I always feel like no matter how well a journalist covers Afghanistan, its only a small slice of the pie, for everything that is going on over there. And that is not to discredit the journalists, they do a great job, there is just so much going on over there, you gotta pick and choose your stories.
For me, one of the greatest tragedies in Afghanistan as a result from the US war is the drug addict problem over ther. I haven't studied the issue in a couple of years, but I remember looking at pictures and statistics of heroin addicts in Afghanistan. As the war destroyed their country citizens turned to drugs and so did leaders, but the latter did so for money. The citizens literally have nothing better to do. And thats not to say they weren't poppy farmers before the war, they were, the majority were just not heroin abusers.
In 2008 I took a seminar about the Afghanistan War, premised on the question, is Afghanistan a failed state? In a room with 12 reasonably bright American students we all were able to point out terrific errors that were causing some big issues. I remember reading that 70-80 percent of the trained Afghani police force was just signed up to get a paycheck. They never showed up for duty or anything.
I do a lot of thinking about Afghanistan, because the situation is unique, yet historically predictable. In my opinion, its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there; and its just as difficult for the people in Afghanistan to understand our way of life, and how to assimilate to what we were setting up.
At present count, 3 people from my high school class have died fighting in Afghanistan, and 5 counting the year ahead of me (0 of my college mates, point for another story..). And this is what counts for me. I like to think that because the situation is complex and can get confusing, the best way to gain an understanding is to study individual stories, stuff that usually gets hidden behind the larger scene.
From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end.
tl;dr The ground truth is NOTHING like what you see in the MSM.
I fought in Iraq as a paratrooper mostly in Baghdad from '04 to '05. While there I was really surprised by the reporting I saw. We had CNN in our hooch (paid Hadji to hook it up). We had satellite Internet (again paid Hadji for it) and I read the NY Times. The reporting there could not have been further from reality. We used to scratch our heads at the reporting each morning on the day prior in Baghdad. It was like they were reporting from a different planet. You should not be surprised that the ground truth is wildly different from what is being reported. My first briefing when I got on the ground in 2004 was that we were past a simple insurgency and now in a small scale civil war that we were trying to stop from becoming a full scale humanitarian crisis. I recall a lot of reporting and very brainy discussion about the insurgency at that time but I don't recall the civil war entering that discussion until late 2005 when I got back to the states. Keep in mind that in Afghanistan most of reporters don't go out without ISAF patrols because that would not be very safe, it was the same in Iraq. This drastically alters the story you get. On the flip side, I'm pleasantly surprised by the courage displayed by some of the PBS Frontline reporters and the places they've gone. I love Frontline.
As they say, America isn't at war America is at the shopping mall. The US Army is at war.
> its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there
It's not hard at all. Country A invades country B. Wreaks havoc and assigns a puppet government. Army is in disarray, civilian life is disrupted. It doesn't take a "reasonably bright American student" to guess the conditions and sentiments of the local populace.
How did anyone argue "Afghanistan is not a failed state", other than the "it was never a state, so it didn't fail, it just never won" (although in the monarchy it was OK in certain parts, for about a decade).
I honestly don't desire to belittle or discount your anecdotes, but equating failed state = drug abusing population seems problematic when you look around in the West.
> From the research I have done, the majority of
Afghans want peace to the point where they would
accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the
continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the
war really needs to end.
As I looked at US efforts at essentially 'nation
building', often on the other side of the world, to
try to contribute to US national security, I came up
with a simple observation:
In a country with a government and economy that
function at all, there has to be and is a 'culture'
with social structures, education, economic
activity, leadership, laws, government, usually
religion, etc. While such a culture has to exist,
it may be very different from that in the US.
In Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world, the
'culture' is heavily just Islam: Islam controls
social structures, e.g., sex, marriage, child
rearing, the role of family, etc. Islam also
controls most of education, much of the economic
activity, essentially all the laws, the police, the
justice system, the government, the foreign policy,
and, of course, religion. We can toss in
architecture, what people eat, and what they wear.
Basically from how people dress, eat, work, etc.,
its all Islam. So, in an Islamic country, take away
Islam, and there's no culture at all and, then, just
chaos, e.g., criminals, gangs, civil war, etc. Net,
in an Islamic country, for a government leader can
have an Islamic king (e.g., Kuwait), Islamic strong
man dictator (Saddam, Assad), or Islamic cleric
(Iran). That's about it.
One can try to set up a Western, secular government
in an Islamic country, but the leader will have no
cultural foundation to stand on and, thus, will be
trying to sell pie in the sky. Meanwhile the
clerics will be working 24 x 7 to get their people
up on their hind legs against the guy, and too soon
he will lose, maybe his head.
For anything like US democracy, laws, police,
secular government, freedom of religion, etc., just
f'get about it. We need to understand: In the US,
our 'culture' of democracy is much more than just
our Constitution and elections. Instead, in
addition, nearly all of us have 'bought into' a
'social contract' where we believe in, invest in,
and trust in our democracy. So for most significant
transgressions against the 'culture', the voters get
indignant, outraged, incensed, infuriated, and up on
their hind legs and vote! E.g., each member of the
House has to stand for election each two years,
which is darned short, and keeps him on a very short
leash, and if he messes up then likely he's out'a
there. To borrow from a Bond movie, getting caught
in a motel room with a cheerleader does nicely.
Really the Islamic countries are about 500 years
behind the history of Western Europe, e.g., when
Western Europe was fighting wars of religion and
starting to develop respect for humanism, individual
freedom, secular government, and democracy. Moving
ahead 500 years is not easy. The rivers of Europe
ran red with blood for hundreds of years before we
got to 'Western Civilization'. Europe has been the
most effectively bloody place on the planet until
finally it started to learn to live in peace,
recently, hopefully.
Net, Afghanistan is going to be an Islamic country,
some version of an Islamic country, but still an
Islamic country, likely run by a king, strong man,
or cleric. Sorry 'bout that. We won't like such a
'culture': Some of the men use boys for sex. They
marry off their daughters at age 7 or 13 or some
such. They refuse to educate females. They use
Islamic laws and justice. Islam runs essentially
everything.
That's just the way it is. That's the reality. We
need to face the reality. We don't like it. We see
it as a 500 year out of date sh!tpit, and we are
correct. Right, it sucks. We know that.
Then, facing that reality, we can look for how to
get what we need, e.g., US national security, that
is, to keep Afghanistan from being the base of
operations of another 9/11 attack on the US.
Okay, then, that's what we really need, our real
'bottom line': Keep Afghanistan from being the base
of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. We
need little or nothing more than that from
Afghanistan. Can we get that? Sure. How? Two
steps. Step 1. Put in place a bunch of INTEL. Step
2. Leave. [It took the US 12 years to figure this
out?] If our INTEL tells us that they are starting
to attack the US again, then level them, appropriate
places plus some for good measure, from the air.
Done.
What will happen after we leave? Mostly we don't
give a sh!t. But I'd put my money on a government
run by an Islamic cleric, e.g., the Taliban.
Now, US military, welcome home. Well done.
Yes, we can be sure that the Muslim clerics will get
their people up on their hind legs shouting "Death
to America". Sounds like a declaration of war to me
for which some USAF guy in a container room in
Nevada should push a button on a drone control and
stop that stuff. But if all they do is shout, then
we don't always have to push the button.
England was long smart enough to work effectively in
that part of the world, in Egypt, Palestine, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India,
Burma, Singapore, etc., without getting all bent out
of shape trying to bring English culture to those
places.
The US needs to quit being so darned simplistic,
wise up, learn from the English 150 years ago,
update the lessons a little, use our drones, INTEL,
etc., do the smart things, and quit bleeding the US
white on absurd foreign adventures from just totally
unrealistic, head in the sand, simplistic foreign
policy nonsense. We will not get what we have
wanted in Afghanistan. Instead we will wise up and
get what we can and need or just go broke on
nonsense.
There is this recurring rumour that USA helps to deliver heroin from Afghanistan (and whereever) to Europe via their military bases. Particularly in Albania.
I don't know where it is coming from, but little doubt that USA intervention in Afghanistan leads to an increase of Heroin production there which then gets smuggled out.
Taliban needs to wage war and guns don't buy themselves.
From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end.
And so would have the majority of Americans back in 2001, but they wouldn't give up Bin Laden, so they paid the price.
The taliban operates like the mafia in Afghanistan. They go from provincial village to village, effectively saying "Hey, nice village you have here...it would be a shame if something were to happen to it"
They do provide legitimate protection. If bandits or unsavory characters harass the village, the taliban will roll up with AKs and rpgs. They also adjudicate local disputes like "he stole my goat" or "he had sex with my daughter". The afghan military and police forces don't spend a lot of time in the poorest regions of the country, so it's usually the taliban that has to make someone give back the goat or marry the daughter.
In return for protection and dispute resolution, the people in poor afghan villages usually grow poppy on their lands to be sold as opium and volunteer military aged males as taliban recruits. When you think of this system at scale, running unchecked, you can see how 9/11 style acts of terrorism happen. The bigger threat is that a well resourced and uncontrolled taliban in Afghanistan could destabilize the whole region by inciting muslim conflicts.
The US response was close to being appropriate for disrupting a protection racket. In the near term, they sent marines to provide protection for poor villages and actively hunt the taliban. In the long term they tried to introduce free democracy to the country, to provide security and rule of law to the poorest people and put the taliban out of business.
The reason it's taken so long to produce results is optimism on the part of western politicians. Afghanistan is a country that's only loosely held together and there are many factions and families in Kabul competing to grab power in a newly formed government. It could still be decades before things are settled enough that they have time to worry about protecting their poorest citizens, and a strong taliban doesn't pose a direct threat to the most lucrative parts of the government.
It's a complicated situation mostly because the taliban is exploiting people who have little to offer to the government that is supposed to protect them. But many democracies start out this way, and ultimately western action may have helped the situation.
> When you think of this system at scale, running unchecked, you can see how 9/11 style acts of terrorism happen.
9/11 hijackers were mostly well educated, middle-class Saudi Arabians. Not Taliban, as you seem to imply.
If anything, what could be argued is that Afghanistan lacking a national police force makes it easy for terrorist groups to establish military training camps there. But that's a whole different thing.
The fundamental problem with the government is that in the name of expediency we put people who hated the Taliban in charge and called it a democracy. Then when they maintained their power by openly stealing elections, we didn't call their bluff because we were trying to pretend that they are an independent country. The example that everyone sees is corruption starting at the top, and flowing all of the way down.
Now we're trying to declare victory and leave. But the existing kleptocracy can't stand. Everyone knows it. We just don't want to keep dying for no purpose. And the kleptocracy is only seeking to steal as much as they can before they lose power.
Just checking, but you do know that the Taliban and Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11 or any major international terrorism? Al Qaeda on other had is a different beast, but although they were operating in Afganistan for a time, they are nothing like the loose Mafia you describe.
A decent job has been done of removing Al Qaeda, but the only way to change a country like Afghanistan is to stop sending millions over there in cash from international drug money. The war on drugs helped fund this situation. And doesn't seem to be helping to bring a resolution yet at great cost to them and us.
> The reason it's taken so long to produce results is optimism on the part of western politicians.
No. The reason it hasn't worked is because it's a total lie.
Afghanistan wasn't invaded to help it, or to stop terrorists, it was invaded for oil, handy bases near countries we need to remain "allies", etc.
> [The US response to the taliban was to send] marines to provide protection for poor villages and actively hunt the taliban.
Roughly, yes. And had this been done for the reasons stated, at any of the times various segments of the population and world-wide humanitarian groups had asked for it, you'd have been saviors.
But that wasn't the goal or you'd have done it that way - not in freak-out mode.
The "failed state" in Afghanistan is the one you're building. Unwanted, known criminals, ruling over a set of borders nobody feels attached to.
One of the major problems that occupying forces have had in Afghanistan is that modern military strategy fundamentally isn't designed for taking and holding ground. Outside of the bases in Afghanistan, there is not one square meter of ground that is "owned" by the coalition.
The approach seems to be that transient patrols, haphazardly driving around and visiting villages in giant bomb proof robot trucks, is a substitute for thousands of years old strategies of taking, holding and controlling territory. There's no front lines in the kind of conflict because that's how the new strategy has defined the conflict. The last time a modern military in a major conflict actually took and held ground was probably the Korean War. After that it was endless insurgencies or hit-win-withdraw like in the first Iraq war.
This is opposed to the Taliban which can comfortably move into a village and live there 24/7, becoming "the villagers" as much as anybody who was there before. A robot truck driving up and asking "where are the non-villagers, where are the bad guys?" will get no answer because everybody is a villager, and the guy making bombs in the afternoons is a village elder the rest of the day. There are no bad guys.
Afghanistan isn't a failed state, it's an anti-state, its borders are a reflection of the borders of its neighbors -- extending only so far as they cared to and stopping when the terrain became too difficult to bother. Within this zone are several city-states and otherwise large stretches of lawless territory connected, but not held together, by a network of smugglers and local warlords. The coalition controls none of it save for perhaps the city-state of Kabul.
Of course the ability to take and control territory means lots and lots of manpower, which runs contrary to modern military thinking. This forces military leadership into a state of sustained denial that this or that alternate approach will be the one that opens up the opportunity for Afghanistan to develop into a real state. They're flummoxed that it isn't happening.
But there's sadly only one proven way to accomplish this goal, take, hold and control territory. Put in place a carefully controlled puppet dictator or similar for a couple decades, one who will build up strong institutions of government and industry. Then once these things are in place, kill him or his dynastic line off (or have a quiet democratic revolution) and have the people assume ownership of these institutions and industries. Sure if the timing of these things is off it fucks up and we end up with Iran. But if the timing is good we end up with South Korea.
Random theory I have (hopefully some HN-ers with actual military knowledge can weigh in): modern militaries need less technology and more manpower. It seems since I was a kid politicians have been saying that armed forces should become smaller and more high-tech. That means less bodies sent home in coffins and also more contracts for BAE Systems, so it's a popular message.
That all works well (very well) when you're invading countries. Doesn't work so well when you decide you need to build a new country out of the ruins. Maybe we'd do better if instead of spending billions on flying robot assassins to fight tribal hill-farmers, we simply enlisted more humans to take command.
The only other option I can see is to start running the American empire British-style - they ran very efficient colonies by exploiting existing tribal divisions, usually by recruiting some existing elite as their colonial administrators. Not trying to implement democracy in tribal regions that don't yet have stable institutions or the rule of law would probably also help.
Just so we are clear on one thing: the last war that US took a part of that was a war fought in the name of freedom was War War 2 that ended in 1945. Every single War after that date had nothing to do with Americans living on American soil being free, safe, or whatever. You had to have your brain removed to believe that invading Iraq or Afghanistan (and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent, as a by-result of every military conflict) was necessary, because otherwise those nations and their people will come here and violate the US soil.
Both Iraq and Afghan war were carefully crafted by Military Industrial Complex from day one (first step: create problem, like in Iraq WMD's that were never found {glad there are some countries like Switzerland where they still prosecuted war criminals [1]}, step two: offer solution: offer piece by using force, step three: execute - by spending trillions of tax dollars), so you should understand war is nothing more than good business. Bloody but good. Stalin said one person killed that's a murder, millions is only a statistics, and that's how I believe those pulling strings can sleep at night. Oh by the way: as you remember those WMDs were never found (but sure they existed, okay?), but rest assured they moved them somewhere around, conveniently. Never mind 100,000 civilians dead (or some surveys shows 600k, or .. 1 million! [2]).
I have a respect for american soldiers, but I wish they were more educated on what they are really doing. They are NOT protecting american soil or fighting for their own country. Those are gone long time ago, as Chief in Command (President of the USA) is carefully following NATO orders, and US becomes a part of North American Union. Their action, whether successful or not, have nothing to do with us here being safe on american soil. Had they been educated they are just a tool in hands of few with access to the highest standing politicians that grab more tax money and give it into hands of Military Industrial Complex, they would have stopped participating in the war, knowing the real name of the game, like fighting for oil in Iraq.
I agree that they have lots and lots of quality stuff, but they also have a quality control problem for good parts of their portfolio. The great ones offset the bad ones by leaps and bounds, for sure. But for every documentary like this one, there seem to be a couple hipsterish driveltaries that I close after a few minutes.
Sure, I suppose you cannot break new ground without landing some misses and sure, it's not like everything has to be mindblowing and perfect or even deeply valuable. But some of these misses make me wonder how anybody ever thought they were a good idea in the first place.
I think Vice has an aversion to "self censor", trying to get as much stuff out there as they can simply for the heck of it and as a means to retain credibility - and I applaud them for that. But it's not as black and white and doesn't help when your expectation of quality gets rather deeply disappointed at times. It's a form of brand dilution that might become a problem in the future.
They had a video team at the Bitcoin conference; talked to the producer and expressed how amazed I am at their consistently high quality.
Usually when I see news about something I know a lot about (say, the Jalalabad region weapons manufacturers, or the PI underground arms people), I'm full of wtf. But everything I've seen from Vice to date has been "oh, yes, that's exactly how it is" or "I wish I could have gone over there and seen that".
The material in this piece appears to have been part of a BBC panorama documentary: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21547542 - the BBC refer to Ben Anderson as a "BBC panorama reporter". On the other hand, in his AMA he refers to himself as a "filmmaker for VICE."
Regardless on who produced the documentary, Vice should still get credit for curating and hosting it like this.
Like their waragi episode, where they spent a few scant minutes on the topic of the endemic drinking problem (which is very prevalent) and the entire rest filming drunk people and trying the brew themselves... oh and they sent a person that couldn't pronounce the name of the drink properly. Well done Vice. Quality
I was thinking the same thing until I watched a documentary about France's Toughest Rappers. And unfortunately I know very well the rape scene and this documentary was nothing but a big joke: Lies, bullshit, ...
This reminds me so much of being over there. This documentary does such a great job of showing the utter confusion and screwed up nature of fighting counter-insurgencies.
Every day is like choosing between different types of cancer. There is no 'winning' only seemingly less lethal varieties of the same disease. To make it worse, you are choosing which cancer to support through an intermediary, the interpreter. After a short time there you realize how much of a gap the language barrier is and how debilitating it is to not be able to build genuine relationships with your interlocuteur because you have to wait for the interpretation.
There is no 'solution' to Afghanistan and there is no 'winning'. People accuse NATO soldiers of war crimes everyday without even realizing the legitimate war crimes we prevented every single place we went. Afghanistan is still the jungle and the strongest wins. That isn't going to change from one day to the next. At this point, warfare is all that they know. They've been at it for over 30 years.
Unfortunately, you walk away thinking that the only solution is to be the strongest.
> People accuse NATO soldiers of war crimes everyday without even realizing the legitimate war crimes we prevented every single place we went.
Had we gone into Afghanistan in the 90s when various groups of locals were asking us to we might have fought about as much, in the end, but we'd have been there at the request of the people, actually building relationships, instead of continually rebuilding a failed-by-design state for some bullshit 9/11 excuse.
Bin Laden might still have happened because he wasn't depending on Afghanistan, or he might not have, because the allies could have had a better (good) reputation in the area negating much of the terrorist fervor.
But, I (one who criticizes our soldiers for war crimes) do recognize that we often, ultimately, bring some good to the survivors - hospitals, clean water, etc, and often stop many ongoing killings and other horrible practices. But never for the reasons we say we're there and only in doing things that perpetuate the cycle of war such as setting up dictators and selling critical resources and infrastructure.
Even if in their specific case any given soldier may save more lives than they cost, our war overall and our continued ability to wage it via the complicity of our soldiers, will cost far more lives in the end.
Refusing to fight for an unjust cause, or hurt without need, is a duty of all soldiers of modern civilized militaries. Sure, it realistically means jail for those who refuse - but it means death for their victims if they don't.
Afghanistan and Iraq were clearly not justified by 9/11 or implicated by any related evidence. By fighting for the USA and allies despite these lies, without the mandate of the people, soldiers are essentially pissing on the rule of law.
We're showing - through action not words - that no matter what they do we'll just make shit up and bomb them. Why do we expect them to expect anything else?
If our governments couldn't field the army unjustly, our peacekeeping might not only be welcome but might finally work.
This is unbelievable... I mean what can be done when everyone is just high as f and just basically trippin all day. Afganistan is OK with how things are now, it seems, so I guess the only relevant take away from this, just leave the country ASAP with as few expenditures and casualties as possible.
I'd also make sure the Afghans who helped us get out (which is part of the pending comprehensive immigration bill), and that any Afghans who are actually sane are considered fairly for education/refugee status/etc. in the west. But really, Afghanistan itself is essentially doomed, and GTFO is the only way to go.
I've never been in the military, so I'm sure there is a great deal that I don't understand- or worse, think I understand when I've got it backwards.
When I watch something like this, I'm absolutely blown away by how utterly incompetent the local military is no matter how much time we put into attempting to train them. Somehow in the US we're able to take (often poor) 17/18 year olds, and in 10 weeks of BCT (Basic) and then in 3 week to 2 years of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) we're able to create pretty damn disciplined soldiers. Yet, how many years did it take for us to try to train troops in Iraq, and it sounds like they still just unloaded entire clips whenever they saw a rabbit in the desert.
When these countries turn over top leadership (Iraq, Afganistan, Egypt, etc) it feels that they completely lose all historical training/ability for the military and go back to square one. Complete anarchy. It sounds like a huge percentage of their people defect seemingly randomly.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't feel like this happens (generally) in European countries when there is a massive leadership change. A post WW1 Germany was able to keep enough military knowledge/discipline together to be a seriously powerful force by WW2- and that certainly didn't have external forces in there trying their hardest to give them all the help possible. Post Russian Revolution USSR was quite a force to be reckoned with as well.
Why is it so damn hard to set up decent military training? Seems like a process we should understand by now, since we've put millions of young people through it. We (americans) initially setup West Point in the middle of a revolution and have been running it since (although it wasn't the United States Military Academy until 1802).
I'm absolutely certain it isn't because westerners are smarter, better, etc (we aren't)... but there is something seriously weird over there at the same time (malnutrition, lack of basic formal education system, cultural differences, too many generations of instability (maybe one generation works ok, but 3 breaks things seriously))
>how utterly incompetent the local military is no matter how much time we put into attempting to train them. Somehow in the US we're able to take (often poor) 17/18 year olds, and in 10 weeks of BCT (Basic) and then in 3 week to 2 years of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) we're able to create pretty damn disciplined soldiers
A country's military is a reflection of and limited by the society that spawns it. The USA can keep disciplined and ethical soldiers because it has never suffered civil unrest, never been invaded, enjoys prosperity, freedom, public law and justice. No such thing can be said of Afghanistan or Iraq.
Moreover - the "10 weeks of BCT" is not "just" "10 weeks of BCT". There is a logistics and supply train several tho-- million pages long that creates those "just" 10 weeks.
Consider the fact that humans are recruited. Recruiters need to be trained, fed, paid, and have offices. That costs money. Afghanistan has no money.
Consider the fact that young men need to be transported from and to BCT: this requires roads free of IEDs, requires fuel for trucks, favourable economic conditions to produce or import buses.
Consider the fact that a certain percentage of all military trainees quit before completing that training. This is accounted for and expected: there are 300 million humans in the USA and this is acceptable losses.
Consider the fact that abiding by the laws of a nation and strict adherence to authority is something these "17/18" year olds have done for two decades by the time their military training is over. It is ingrained into their psyche to follow the law from the earliest age, in the most gentle of methods: by the witnessing of safety and prosperity of Americans abiding by the law.
Consider an Afghani youth: what is ignrained into them is an invsion by Russia and now invasion by America. How confident in justice do you think they are? How inclined are they to respect authority? How confortable are they submitting to a national government?
A country's military is fundamentally a reflection of the society it spawns. Afghanistan is a failed state in every respect, for the last several decades, and as such it cannot muster a professional military despite the efforts of the US-led coalition.
The Taliban were actually pretty hardcore counter-narcotics in the late 1990s, with western support. They only partnered with the narcotics industry after 9/11 when fighting the US.
I've heard this semi-seriously described as the "Turn Them Into Detroit" strategy, and arguably this is the long term strategy we've selected although in an unspoken manner. Follow the money. I'm talking long term as in over decades of occupation not long term as in next financial quarter.
I've also seen the same argument in reverse, if we cut back on social service payments, as seems economically inevitable in the long term, our own inner cities will rapidly look much like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. So if you want to see a realistic projection of "Detroit 2030", just look at "Somalia 2013".
First off, I didn't watch the whole thing, I got sick of it. So, my comments aren't necessarily about the documentary, but to provide some perspective. The below are notes I took while reading in no particular order, so the argument is a bit disjointed. I spent a year as an embedded advisor in Afghanistan and just returned last month. Prior to that I was in Iraq for a year as an advisor in 2009.
Despite my feelings for the documentary, I commend the crew for the work they did. They did the best they could to report what they saw. However, they let preconceived notions and a minute slice of experience significantly influence their perspective. This is inevitable to some extent, but incredibly dangerous in this case. When it happens with a small news story, not such a big deal. But 99.9% of the population has no experience or knowledge on Afghanistan so their opinions and everything they know is based on what they read (yeah right) and what they watch (the preponderance). This gives those who report on Afghanistan great power, but also great responsibility. We can only hope those who consume this swill are more than sheep.
-There are ANP units of all levels of competency. The one we were with was stellar. Sure, others we worked with left much to be desired, but it wasn’t the norm. At times units farther away from the 'flagpole' have less supervision and fewer resources. They resort to what they're used to and what they need to do to survive, which is expected. Lord of the flies anyone? People tend to act that way in such environments, even in the US.
-The documentary was disappointing because it sought to show the Afghans in a bad light. It was unbalanced and failed to explain some of the cultural reasons behind some of the examples. Their culture is fundamentally different from ours and they do the best they can to survive in that environment. Service members are there for between 7-12 months, it's a sprint for us. They’ve been there and will be there for the long haul. In their past, how many nations have come and gone? What does such turmoil do to a culture, a nation, and its people?
-There is a significant focus on drug use, which is somewhat missing the point. How prevalent is drug use in the United States? If the US had the history of Afghanistan with a fledgling government and security forces, would it be any different? Our culture sees drug use differently than theirs. Our alcohol is their weed. Should a professional force be under the effects of substances while on duty? No, but let’s talk more about why things are the way they are. As the force professionalizes, these things will improve.
-Sangin, the region in most of the filming, is one of the worst parts of Afghanistan. What if we made a documentary about the worst parts of the US? The ghettos and slums, homeless, murders, drug use, etc. and named it “This is what America looks like.” The US documentaries on these issues pale in comparison to all of the positive coverage. All we see about Afghanistan are the shitty things. Not the progress, not the new schools or education, not the hard working people. When we do, it’s drowned out by the bad stuff.
-The same goes for corruption. We can't help but see corruption through our Western lens, but it's seen differently in Afghanistan. Think about how an Afghan documentary would talk about US alcohol consumption, fashion, sex, and other aspects of our culture? It'd probably sound quite similar. It’s almost impossible to think of it differently because we’ve had the luxury of structure, strong government, order, etc. in the land of plenty.
-I'm not an expert in Afghanistan, but the perspective in this documentary is unfair. Sure, some advisor teams were embedded with subpar units lead by completely corrupt, uninvolved commanders but this is not a representation of units or the government as a whole.
-Why does this documentary point out every wrong thing the Afghans do in the course of their day? What about the good things? I'm sure if I held a camera on any of us all day it'd be easy to pick us apart. It's an easy thing to do when you haven’t been the one struggling.
-During the year our Afghans made significant progress. They wanted to get better and they did. Now they have their own sustainable training programs and they're getting better all the time. Are they perfect? No. Do they still make mistakes? Yes.
-What was this documentary actually trying to achieve? The reporter is from the UK, what about the UK's history in Afghanistan. Let's talk about their losses in Afghanistan and the general sentiment towards Afghans. After spending some time at the MOB in Lashkar Gah, it's quite disappointing to see how Afghans (even our interpreters) are treated at times by British military personnel. Let's get a crew and film that. Are the UK forces bad? Not at all, they’re great, they’re our brothers and we rely heavily on each other. But if you’re filming 24/7 it’s easy to point out every time someone stumbles, because we all do it. At the very least, acknowledge your biases as a source of news.
-This documentary is one-sided. The unfortunate thing is that most people look for things that validate their existing arguments. I can only imagine the countless people nodding their heads watching the documentary who can't even find Afghanistan on a map and who've learned everything they know about Afghanistan through the news or shit documentaries like this.
I’m not an expert on Afghanistan and I am speaking from my experiences with multiple Afghan units from all pillars. In my time there I worked with units in Helmand and Nimroz provinces and spent some time in Kabul.
Is Afghanistan doomed? I don’t know. But I do know that encouraging negative sentiment based on minimal experience doesn’t help and it’s a betrayal of the trust people put in those who deliver their news. It’s also a disservice to every service member who’s spent time or gave their lives to make it work. We all do the best we can, but our ‘best’ correlates with what’s on the line. When you’re responsible for shaping opinions on significant issues like this, you need to do a better job of being balanced. Maybe I’m off here because I never watch the news and maybe this is the norm, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.
For more context on the Afghan people see this my post in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5557881 It's about interpreters in Afghanistan. Most of our interpreters were local Afghans. Some used to be (or easily could have been) Afghan police or Army. The Afghans are a great people who were just dealt a shitty hand.
Search for: A new law signed by President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan requires Shiite women to ask their husband's permission before leaving the home and forces them to have sexual intercourse. ... Human rights activists say the new law grants even fewer rights to women than when the Islamist Taliban held sway.
At first, as the movie started and one of the US troops was trying to teach those Afghan troops not to shit, eat, and clean themselves in the same spot, gauging by the response of the Afghan in-charge, I figured it was a pointless and insulting thing to do...
Than as I watched more of the movie, I realized that more than likely that Afghan group was doing exactly that - and there was probably some type of hazard going among them.
I'm about 30 minutes into the movie, and I really can't make sense of the buffoonery and self-destructive behavior displayed by the Afghan side. Is a product of nature, culture, situation ... what is it?
Though what I can make sense of, is why historically the only successful means of controlling and stabilizing that region of the world was -> strong-rule <- (like the Taliban's). Because it must of cut right through all that bullshit.
I'm not sure how the US troops must put up with all the crap.
Its the product of growing up in a destabalized war torn country. Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to fight a proxy war with America. Most of the Afghan population since has had to etch our some kind of post-war anarhic life.
Is it no surprise that you think their lifestyles/societies are backwards when you write your comments from a first world country that hasnt seen occupation and invasion in however many years (assuming you're from a western country that is).
There are no military objectives or territory worth holding for them. Their goal is to just inflict as much pain as possible on the US troops knowing that they can outlast them. The US has army that can deal with any conventional threat (from which there are few) or properly defined objective, but seems unprepared for country occupation/building mission (and with good reason, the Army as a foreign policy tool is not wise).
[+] [-] rickdale|12 years ago|reply
For me, one of the greatest tragedies in Afghanistan as a result from the US war is the drug addict problem over ther. I haven't studied the issue in a couple of years, but I remember looking at pictures and statistics of heroin addicts in Afghanistan. As the war destroyed their country citizens turned to drugs and so did leaders, but the latter did so for money. The citizens literally have nothing better to do. And thats not to say they weren't poppy farmers before the war, they were, the majority were just not heroin abusers.
In 2008 I took a seminar about the Afghanistan War, premised on the question, is Afghanistan a failed state? In a room with 12 reasonably bright American students we all were able to point out terrific errors that were causing some big issues. I remember reading that 70-80 percent of the trained Afghani police force was just signed up to get a paycheck. They never showed up for duty or anything.
I do a lot of thinking about Afghanistan, because the situation is unique, yet historically predictable. In my opinion, its hard for me and Americans maybe all westerners, to understand Afghanistan and the people there; and its just as difficult for the people in Afghanistan to understand our way of life, and how to assimilate to what we were setting up.
At present count, 3 people from my high school class have died fighting in Afghanistan, and 5 counting the year ahead of me (0 of my college mates, point for another story..). And this is what counts for me. I like to think that because the situation is complex and can get confusing, the best way to gain an understanding is to study individual stories, stuff that usually gets hidden behind the larger scene.
From the research I have done, the majority of Afghans want peace to the point where they would accept a Taliban strict rule of law over the continued war. Its confusing, but it just shows the war really needs to end.
[+] [-] ryanmarsh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kinkora|12 years ago|reply
I've always thought that the situation in Afghanistan can be pretty much summarised in these pictures:
http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5112c4a969beddd0720...
p/s: it shows the stark differences in Aghanistan from 1967 to 2007
[+] [-] znowi|12 years ago|reply
It's not hard at all. Country A invades country B. Wreaks havoc and assigns a puppet government. Army is in disarray, civilian life is disrupted. It doesn't take a "reasonably bright American student" to guess the conditions and sentiments of the local populace.
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panacea|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graycat|12 years ago|reply
As I looked at US efforts at essentially 'nation building', often on the other side of the world, to try to contribute to US national security, I came up with a simple observation:
In a country with a government and economy that function at all, there has to be and is a 'culture' with social structures, education, economic activity, leadership, laws, government, usually religion, etc. While such a culture has to exist, it may be very different from that in the US.
In Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world, the 'culture' is heavily just Islam: Islam controls social structures, e.g., sex, marriage, child rearing, the role of family, etc. Islam also controls most of education, much of the economic activity, essentially all the laws, the police, the justice system, the government, the foreign policy, and, of course, religion. We can toss in architecture, what people eat, and what they wear. Basically from how people dress, eat, work, etc., its all Islam. So, in an Islamic country, take away Islam, and there's no culture at all and, then, just chaos, e.g., criminals, gangs, civil war, etc. Net, in an Islamic country, for a government leader can have an Islamic king (e.g., Kuwait), Islamic strong man dictator (Saddam, Assad), or Islamic cleric (Iran). That's about it.
One can try to set up a Western, secular government in an Islamic country, but the leader will have no cultural foundation to stand on and, thus, will be trying to sell pie in the sky. Meanwhile the clerics will be working 24 x 7 to get their people up on their hind legs against the guy, and too soon he will lose, maybe his head.
For anything like US democracy, laws, police, secular government, freedom of religion, etc., just f'get about it. We need to understand: In the US, our 'culture' of democracy is much more than just our Constitution and elections. Instead, in addition, nearly all of us have 'bought into' a 'social contract' where we believe in, invest in, and trust in our democracy. So for most significant transgressions against the 'culture', the voters get indignant, outraged, incensed, infuriated, and up on their hind legs and vote! E.g., each member of the House has to stand for election each two years, which is darned short, and keeps him on a very short leash, and if he messes up then likely he's out'a there. To borrow from a Bond movie, getting caught in a motel room with a cheerleader does nicely.
Really the Islamic countries are about 500 years behind the history of Western Europe, e.g., when Western Europe was fighting wars of religion and starting to develop respect for humanism, individual freedom, secular government, and democracy. Moving ahead 500 years is not easy. The rivers of Europe ran red with blood for hundreds of years before we got to 'Western Civilization'. Europe has been the most effectively bloody place on the planet until finally it started to learn to live in peace, recently, hopefully.
Net, Afghanistan is going to be an Islamic country, some version of an Islamic country, but still an Islamic country, likely run by a king, strong man, or cleric. Sorry 'bout that. We won't like such a 'culture': Some of the men use boys for sex. They marry off their daughters at age 7 or 13 or some such. They refuse to educate females. They use Islamic laws and justice. Islam runs essentially everything.
That's just the way it is. That's the reality. We need to face the reality. We don't like it. We see it as a 500 year out of date sh!tpit, and we are correct. Right, it sucks. We know that.
Then, facing that reality, we can look for how to get what we need, e.g., US national security, that is, to keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US.
Okay, then, that's what we really need, our real 'bottom line': Keep Afghanistan from being the base of operations of another 9/11 attack on the US. We need little or nothing more than that from Afghanistan. Can we get that? Sure. How? Two steps. Step 1. Put in place a bunch of INTEL. Step 2. Leave. [It took the US 12 years to figure this out?] If our INTEL tells us that they are starting to attack the US again, then level them, appropriate places plus some for good measure, from the air. Done.
What will happen after we leave? Mostly we don't give a sh!t. But I'd put my money on a government run by an Islamic cleric, e.g., the Taliban.
Now, US military, welcome home. Well done.
Yes, we can be sure that the Muslim clerics will get their people up on their hind legs shouting "Death to America". Sounds like a declaration of war to me for which some USAF guy in a container room in Nevada should push a button on a drone control and stop that stuff. But if all they do is shout, then we don't always have to push the button.
England was long smart enough to work effectively in that part of the world, in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India, Burma, Singapore, etc., without getting all bent out of shape trying to bring English culture to those places.
The US needs to quit being so darned simplistic, wise up, learn from the English 150 years ago, update the lessons a little, use our drones, INTEL, etc., do the smart things, and quit bleeding the US white on absurd foreign adventures from just totally unrealistic, head in the sand, simplistic foreign policy nonsense. We will not get what we have wanted in Afghanistan. Instead we will wise up and get what we can and need or just go broke on nonsense.
What's it going to be US, wise up or go broke?
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|12 years ago|reply
I don't know where it is coming from, but little doubt that USA intervention in Afghanistan leads to an increase of Heroin production there which then gets smuggled out.
Taliban needs to wage war and guns don't buy themselves.
[+] [-] sultezdukes|12 years ago|reply
And so would have the majority of Americans back in 2001, but they wouldn't give up Bin Laden, so they paid the price.
[+] [-] hooande|12 years ago|reply
They do provide legitimate protection. If bandits or unsavory characters harass the village, the taliban will roll up with AKs and rpgs. They also adjudicate local disputes like "he stole my goat" or "he had sex with my daughter". The afghan military and police forces don't spend a lot of time in the poorest regions of the country, so it's usually the taliban that has to make someone give back the goat or marry the daughter.
In return for protection and dispute resolution, the people in poor afghan villages usually grow poppy on their lands to be sold as opium and volunteer military aged males as taliban recruits. When you think of this system at scale, running unchecked, you can see how 9/11 style acts of terrorism happen. The bigger threat is that a well resourced and uncontrolled taliban in Afghanistan could destabilize the whole region by inciting muslim conflicts.
The US response was close to being appropriate for disrupting a protection racket. In the near term, they sent marines to provide protection for poor villages and actively hunt the taliban. In the long term they tried to introduce free democracy to the country, to provide security and rule of law to the poorest people and put the taliban out of business.
The reason it's taken so long to produce results is optimism on the part of western politicians. Afghanistan is a country that's only loosely held together and there are many factions and families in Kabul competing to grab power in a newly formed government. It could still be decades before things are settled enough that they have time to worry about protecting their poorest citizens, and a strong taliban doesn't pose a direct threat to the most lucrative parts of the government.
It's a complicated situation mostly because the taliban is exploiting people who have little to offer to the government that is supposed to protect them. But many democracies start out this way, and ultimately western action may have helped the situation.
[+] [-] lolcraft|12 years ago|reply
9/11 hijackers were mostly well educated, middle-class Saudi Arabians. Not Taliban, as you seem to imply.
If anything, what could be argued is that Afghanistan lacking a national police force makes it easy for terrorist groups to establish military training camps there. But that's a whole different thing.
[+] [-] btilly|12 years ago|reply
The fundamental problem with the government is that in the name of expediency we put people who hated the Taliban in charge and called it a democracy. Then when they maintained their power by openly stealing elections, we didn't call their bluff because we were trying to pretend that they are an independent country. The example that everyone sees is corruption starting at the top, and flowing all of the way down.
Now we're trying to declare victory and leave. But the existing kleptocracy can't stand. Everyone knows it. We just don't want to keep dying for no purpose. And the kleptocracy is only seeking to steal as much as they can before they lose power.
[+] [-] ljf|12 years ago|reply
A decent job has been done of removing Al Qaeda, but the only way to change a country like Afghanistan is to stop sending millions over there in cash from international drug money. The war on drugs helped fund this situation. And doesn't seem to be helping to bring a resolution yet at great cost to them and us.
[+] [-] wnight|12 years ago|reply
No. The reason it hasn't worked is because it's a total lie.
Afghanistan wasn't invaded to help it, or to stop terrorists, it was invaded for oil, handy bases near countries we need to remain "allies", etc.
> [The US response to the taliban was to send] marines to provide protection for poor villages and actively hunt the taliban.
Roughly, yes. And had this been done for the reasons stated, at any of the times various segments of the population and world-wide humanitarian groups had asked for it, you'd have been saviors.
But that wasn't the goal or you'd have done it that way - not in freak-out mode.
The "failed state" in Afghanistan is the one you're building. Unwanted, known criminals, ruling over a set of borders nobody feels attached to.
[+] [-] bane|12 years ago|reply
The approach seems to be that transient patrols, haphazardly driving around and visiting villages in giant bomb proof robot trucks, is a substitute for thousands of years old strategies of taking, holding and controlling territory. There's no front lines in the kind of conflict because that's how the new strategy has defined the conflict. The last time a modern military in a major conflict actually took and held ground was probably the Korean War. After that it was endless insurgencies or hit-win-withdraw like in the first Iraq war.
This is opposed to the Taliban which can comfortably move into a village and live there 24/7, becoming "the villagers" as much as anybody who was there before. A robot truck driving up and asking "where are the non-villagers, where are the bad guys?" will get no answer because everybody is a villager, and the guy making bombs in the afternoons is a village elder the rest of the day. There are no bad guys.
Afghanistan isn't a failed state, it's an anti-state, its borders are a reflection of the borders of its neighbors -- extending only so far as they cared to and stopping when the terrain became too difficult to bother. Within this zone are several city-states and otherwise large stretches of lawless territory connected, but not held together, by a network of smugglers and local warlords. The coalition controls none of it save for perhaps the city-state of Kabul.
Of course the ability to take and control territory means lots and lots of manpower, which runs contrary to modern military thinking. This forces military leadership into a state of sustained denial that this or that alternate approach will be the one that opens up the opportunity for Afghanistan to develop into a real state. They're flummoxed that it isn't happening.
But there's sadly only one proven way to accomplish this goal, take, hold and control territory. Put in place a carefully controlled puppet dictator or similar for a couple decades, one who will build up strong institutions of government and industry. Then once these things are in place, kill him or his dynastic line off (or have a quiet democratic revolution) and have the people assume ownership of these institutions and industries. Sure if the timing of these things is off it fucks up and we end up with Iran. But if the timing is good we end up with South Korea.
[+] [-] IsaacL|12 years ago|reply
That all works well (very well) when you're invading countries. Doesn't work so well when you decide you need to build a new country out of the ruins. Maybe we'd do better if instead of spending billions on flying robot assassins to fight tribal hill-farmers, we simply enlisted more humans to take command.
The only other option I can see is to start running the American empire British-style - they ran very efficient colonies by exploiting existing tribal divisions, usually by recruiting some existing elite as their colonial administrators. Not trying to implement democracy in tribal regions that don't yet have stable institutions or the rule of law would probably also help.
[+] [-] dfc|12 years ago|reply
* Armadillo[1] a documentary about a group of Danish soldiers deployed to Helmland. Armadillo is right up there with Restrepo in my opinion.
* The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan[2] if you are curious about the bacha bazi boys.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_%28film%29
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/
[+] [-] shn|12 years ago|reply
From this... http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-pop...
to this... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/asia/afghanistan-opi...
[+] [-] joering2|12 years ago|reply
Both Iraq and Afghan war were carefully crafted by Military Industrial Complex from day one (first step: create problem, like in Iraq WMD's that were never found {glad there are some countries like Switzerland where they still prosecuted war criminals [1]}, step two: offer solution: offer piece by using force, step three: execute - by spending trillions of tax dollars), so you should understand war is nothing more than good business. Bloody but good. Stalin said one person killed that's a murder, millions is only a statistics, and that's how I believe those pulling strings can sleep at night. Oh by the way: as you remember those WMDs were never found (but sure they existed, okay?), but rest assured they moved them somewhere around, conveniently. Never mind 100,000 civilians dead (or some surveys shows 600k, or .. 1 million! [2]).
I have a respect for american soldiers, but I wish they were more educated on what they are really doing. They are NOT protecting american soil or fighting for their own country. Those are gone long time ago, as Chief in Command (President of the USA) is carefully following NATO orders, and US becomes a part of North American Union. Their action, whether successful or not, have nothing to do with us here being safe on american soil. Had they been educated they are just a tool in hands of few with access to the highest standing politicians that grab more tax money and give it into hands of Military Industrial Complex, they would have stopped participating in the war, knowing the real name of the game, like fighting for oil in Iraq.
Just some of my thoughts on this Memorial Day.
[1] http://www.kulturekritic.com/2013/04/uncategorized/did-you-k...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
[+] [-] curiousDog|12 years ago|reply
Also the new Start trek movie is oddly reminiscent to this. Although the taliban/iraq aren't nearly as powerful as the Klingons.
[+] [-] jmadsen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skore|12 years ago|reply
I agree that they have lots and lots of quality stuff, but they also have a quality control problem for good parts of their portfolio. The great ones offset the bad ones by leaps and bounds, for sure. But for every documentary like this one, there seem to be a couple hipsterish driveltaries that I close after a few minutes.
Sure, I suppose you cannot break new ground without landing some misses and sure, it's not like everything has to be mindblowing and perfect or even deeply valuable. But some of these misses make me wonder how anybody ever thought they were a good idea in the first place.
I think Vice has an aversion to "self censor", trying to get as much stuff out there as they can simply for the heck of it and as a means to retain credibility - and I applaud them for that. But it's not as black and white and doesn't help when your expectation of quality gets rather deeply disappointed at times. It's a form of brand dilution that might become a problem in the future.
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
Usually when I see news about something I know a lot about (say, the Jalalabad region weapons manufacturers, or the PI underground arms people), I'm full of wtf. But everything I've seen from Vice to date has been "oh, yes, that's exactly how it is" or "I wish I could have gone over there and seen that".
[+] [-] moconnor|12 years ago|reply
Regardless on who produced the documentary, Vice should still get credit for curating and hosting it like this.
[+] [-] baggers|12 years ago|reply
Like their waragi episode, where they spent a few scant minutes on the topic of the endemic drinking problem (which is very prevalent) and the entire rest filming drunk people and trying the brew themselves... oh and they sent a person that couldn't pronounce the name of the drink properly. Well done Vice. Quality
[+] [-] geon|12 years ago|reply
There are exceptions. This video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcIMuoUcc1s ) was ridiculously bad. Like one commenter on Reddit put it;
> That was like watching ignorant children play with fire indoors.
[+] [-] negrit|12 years ago|reply
So know I'm a bit suspicious.
[+] [-] twentysix|12 years ago|reply
It might just change your mind.
[+] [-] bradfordarner|12 years ago|reply
Every day is like choosing between different types of cancer. There is no 'winning' only seemingly less lethal varieties of the same disease. To make it worse, you are choosing which cancer to support through an intermediary, the interpreter. After a short time there you realize how much of a gap the language barrier is and how debilitating it is to not be able to build genuine relationships with your interlocuteur because you have to wait for the interpretation.
There is no 'solution' to Afghanistan and there is no 'winning'. People accuse NATO soldiers of war crimes everyday without even realizing the legitimate war crimes we prevented every single place we went. Afghanistan is still the jungle and the strongest wins. That isn't going to change from one day to the next. At this point, warfare is all that they know. They've been at it for over 30 years.
Unfortunately, you walk away thinking that the only solution is to be the strongest.
[+] [-] wnight|12 years ago|reply
Had we gone into Afghanistan in the 90s when various groups of locals were asking us to we might have fought about as much, in the end, but we'd have been there at the request of the people, actually building relationships, instead of continually rebuilding a failed-by-design state for some bullshit 9/11 excuse.
Bin Laden might still have happened because he wasn't depending on Afghanistan, or he might not have, because the allies could have had a better (good) reputation in the area negating much of the terrorist fervor.
But, I (one who criticizes our soldiers for war crimes) do recognize that we often, ultimately, bring some good to the survivors - hospitals, clean water, etc, and often stop many ongoing killings and other horrible practices. But never for the reasons we say we're there and only in doing things that perpetuate the cycle of war such as setting up dictators and selling critical resources and infrastructure.
Even if in their specific case any given soldier may save more lives than they cost, our war overall and our continued ability to wage it via the complicity of our soldiers, will cost far more lives in the end.
Refusing to fight for an unjust cause, or hurt without need, is a duty of all soldiers of modern civilized militaries. Sure, it realistically means jail for those who refuse - but it means death for their victims if they don't.
Afghanistan and Iraq were clearly not justified by 9/11 or implicated by any related evidence. By fighting for the USA and allies despite these lies, without the mandate of the people, soldiers are essentially pissing on the rule of law.
We're showing - through action not words - that no matter what they do we'll just make shit up and bomb them. Why do we expect them to expect anything else?
If our governments couldn't field the army unjustly, our peacekeeping might not only be welcome but might finally work.
[+] [-] morganwilde|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tibbon|12 years ago|reply
When I watch something like this, I'm absolutely blown away by how utterly incompetent the local military is no matter how much time we put into attempting to train them. Somehow in the US we're able to take (often poor) 17/18 year olds, and in 10 weeks of BCT (Basic) and then in 3 week to 2 years of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) we're able to create pretty damn disciplined soldiers. Yet, how many years did it take for us to try to train troops in Iraq, and it sounds like they still just unloaded entire clips whenever they saw a rabbit in the desert.
When these countries turn over top leadership (Iraq, Afganistan, Egypt, etc) it feels that they completely lose all historical training/ability for the military and go back to square one. Complete anarchy. It sounds like a huge percentage of their people defect seemingly randomly.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't feel like this happens (generally) in European countries when there is a massive leadership change. A post WW1 Germany was able to keep enough military knowledge/discipline together to be a seriously powerful force by WW2- and that certainly didn't have external forces in there trying their hardest to give them all the help possible. Post Russian Revolution USSR was quite a force to be reckoned with as well.
Why is it so damn hard to set up decent military training? Seems like a process we should understand by now, since we've put millions of young people through it. We (americans) initially setup West Point in the middle of a revolution and have been running it since (although it wasn't the United States Military Academy until 1802).
I'm absolutely certain it isn't because westerners are smarter, better, etc (we aren't)... but there is something seriously weird over there at the same time (malnutrition, lack of basic formal education system, cultural differences, too many generations of instability (maybe one generation works ok, but 3 breaks things seriously))
[+] [-] jilebedev|12 years ago|reply
A country's military is a reflection of and limited by the society that spawns it. The USA can keep disciplined and ethical soldiers because it has never suffered civil unrest, never been invaded, enjoys prosperity, freedom, public law and justice. No such thing can be said of Afghanistan or Iraq. Moreover - the "10 weeks of BCT" is not "just" "10 weeks of BCT". There is a logistics and supply train several tho-- million pages long that creates those "just" 10 weeks. Consider the fact that humans are recruited. Recruiters need to be trained, fed, paid, and have offices. That costs money. Afghanistan has no money. Consider the fact that young men need to be transported from and to BCT: this requires roads free of IEDs, requires fuel for trucks, favourable economic conditions to produce or import buses. Consider the fact that a certain percentage of all military trainees quit before completing that training. This is accounted for and expected: there are 300 million humans in the USA and this is acceptable losses. Consider the fact that abiding by the laws of a nation and strict adherence to authority is something these "17/18" year olds have done for two decades by the time their military training is over. It is ingrained into their psyche to follow the law from the earliest age, in the most gentle of methods: by the witnessing of safety and prosperity of Americans abiding by the law. Consider an Afghani youth: what is ignrained into them is an invsion by Russia and now invasion by America. How confident in justice do you think they are? How inclined are they to respect authority? How confortable are they submitting to a national government?
A country's military is fundamentally a reflection of the society it spawns. Afghanistan is a failed state in every respect, for the last several decades, and as such it cannot muster a professional military despite the efforts of the US-led coalition.
[+] [-] 6d0debc071|12 years ago|reply
- Lots of people doing effectively nothing.
- Low morale.
- Ad-hoc training of Afghan army/police.
- Lack of national identity.
- Poor mobility.
- Lack of intelligence.
- Communication problems.
- No clear strategic objectives or clear plans to achieve desired processes
[+] [-] thelogos|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|12 years ago|reply
I've also seen the same argument in reverse, if we cut back on social service payments, as seems economically inevitable in the long term, our own inner cities will rapidly look much like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. So if you want to see a realistic projection of "Detroit 2030", just look at "Somalia 2013".
[+] [-] gmays|12 years ago|reply
Despite my feelings for the documentary, I commend the crew for the work they did. They did the best they could to report what they saw. However, they let preconceived notions and a minute slice of experience significantly influence their perspective. This is inevitable to some extent, but incredibly dangerous in this case. When it happens with a small news story, not such a big deal. But 99.9% of the population has no experience or knowledge on Afghanistan so their opinions and everything they know is based on what they read (yeah right) and what they watch (the preponderance). This gives those who report on Afghanistan great power, but also great responsibility. We can only hope those who consume this swill are more than sheep.
-There are ANP units of all levels of competency. The one we were with was stellar. Sure, others we worked with left much to be desired, but it wasn’t the norm. At times units farther away from the 'flagpole' have less supervision and fewer resources. They resort to what they're used to and what they need to do to survive, which is expected. Lord of the flies anyone? People tend to act that way in such environments, even in the US.
-The documentary was disappointing because it sought to show the Afghans in a bad light. It was unbalanced and failed to explain some of the cultural reasons behind some of the examples. Their culture is fundamentally different from ours and they do the best they can to survive in that environment. Service members are there for between 7-12 months, it's a sprint for us. They’ve been there and will be there for the long haul. In their past, how many nations have come and gone? What does such turmoil do to a culture, a nation, and its people?
-There is a significant focus on drug use, which is somewhat missing the point. How prevalent is drug use in the United States? If the US had the history of Afghanistan with a fledgling government and security forces, would it be any different? Our culture sees drug use differently than theirs. Our alcohol is their weed. Should a professional force be under the effects of substances while on duty? No, but let’s talk more about why things are the way they are. As the force professionalizes, these things will improve.
-Sangin, the region in most of the filming, is one of the worst parts of Afghanistan. What if we made a documentary about the worst parts of the US? The ghettos and slums, homeless, murders, drug use, etc. and named it “This is what America looks like.” The US documentaries on these issues pale in comparison to all of the positive coverage. All we see about Afghanistan are the shitty things. Not the progress, not the new schools or education, not the hard working people. When we do, it’s drowned out by the bad stuff.
-The same goes for corruption. We can't help but see corruption through our Western lens, but it's seen differently in Afghanistan. Think about how an Afghan documentary would talk about US alcohol consumption, fashion, sex, and other aspects of our culture? It'd probably sound quite similar. It’s almost impossible to think of it differently because we’ve had the luxury of structure, strong government, order, etc. in the land of plenty.
-I'm not an expert in Afghanistan, but the perspective in this documentary is unfair. Sure, some advisor teams were embedded with subpar units lead by completely corrupt, uninvolved commanders but this is not a representation of units or the government as a whole.
-Why does this documentary point out every wrong thing the Afghans do in the course of their day? What about the good things? I'm sure if I held a camera on any of us all day it'd be easy to pick us apart. It's an easy thing to do when you haven’t been the one struggling.
-During the year our Afghans made significant progress. They wanted to get better and they did. Now they have their own sustainable training programs and they're getting better all the time. Are they perfect? No. Do they still make mistakes? Yes.
-What was this documentary actually trying to achieve? The reporter is from the UK, what about the UK's history in Afghanistan. Let's talk about their losses in Afghanistan and the general sentiment towards Afghans. After spending some time at the MOB in Lashkar Gah, it's quite disappointing to see how Afghans (even our interpreters) are treated at times by British military personnel. Let's get a crew and film that. Are the UK forces bad? Not at all, they’re great, they’re our brothers and we rely heavily on each other. But if you’re filming 24/7 it’s easy to point out every time someone stumbles, because we all do it. At the very least, acknowledge your biases as a source of news.
-This documentary is one-sided. The unfortunate thing is that most people look for things that validate their existing arguments. I can only imagine the countless people nodding their heads watching the documentary who can't even find Afghanistan on a map and who've learned everything they know about Afghanistan through the news or shit documentaries like this.
I’m not an expert on Afghanistan and I am speaking from my experiences with multiple Afghan units from all pillars. In my time there I worked with units in Helmand and Nimroz provinces and spent some time in Kabul.
Is Afghanistan doomed? I don’t know. But I do know that encouraging negative sentiment based on minimal experience doesn’t help and it’s a betrayal of the trust people put in those who deliver their news. It’s also a disservice to every service member who’s spent time or gave their lives to make it work. We all do the best we can, but our ‘best’ correlates with what’s on the line. When you’re responsible for shaping opinions on significant issues like this, you need to do a better job of being balanced. Maybe I’m off here because I never watch the news and maybe this is the norm, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.
For more context on the Afghan people see this my post in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5557881 It's about interpreters in Afghanistan. Most of our interpreters were local Afghans. Some used to be (or easily could have been) Afghan police or Army. The Afghans are a great people who were just dealt a shitty hand.
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|12 years ago|reply
> It was unbalanced and failed to ...
How do you know what it failed to do? You didn't watch the whole thing.
[+] [-] Sven7|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genwin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crusso|12 years ago|reply
Ouch.
[+] [-] deevus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
Illegally, a search for [panorama mission accomplished] probably returns relevant results.
[+] [-] subsystem|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powertower|12 years ago|reply
Than as I watched more of the movie, I realized that more than likely that Afghan group was doing exactly that - and there was probably some type of hazard going among them.
I'm about 30 minutes into the movie, and I really can't make sense of the buffoonery and self-destructive behavior displayed by the Afghan side. Is a product of nature, culture, situation ... what is it?
Though what I can make sense of, is why historically the only successful means of controlling and stabilizing that region of the world was -> strong-rule <- (like the Taliban's). Because it must of cut right through all that bullshit.
I'm not sure how the US troops must put up with all the crap.
[+] [-] cup|12 years ago|reply
Is it no surprise that you think their lifestyles/societies are backwards when you write your comments from a first world country that hasnt seen occupation and invasion in however many years (assuming you're from a western country that is).
[+] [-] venomsnake|12 years ago|reply
There are no military objectives or territory worth holding for them. Their goal is to just inflict as much pain as possible on the US troops knowing that they can outlast them. The US has army that can deal with any conventional threat (from which there are few) or properly defined objective, but seems unprepared for country occupation/building mission (and with good reason, the Army as a foreign policy tool is not wise).
[+] [-] LekkoscPiwa|12 years ago|reply