poor grades, especially in Civics

Bloodshot eyes

Wears fake beard (boys) or full-body veil (girls)

Anti-American slogans in notebooks and/or school yearbook

Dramatic changes in diet, refuses to eat pork or “unclean” foods

“Hides” in cave-like bedroom

Impaired capacity to reason

Feelings of paranoia

Distorted sense of history

Talks of suicide or “glorious martyrdom”

Unexplained late-night international phone calls

Vague about social activities and company kept

Speaks fluent Urdu

Always blaming others for problems

Why Do Kids Join the Taliban?

Many parents are shocked when they first learn their child (or increasingly, children) have joined the Taliban. “Who’s to blame?” many parents ask. And then: “No, besides us.”

As parents search for answers, they frequently point the finger of blame somewhere else. There’s the media, which glamorizes the Taliban lifestyle with constant coverage while glossing over the dangers, such as the loss of an eye or limb. There’s peer pressure in school: Kids join the Taliban because it’s “cool,” what the “in” crowd is doing. And there’s America’s Mideast policy, which upsets even teens.

Ultimately, parents need to take responsibility for their children. You may think you’re doing your kid a favor by letting him “explore his spirituality” in Yemen, but you’re playing right into the hands of the enemy.

What Parents Can Do

Talk to your kids Don’t expect your children to learn about the dangers of the Taliban in school. Many schools don’t even have a Taliban-awareness campaign in place, thanks to the liberal courts.

Sit your kids down and give them the facts. If you dabbled in the Taliban as a youth and then quit, reinforce your decision and encourage your children to follow your example. Say that religious extremist groups are much stronger than in your day and far more dangerous. Be honest. Make sure your kids understand that you were wrong and that they should avoid the Taliban at all costs. And if you’re still in the Taliban, get help for yourself first. Your local FBI office is a good place to start.

Provide age-appropriate information Be sure that the information you offer fits your child’s age. A typical 6-year-old need only know that the people in the Taliban are “bad.” A few years later, your child will come to know them as “the evil ones.” Teens are old enough to be told how America’s support of Saudi Arabia greatly compromises the moral authority of the war on terrorism. If your child has questions about U.S. Mideast policy, admit that you don’t fully understand it either.

Encourage less dangerous activities It’s a fact: Kids who are involved in healthy activities are far less likely to join the Taliban. Provide your children with acceptable alternatives to terrorism. It’s especially effective to have your kids participate in activities banned by the Taliban, such as listening to music, dancing, singing, flying a kite or having fun.

Promote a positive self-image Kids who feel good about themselves don’t need the Taliban to make them feel good. You contribute to your child’s positive self-image by praising his nonviolent achievements, correcting inappropriate behavior before it becomes treasonous and practicing “tough love” when he brings automatic weapons into the house. A child who’s comfortable with himself is far less likely to leave home to join an ill-equipped militia halfway around the world.

Be alert Above all, keep in mind the four things you should know about your children at all times: 1) Where they are, 2) Who they’re with, 3) What they’re doing, and 4) Which side they’re rooting for in the war on terrorism. The Taliban is willing to take the time to gather this information. Are you?

Some similar exemption must also be made for the Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who was 15 years old when he was found, badly injured and barely alive, after a 2002 firefight between U.S. troops and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. (Khadr’s father, an al-Qaida supporter and fundraiser, had apparently dropped him off at a Taliban compound a few weeks earlier.) Based on what we see in the painful, revealing documentary “You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantánamo” — the first film to show actual interrogation footage from inside the secret American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — Khadr became a sort of ritual sacrifice by the Canadian government, an offering to its American allies and/or overlords. His case became a hot political issue north of the border, where Canadians pride themselves on a society that is more egalitarian, and more civilized, than that of their American neighbors.

Following a Canadian Supreme Court decision, most of Khadr’s seven-hour interrogation at Gitmo by CSIS officers — the approximate Canadian equivalent of the CIA — has been declassified, and veteran lefty documentarians Luc Côté and Patricio Henríquez use that claustrophobic, low-resolution 2003 footage as the basis for “You Don’t Like the Truth.” That sounds like something the interrogators might have said to Khadr, but it isn’t. It’s what he tells them after realizing they don’t want to hear his allegations that he was tortured by American forces, and that all his supposed confessions about knowing Osama bin Laden and attending al-Qaida barbecues were made up on the spot, to stop the pain.

You won’t see Khadr suffer physical torture on these surveillance tapes, although the interrogators rely on time-honored tactics of psychological abuse, alternately berating him and plying him with Big Macs. You will see a teenager who speaks idiomatic North American English, and who is obviously relieved to see fellow Canadians, whom he naively assumes have come to help him. And you’ll see him go through a near-total breakdown, sitting alone in the room weeping for his mother, after he realizes that no one cares about what happens to him and that he’s only interesting to his interrogators as long as he keeps making up stories about Osama and al-Qaida.

I have no idea whether Khadr actually threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Delta Force soldier, as was alleged after his capture. (Khadr has consistently denied it, and photographic evidence suggests that he had been shot through the back and was out cold before the soldier’s death.) But the Canadian interrogators barely mention it, and it feels suspiciously like an inflammatory distraction, thrown in mostly to alienate all possible North American sympathy. At best it’s an ancillary question. If Khadr was a genuine military combatant, then he can’t be prosecuted for killing an enemy soldier in battle. Furthermore, he would have to be considered a child soldier under international law, which theoretically immunizes him even for war crimes. Convicting him on such charges, as the government eventually did in a secret court on secret evidence, required the finding that he wasn’t a soldier but a civilian terrorist (even though he was supposedly linked to two organizations, al-Qaida and the Taliban, with whom the U.S. government has repeatedly said it’s at war).

Côté and Henríquez intersperse brief and highly effective interview segments between snippets of the interrogation tape, with subjects ranging from former U.S. military officers (including Khadr’s lawyer and psychiatrist) to former Guantánamo inmates (including Moazzam Begg, now a leading British activist for other detainees) to Khadr’s mother and sister (wearing full-face Islamic veils) to Damien Corsetti, the much-demonized former soldier who knew Khadr as a guard at Bagram. What comes through repeatedly is that questions of law and reason, or guilt and innocence, played no role in the case of Omar Khadr. He was a vulnerable and confused kid whose own government turned its back on him, which made him a perfect candidate to become one of the few Gitmo detainees convicted of something. He was 15 when he was captured, and will be 31 when he (supposedly) gets out.

“You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantánamo” is now playing at Film Forum in New York, with more cities and dates to follow.

Just over one third of the 100,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan will be brought back within 15 months (some 10,000 will leave this year with another 23,000 returnng just in time for the election). The draw-down, which will take a number of years, is still more rapid than his military commanders have advised (General David Petraeus, just named CIA chief, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have both publicy endorsed slow withdrawals. Obama mentioned neither Gates nor Petraeus in his speech).

GOP Response: (via Huffington Post) Some of Republican leaders have criticized Obama with reference to the advice of these military commanders. “This is not the ‘modest’ withdrawal that I and others had hoped for and advocated,” John McCain said, while the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell declared that “the drawdown of forces described by the president needs to be conducted in a manner that respects the professional judgment of our military commanders, preserves the security gains of the last year and allows for a slower pace of withdrawal if necessary.”

A number of GOP presidential hopefuls towed this line too: Mitt Romney said, “This decision should not be based on politics or economics… I look forward to hearing the testimony of our military commanders in the days ahead”; Herman Cain responded, “Sadly, I fear President Obama’s decision could embolden our enemy and endanger our troops.”

Some GOP candidates argued against Obama’s plan using similar reasoning, but with rhetoric steeped in American exceptionalism: “President Obama speaks of winding down our engagement in Afghanistan, but he does not emphasize the need for victory,” said Sen. Rick Santorum, while Tim Pawlenty said (and then tweeted), “When America goes to war, America needs to win.”

And then, the members of the growing cadre of Republicans pushing for an even faster troop withdrawal spoke out too: Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson said, “reducing troop numbers to pre-surge levels, and taking a year to do it, is not acceptable to the growing number of Americans, like me, who get the reality that there is no compelling reason to risk another life or another dollar in a conflict that has no end”; and, unsurprisingly, libertarian Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign chairman commented, “This move is too little, too late.”

(Our own Andrew Leonard, riffing on the argument for swift withdrawal based on spending, points out that we cannot afford to stay at war, but that the withdrawal plan will barely touch the deficit: Thirty-three thousand troops by next summer adds up to around $15 billion [in savings] — or about 1 percent of the U.S.’s $1.5 trillion deficit. This peace dividend isn’t going to result in a budget surplus any time soon.”)

Democratic response: Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi expressed the views of many in her party, saying “It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of US forces would happen sooner than the president laid out, and we will continue to press for a better outcome.” Senator Barbara Boxer, agreed, noting: “I am glad this war is ending, but it’s ending at far too slow a pace.”

International response: Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, called the drawdown “a good measure,” Politico reports. He admitted the Afghan security would in turn need to be strengthened. A representative from the Taliban also responded to Obama’s speech with a rare English statement. “Our armed struggle will increase from day to day,” he said.

According to the Guardian, British prime minister David Cameron “welcomed” Obama’s plan and commented “I have already said there will be no UK troops in combat roles in Afghanistan by 2015 and, where conditions on the ground allow, it is right that we bring troops home sooner.” France’s Nicolas Sarkozy announced too that France would follow the United States with a gradual draw-down of the 4,000 French troops stationed in Afghanistan. German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, said his country plans to start to reduce its contingent of 5,000 armed forces by the end of this year.

Watch Obama’s address East Room address, via WhiteHouse.gov:

Three men dressed in Afghan army uniforms stormed the police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, said Mohammed Honayon, a witness. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that one of the attackers detonated a suicide bomb vest outside the gates while the others rushed in and began shooting.

The crackle of gunfire echoed through the streets typically bustling with shoppers and government employees on a Saturday, the start of Afghanistan’s work week. The fighting ended by 3 p.m. when security forces shot dead the two other attackers. Three police officers, one intelligence agent and five civilians were killed in the attack, the Interior Ministry said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to The Associated Press, saying the group dispatched three suicide bombers.

The assault occurred shortly after Karzai announced during a speech at the presidential palace that his government and the U.S. have begun preliminary negotiations with the Taliban aimed at ending the conflict.

“In the course of this year, there have been peace talks with the Taliban and our own countrymen,” Karzai said. “Peace talks have started with them already and it is going well. Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations.”

Karzai said some of the Taliban emissaries that have met with members of the peace council he set up were only representing themselves, while others were speaking for the broader movement. The exact nature of the contacts was not immediately clear, and further details were not available.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive.

The capital is one of seven regions scheduled to be handed over to Afghan security control in late July — part of NATO’s efforts to begin transferring security responsibilities ahead of its planned 2014 withdrawal from the country. The U.S. also plans to start drawing down troops in July.

The last major attack in Kabul took place last month when a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital in late May, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing three.

Associated Press writers Ahmad Seir and Amir Shah contributed to this report.

Attacks have increased in Afghanistan since bin Laden’s death and since the start of the Taliban’s yearly spring offensive. On Monday, four NATO service members were killed in an explosion in the east, NATO said in a statement. The military alliance did not provide details on the attack or the nationalities of the dead.

Most of those with knowledge of the Taliban organization say Omar is hiding in southern Pakistan, around Quetta or Karachi.

Afghan news channel Tolo quoted an anonymous Afghan intelligence official as saying Omar had been shot dead in Pakistan while being moved from Quetta to North Waziristan with the help of former Pakistani intelligence chief Gen. Hamid Gul.

North Waziristan is a tribal area home to militants whose primary focus is attacking U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani intelligence official said that there was no information to suggest the report of Omar’s death was true. He spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject. U.S. and NATO officials said they had heard the report from Tolo but had no information to confirm or deny it.

Gul told the AP that the story was false.

“This is propaganda, sheer deception, disinformation,” Gul said. “I have never met him. I’ve never seen him. No contact whatsoever.”

Afghanistan’s leaders accuse Pakistan’s intelligence services of aiding Taliban and other insurgents fighting international and Afghan troops in the country, even as Islamabad battles the allied Pakistani Taliban at home.

Similar suspicions of collusion were raised after the raid on bin Laden, whose hiding place in a military town near the Pakistani capital led some to believe at least some Pakistani authorities must have known where he was. Pakistan denies that.

Latifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, said Omar and some Taliban commanders had disappeared four or five days ago while moving from Quetta to North Waziristan. Mashal suggested that “maybe an incident has happened along the way,” but emphasized that officials had no further information about the fate of the Taliban leader.

“We can confirm he’s been disappeared from his hide-out,” Mashal told reporters in Kabul.

Mashal said that Afghan’s intelligence agency had shared information about Omar’s whereabouts “more than 30 times” with neighboring countries, especially Pakistan. He said he didn’t know how that information had been used during Omar’s more than a decade in hiding.

“Most of the allies are honest, some are not,” the spokesman said.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Kabul to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. His discussions with Afghan and U.S. officials were expected to focus on how the three countries could work together to fight terrorism, improve economic ties and forge peace in Afghanistan.

Obama told the BBC in an interview broadcast Sunday that he could not allow “active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action,” and would send troops again if a senior Taliban leader were found in Pakistan.

Pakistan is furious that that United States sent Navy SEALs to raid bin Laden’s Pakistan hideaway earlier this month without informing Pakistani authorities in advance.

But there are also parallel efforts to get the Taliban leadership into negotiations with the Afghan government, making it unclear if such a strike would be in the interest of the American or Afghan governments.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks as part of their yearly offensive against NATO, Afghan government installations and officials. Insurgents also have promised revenge attacks after the killing of bin Laden.

The Taliban claimed they were behind an attack Saturday on the main military hospital in Kabul that killed at least six Afghan medical students.

On Monday, however, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told journalists that intelligence sources showed the Taliban-allied Haqqani network planned and carried out the suicide attack on the nation’s top medical facility.

Also Monday, a suicide bomber attacked a gathering of tribal leaders in eastern Laghman province, killing four tribal elders and wounding 14 others having lunch at a hotel, governor’s spokesman Faizanullah Patan said.

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Kabul and Nahal Toosi in Islamabad contributed to this report.