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Published on Thursday, July 29, 2010 by The Guardian/UK
Endgame in Afghanistan: 'It's Taken a Year to Move 20km'
As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood
Sean Smith's brutal film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of war's stalemate. Warning: contains distressing images:
© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited
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32 Comments so far
Show AllGod forgive us
I watched a few minutes of this and was wondering what exactly the point was. Everything from the Imperial grunt point of view... yes, it's difficult to steal another civilizations country and resources - the victims are likely to put up some kind of fight with whatever they have at their disposal.
I couldn't watch the whole thing, as it is nauseating - what is the presumed "take home" message??? ... that the US underclass will have a difficult time stealing and occupying a resource rich foreign country for their overlords who hand down orders from plush country club golf courses and mahogany board rooms??
What a pile of SHIT!
Good point!
Going beyond all the economic/political ramifications, I can't help but feel compassion for these poor young fools. Going over to some other people's country, occupying it, and attempting futilely to control it. Engaging the "enemy," when the same kids could be putting on backpacks instead of camo and engaging with the same locals as friends.
Creating a totally unnecessary hell for themselves, in pursuit of some way to make a living, get a college degree. Truly tragic on all sides.
The fact that we're even in Afghanistan and that the war is being escalated, expanded and extended is beyond disgraceful. Let's also think about the unfortunate innocent Afghan civilians who've suffered most of all because of what the United States is doing to that country, get the hell out of there before more blood is shed and more lives on both sides, and then start tending to our own back yard. The same goes for Iraq, imho.
Way to go Guardian for providing some nice US military propaganda. Good job Common Dreams for helping them out. US OUT of Afghanistan now. They are illegally occupying that country.
WTF are these Americans doing way over there? For what reason? So much for "military intelligence".
Oil and Gas. No simpler explanation for the ridiculous lifestyle we live...or try to.
If this is "nice US military propaganda" then I'm frakin' Yoda. Who in their right mind would sign up after watching this? It's like Vietnam without the jungle. You don't see this on Fox, CNN or any of your war supporting networks. Running around a field in 55˚C heat while getting shot at isn't what's shown on any Go Army or Marines TV ads.
Believe me... there are tens of thousands of propagandized, brain-adled young American males who would view this as a supreme RUSH - akin to the most X-treme virtul reality game on Xbox and would be very happy to sign up to "smoke towelheads"
I have met many like this. If you think the prevailing mentality among modern poor youth is significantly different than that of "Hitler Youth" some 75 years hence, you are sadly mistaken.
When it comes time to use these miscreants on the "Homeland" protesters and rabble, they will gun your ass down in an instant - after all they work for the Emporer... what higher calling is there?
Not to mention all of the young American men and women whose only job opportunity is the military now that Wall Street, their military industrial media complex and the DC electeds messed up the economy so bad.
Well, that's not how the Marines were acting in this report. They sounded scared. How many "towelheads" did they smoke? Nada. The military doesn't tell it's potential recruits that they'll be shot at from sunup to sundown and never see who's shooting at them. That's a far cry from COD or any other of the war sim games. And don't whine to me about your fears of the "young miscreants" as you call them. If it comes down to the US military turning on it's civilian population, take a cue from the Afghan War and see how easy it is to fight them to a stalemate.
I recently listened to an audio recording of soldiers in Afghanistan, one was bragging about having picked off several of the 'enemy' that day. Later in the day that same guy's buddy was shot in the face, and died. He could be heard sobbing uncontrollably as he held his dying friend. He was so young, so confused, so terrified.
It made me wonder if he realized that one of those he shot earlier in the day may also have had a close friend, or family member, sob uncontrollably while he held him and watched as he bled to death.
Our poor killing their's. Their poor killing ours. The elite party on.
"Every War Has Two Losers" www.everywar.com/about.html
there are alternatives my friend and enemies .... to the misery
If leaders had hearts connected to the heads, and the common man had heads to match their hearts, war would not exist.
Thinking it does not affect 'me' today, means one is not thinking. One grows weary of praying for families left orphaned, decade and decade, today, tomorrow and as far into the future that I choose not to stand up to this insanity.
Our options to not having war(s) are immense, we seem unwilling to embrace any of them.
Its normal to be scared under such circumstances. Many young men become destroyed in the military escapade Mr. Obama feels is a good war. Its his war. He and his Party are only inteested in getting re-elected before the other shower. These others scream about war making abraod, wherever, while he feels he must not let them get the better of his Party in this regard. His advisors will say 'American Security (first duty)'.
That's what The USA has evolved into rapidly of late. Its a killing machine the likes of which mankind has never before experienced. Its total global war making with Armaments manufacturing leading the charge for the ecomomic survival of the Capitalist system itself. NATO is a monster lead by a war making entity called The USA.
Whatever about volunteering to join the army, the Army itself recruits carefully and propagandises well to many impressionable and vulnerable persons. These are then strictly trained to do what they are asked to do and they naturally try to survive. There are also many who look forward to action! When a comrade is killed or maimed these soldiers are more inclined become revenge killers and some include innocents as an enemy. War destroys and invasions or occupations will meet resistance. There is nothing worse than waging unnecessary war. And without a shadow of doubt these present wars are no more necessary than the man in the moon is. Yet peole elected into power feel they have to make these wars. They always insist they are necessary. That is an outright lie. Very few wars are necessary. Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan were not
Frightened young men kill when frightened in doubt? Accidents profilerate and an underbelly of imagined religious fervour, combined with growing racist attitudes, can easily prevail among such troops as are shown in this video. This pseudo-religious fervour is now pitted against Muslims in general and the Pashtun people of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the video. The USA lead NATO forces are fighting on one side in a civil war.
Why is that? What are boys from the USA doing in Afghanistan? Why are they doing this? Who supports this?
The USA citizens would be best advised to protest against their military. Are there legal ramifications in the homeland that might prevent such a movement developing? If so, then what might those ramifications be?
I simply refuse to believe that there are not high ranking officers within the Pentagon who understand how wrong things are. I'd imagine some are not cowardly about truely believing in a USA that only ever went to war 'as a last resort in self-defence' and if ever it did so, only using proportionality as a guiding principle.
The military propaganda is disgustingly deceptive and corrupting in its essentials. The corporate media play along which makes the challenges for those actively engaged in war opposition movements much more formidable. Citizens demanding that public airwaves and Nationwide Broadcasts become public owned and have independent media watchgog for fairness and accuracy? Wishful thinking?
Just looking for chinks in the armour.
Good analysis and useful for any understanding of the reality in the USA.
But face it, to paraphrase the words of the recent, mighty US prophet: You are not with US.
When one condemns Obama for continuing the bloody wars, keep in mind the Regime who created them, and also knew the bloody torture all had to deal with, especially little children. The Bush Bombs that crushed them, and the first drones use by him, and now Obama. The only difference between the two is that the Bush Dynasty wants a Bush Empire and the Tea Party intends to help. One needs also to remember it was Bush's father who use the Taliban, supplied them with weapons and funded them with money. Question the 9/11 attack, and why we overlook the Atrocities of Israel, who are pushing us into the war with Iran. Will a catastrophe occur to blame Iran to start another war?A lot of thought as to what has happened, what is, and what will.
To risk so much for so many years at ever accumulating cost.
The prize must be the control of a tremendous fortune.
Or is it just that each year, as ever more does get lost,
The fortune is only what has already been paid down.
What has already gone becomes for opportunity a ghost.
And the chasers have become like a sad haunted clown.
Their minds have become confused, turmoiled and tossed.
as if badly concussed, by explosive device blown.
This latest Afghan war was started, by lying idiots who bossed.
So its long past the time that the white towel should be thrown.
Or is the worlds biggest dominator still overcome by lust,
Leering, swearing, droning, not caring what it has sown.
What on earth is this footage doing here? What is its purpose?
Given the point of view from which it is shown (that of the U.S. soldiers and their days and nights of fear, disorientation, violence, physical hardship, severe suffering, and death), is it supposed to elicit compassion, understanding, or pity for these soldiers in us?
Note how the footage doesn't even show the people (save for those two boys standing there, as a soldier sweeps his metal detector) of the land in which the U.S. soldiers are stumbling and groping about.
The people of Afghanistan have been obliterated by this footage: they have been reduced to a faceless presence lurking in the heat drenched and dust filled landscape, a presence that is merely mining the terrain, making the life of the U.S. soldiers miserable and hellish, and tearing away at their bodies and minds. The footage denies them their humanity in that it refuses to acknowledge that they are standing up to an army of occupiers that is savaging their land and that they want to drive out of their "home-land."
The footage thus seems to have as much purpose as the savaging of Afghanistan itself: to eradicate an entire set of people to make way for Empire and its military bases.
I do not think the intent was to have compassion for the US soldiers, but more of how confused and chaotic the whole mess is. Watching this footage of these young men playing to the camera, as if in a movie, "cover me" and all, its very sad that these very real people "casualties" and service people alike are dying for nothing at this point but the "Military Industrial Complex". Its Obama's war alright and he seems to be buying into the same group-think as the neo-cons before him. I dont know what its going to take to stop the madness? Americans just would rather the whole thing just disappear , unless they have skin in the game.
So because our politicians are all @#&holes, both Republicans, and Democrats, warmongering and thumping their chests up on Capital Hill, sending these men to their deaths like this, we're not supposed to get a bird's eye view of it, see it, and know what it really means?
Have you ever considered how many, to this day, come home dead, in coffins, and we never see them? How many military funerals there still are over and over, and it's never in the news? And when it is in the news, they say abstract things like "an entire platoon was ambushed today," etc. That makes it sound so benign - just ONE (platoon), not many, etc. Of course, nonmilitary people, like myself, have no idea what a "platoon" versus is "brigade" is in quantity, etc., and that's what they're counting on when they report it with such abject apathy.
You sir, are a callous person with a heinous lack of compassion.
Since when does a news report about military deaths have to have "equal time" about civilian deaths in it? Would you advocate likewise, if it was reversed? If it were only about Afghan citizens, would you advocate it should have reports about military staff, as well? I sincerely doubt it.
You know, we here in the USA do not, not I, nor my friends, approve of these wars. We do not approve of what our government is doing. But when I write my (South Carolina) representatives about it, I basically get told nicely to go stuff it, that they do not agree and are not interested in my point of view.
Nor do I approve of us having an empirical mentality. I have thought for a long time that we have no right to police the world.
So why don't you take your unkind heartlessness and just go sulk quietly somewhere, please?
Hey, rm's post gives us a nice bird's eye view of U.S. certified, government inspected one-sided compassion for U.S. mercenaries.
Highly recommended reading.
Let's give the man a big patriotic hand!
Oikos is right.
I appreciated the film because it brought back memories of my time in Vietnam. The general pointlessness of these operations is quite apparent. Naturally, given the source, this film would be limited to the POV of the Nato troops (US in this particular case). I would wish that it get the widest possible distribution because it shows people what they might find themselves involved with if they join up. I don't think that the situation could appeal to very many.
Another point is that the troops doing this type of operation are experiencing a constant threat of maiming and death and they will always feel (the survivors) a sense of the personal sacrifice that they have made and this itself will be a long running theme of their political lives after (if ever) the war is over. For people who haven't made the sacrifice (however pointless or, indeed, criminal that sacrifice is) there is a value to seeing what it entails and to understand what factors will drive the veterans' attitudes in the future.
Finally, most or all of the persons appearing in the film will experience PTSD for the remainder of their lives. It is useful for the non-involved to see what conditions are responsible for this disorder. It is another reason to avoid participation.
We are in Iraq and Afghanistan simply because of the lifestyle we have chosen and believe we are entitled to.
What a friggin' joke!!!
Forget politco/military ramifications. It's the lifestyle, baby.
"Entitled to"????? How simply stupid!!! Entitled to exactly what?????
sheer madness..................
Usually this is what they do: http://vimeo.com/11491707
Hey Gates, hands off Assange, and Wikileaks, you bastards in Washington have been cheating and lieing to the American people for 9 years and 2 trillion dollars.
Its over Gates, the people are entitled to the truth, and the truth is, the wars were unnecessary, concocted,and based on fear and lies.
You keep the SS and the Gestapo off Wikiliks, we the people in America need honest journalism, we cant get that here at home because you have intimidated all the news agencies.
And to say that the reports have put our men in harms way , is disingenuous to say the least, you Mr. Gates, and your criminal greedy gang of war mongers put our troops in harms way.
You , have twisted reports for years, too keep your money machine going, that war could have been averted , with money and inside politics. We could have had the Taliban arrest and jail terrorists with the right incentive, but Bush / Cheney wanted the war , so they could invade Iraq and then Iran.
Thats the truth Gates, and you cant handle us knowing the truth.
I dont know who the CIA,NSA, FBI work for, us or the rich war monger elite, but I hope they will protect the constitution , and freedom of the press, and shut down the war mongers not Wikileaks.
And if the Administration and the Pentagon are going to lie and fabricate reports, I expect our military personal to shed light on the truth, they are serving the security of the American people and protecting us from dictators and tyrants.
Whora!!!
It shows the futility of the mission from the very beginning of the shoot. All those humble homes, all those civilians and the US military does not know who is the enemy. The microcosm of the randomness and the futility of this occupation are evident even though this clip is taken from a military pov.