As President Obama ponders his options in Afghanistan, the resignation of a middle-level civilian official in Kabul has complicated the president's choices while a poll of Afghans lends a glimmer of optimism.

Matthew Hoh, a 36-year-old former Marine who headed a small provincial reconstruction team, said he resigned because "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan."

In his letter of resignation to the Director General of the Foreign Service, Nancy Powell, Hoh wrote that "I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

He noted that next fall, the "United States' occupation" will equal that of the Soviet Union's failed effort that began in 1979. "Like the Soviets," Hoh said, "we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people."

Ordinarily, the resignation of a middle-ranking official doesn't cause much of a stir. In this case, however, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, head of the U.S. mission in Kabul, and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, both sought to dissuade Hoh from leaving. He was to see Vice President Joseph Biden's foreign policy adviser this weekend.

Hoh's letter was leaked to the press, by whom is not clear. Hoh dated his letter Sept. 11, but it didn't show up in public until the Washington Post printed a front-page story on Tuesday. That was quickly followed by articles in other papers, reports on TV news, an interview on PBS News Hour and numerous Internet blogs.

Hoh's questioning of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan came as American deaths there mounted to a monthly record 58 as the end of October approached. The United States has deployed 68,000 men and women of all services in Afghanistan.

Hoh, who as a Marine fought in Iraq, ticked off a litany of ills he alleged in Afghanistan, including "glaring corruption and unabashed graft," a president affiliated with drug lords and criminals, provincial leaders who are power brokers and opportunists, and the recent elections, "dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout."

Hoh concluded: "The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made."

Meanwhile, however, a recent poll of Afghans released last week by the Asia Foundation, the nongovernmental organization promoting development in Asia, found 42 percent say the country is moving in the right direction, up from 38 percent last year, but below the 64 percent five years ago.

The reason for optimism was improved security, cited by 44 percent compared with 31 percent in 2006. Respondents also mentioned rebuilding and opening of schools for girls. Lack of security, however, was cited by 42 percent, down from 50 percent in 2008.

Of the respondents, 51 percent said "they fear for their personal safety." Of them, 17 percent said "they or someone in their family have been victims of violence or crime in the past year." Nearly one in 10 victims said this was due to militias, insurgents or foreign forces.

Which was not unlike Hoh's point.