Afghanistan Bananistan

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I think I'm done with war documentaries that make a point of not offering any sort of opinion about anything -- no history or context, no political point of view, just "this is war, war is hell, taste it." Well, I'm sick of that shit after seeing Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's Restrepo, a bravely captured, technically first-rate documentary about a year under fire in Afghanistan's Korangal Valley, a.k.a., "the valley of death."

There's no question whatsover that this movie lies through omission about what's really going on in Afghanistan in the broader, bigger-picture sense. I found myself becoming more and more angry about this after catching Restrepo two nights ago at the Walter Reade theatre, and especially after doing some homework.

Hetherington and Junger spent a little more than a year (May 2007 to July 2008) with several U.S. soldiers in that besieged neck of the woods. They focused mainly on the grunts' hilltop camp called Restrepo (pronounced res-TREP-o and named for a medic in their unit who'd been killed). The film does a clean and competent job of portraying their endless firefights with Taliban forces and their community dealings with the locals, and it acquaints us with various members of the hilltop platoon -- their faces, lives, impressions -- in what seems like a frank and forthright manner.

Except the kind of frankness that Restrepo is offering is, to put it mildly, selective. For realism's sake Restrepo chooses to isolate its audience inside the insular operational mentality of the grunts -- "get it done," "fill up more sandbags," "ours not to reason why" and so on. In so doing it misleads and distorts in a way that any fair-minded person would and should find infuriating. Is there any other way to describe a decision to keep viewers ignorant about any broader considerations -- anything factual or looming in a political/tactical/situational sense -- that might impact the fate of the subjects, or their mission?

Imagine a documentary about the day-to-day life of Steve Schmidt, John McCain's '08 presidential campaign manager, that ignores how the campaign is going and instead focuses on Schmidt's relationship with his family and his dentist and his kids' homework and his visits to a local cafe and his dealings with the guy who mows the lawn once a week. What would you call that approach? Thorough? Honest?

Rest assured that if I was one of those Korangal troops I would ask a shit-load of questions about the general game plan, as in what the fuck are we doing there and how the hell do we ever get out? But nobody wants to go there, least of all Hetherington and Junger, and so Restrepo is just about cigarettes and weapons and wrestling matches and firefights and sandbags and a cow that got stuck in some barbed wire and had to be killed, and then had to be paid for in order to chill down the locals.

I'm of the view that the Afghanistan War is pure quicksand, and that we can't help to prevail (i.e., defeat the Taliban or at least reduce them to insignificance) because we're foreign invaders and sooner or later all invaders are out-lasted by the natives, and that natural organisms will infect and weaken them, and as a result they'll eventually pack up and go home. Ask H.G. Wells or Ho Chi Minh.

We're not stopping another 9/11 from happening by fighting there. We're just fighting a series of skirmishes and offensives that will continue for years to come, perhaps even decades, and which can't hope to lead to "victory." It would be great if the Taliban could be finally defeated, sure, but it's not going to happen and any military or intelligence person who claims otherwise is dreaming. The bottom line is that (a) we can't win and (b) there's no way out other than just quitting.

Quitting is un-American, you say? Shameful, unthinkable, cowardly? Well, two months ago U.S. forces up and quit the whole Korangal Valley offensive. That's right -- they shined it. The lives of 42 Americans who died fighting there over the last four years? Water under the bridge, U.S commanders decided. Better to cut bait than waste more lives.

(l.) Sebastian Junger, (r.) Tim Hetherington during filming.

In fact the general thinking (as expressed in this 4.16 N.Y. Times story) is that U.S. troops' presence in the valley may have actually made matters worse by creating Taliban sympathies among once-neutral Korangalis." Or so it says in the Times story as well as this Wikipedia summary.

This massive fact has been ignored by Restrepo -- they could have easily added a tagline in the closing credits -- and was not mentioned by Hetherington during the post-screening q & a.

I asked Hetherington if he could offer his civilian-observer, non-military perspective about whether he could foresee any circumstance that might allow U.S. commanders to decide, as they've done in the case of the Korangal Valley, that U.S. efforts to defeat the Taliban simply aren't working and that it's time to just pack it in. Hetherington got my drift, but he ignored it and blathered on about how the Afghanistan situation is different from Vietnam in the '60s.

Hetherington has been a war photographer for years, and guys like him are basically action junkies -- let's face it. He seems almost invested in the Afghanistan conflict, perversely, because it provided him with a year's worth of adrenaline rushes as well as the opportunity to create a noteworthy film and contribute great pics to Vanity Fair. In any case he's apparently determined to follow the script set out by The Hurt Locker -- i.e., our film isn't preaching, not taking a stand, just showing how it is for the troops, etc.

(l.) Hetherington, Rachel Reid during Friday night's q & a at Walter Reade theatre.

"What I'm asking," I repeated, "is if there's any way out of this conflict, or are we going to be there...you know, five or ten more years or indefinitely or what?" Rachel Reid, an Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch who was sitting next to Hetherington, said that U.S. allies were getting a little fidgety and that the U.S. economy was impacting the situation and other generic blah-blah stuff.

Restrepo doesn't tell you what's going on and Hetherington and Reid weren't in the mood, so consider the following:

A 12.22.09 CNN story by Peter Bergen reported that "a December 22 briefing, prepared by the top U.S. intelligence official in Afghanistan and obtained by CNN, concludes that the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is increasingly effective.

"The briefing, which warns that the 'situation is serious,' was prepared by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn last month. His assessment is that the Taliban's 'organizational capabilities and operational reach are qualitatively and geographically expanding" and the group is capable of much greater frequency of attacks and varied locations of attacks.

"According to the unclassified briefing, the insurgency can now sustain itself indefinitely because of three factors: (a) The increased availability of bomb-making technology and material; (b) The Taliban's access to two major funding streams, one from the opium trade and the other from overseas donations from Muslim countries, which reach the Taliban by courier or through a system of informal banks known as 'hawalas' that operate across much of the Islamic world; and (c) the Taliban's continuing ability to recruit foot soldiers based on the perception that they 'retain the religious high-ground,' and factors such as poverty and tribal friction.

This morning N.Y. Times columnist Frank Rich reminded that Gen. Stanley McChrystal "is calling the much-heralded test case for administration counterinsurgency policy -- the de-Talibanization and stabilization of the Marja district -- 'a bleeding ulcer.' And that, relatively speaking, is the good news from this war."

That quote came from a 5.24.10 McClatchy story by Dion Nissenbaum that read as follows:

"U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top allied military commander in Afghanistan, sat gazing at maps of Marjah as a Marine battalion commander asked him for more time to oust Taliban fighters from a longtime stronghold in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province.

"'You've got to be patient,' Lt. Col. Brian Christmas told McChrystal. 'We've only been here 90 days.'

"'How many days do you think we have before we run out of support by the international community?' McChrystal replied.

A charged silence settled in the stuffy, crowded chapel tent at the Marine base in the Marjah district.

"'I can't tell you, sir,' the tall, towheaded, Fort Bragg, N.C., native finally answered.

"'I'm telling you,' McChrystal said. 'We don't have as many days as we'd like.'"

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on June 20, 2010 at 9:54 AM

comment #1

George Prager says ...

Junger's more interested in looking good in photographs and being part owner of a trendy Chelsea restaurant (The Half King), than he is in making a political statement.

Posted by George Prager at June 20, 2010 10:09 AM

comment #2

James Rocchi says ...

Can we please -- please -- put a stake through the heart of the disingenuous intimation that The Hurt Locker has nothing to say about the politics of the Iraq war? Any film which has a U.S. Soldier in the wrong house after midnight pointing a gun at innocent people as part of his quest for something that isn't there is, yes, making its point about the war and making it quite well. I wish the makers of The Hurt Locker could be that explicit about that, but, alas, they can't for fear of being pilloried.

One way of 'supporting our troops' is by asking, loudly and vociferously, why exactly it is they're to be put in harm's way, and when exactly they'll be removed from it. And while Restrepo is, I think, not as calculatedly contrived as Mr. Wells suggests -- it is not, I think, solely a travelogue of war reportage as trouble-tourism -- it is also, perhaps, shorter on context than one would like.

Posted by James Rocchi at June 20, 2010 10:12 AM

comment #3

lbeale says ...

Making a film from the grunt's point of view is a totally legitimate artistic decision. Some of the greatest literature in the history of warfare - The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Things They Carried - barely touches on, if at all, the 'bigger' issues of the wars they are about. Insisting that docs on Iraq and Afghanistan give the big picture, hew a political line, is just plain bullshit. I found 'Restrepo' moving precisely because it stuck with the individuals and their stories. Anything else would just have been anti-war propaganda. And I'm a person who believes both the Afghan and Iraq wars suck. But that doesn't mean I insist that every film about them be some anti-war screed. Really. Get a grip.

Posted by lbeale at June 20, 2010 10:23 AM

comment #4

Jeffrey Wells says ...

What I've expressed, explained and linked to in this review doesn't constitute an anti-war screed. I've laid out a series of facts. Restrepo offers up an array of anecdotal facts within a vacuum, and in so doing ignores the overall facts behind this conflict. The overall effect is one of absolute troop-supporting bullshit. Junger and Hetherington are peddling Afghanistan for Dummies. They're saying "we're too immersed in the day-to-day experience of defending a hilltop camp and in paying tribute to these noble, self-effacing grunts to bother with what's actually happening over there...but then audiences don't want any of that political crap anyway. The personal stuff, the wrestling, the sand bags, the dead cow incident...that's what audiences like."

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at June 20, 2010 10:43 AM

comment #5

lbeale says ...

The micro view is just as valid as the macro. Most war reporting, especially when reporters are out with the troops, is micro. You know, Ernie Pyle? Bill Mauldin? Get it? What you want is not reporting, it's polemics. That's fine. Why don't you go and ask Michael Moore to embed himself for 15 months on an Afghan dung hill? Really, Jeff, anybody who does what Junger did should earn your respect as a journalist. It certainly earns mine. And I don't expect that just because I do not support this war that the people who report it have to tell me 'what's actually happening' from my political point of view. Soldiers fighting and dying is also 'what's actually happening.'

Posted by lbeale at June 20, 2010 10:54 AM

comment #6

Circumvrent says ...

that's what audiences like.

Given that none of these movies, even Hurt Locker, found much of an audience, I don't think there's necessarily anything an audience "likes" in their war movies.

Posted by Circumvrent at June 20, 2010 11:03 AM

comment #7

Hip Hop Homey says ...

Fascinating are the views of those who have never served.

Posted by Hip Hop Homey at June 20, 2010 11:07 AM

comment #8

Holy Spokes says ...

Wells knows most of what he knows through movies and assumes others are the same. He fears people might watch this and lose their anti-war fervor. That is all.

Posted by Holy Spokes at June 20, 2010 11:15 AM

comment #9

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to Holey Spokes: I absorb what I absorb about Afghanistan through reputable, credible reports. This is evident in the links that I've included. Your statement indicates serious assholery, Holy Spokes.

Wells to Hip-Hop Homey: You seem to be saying that if I had served in Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam then the links, quotes and sources in the article would be valid or at least worth digesting, but since I haven't served then perhaps they aren't. Is that what you're saying?

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at June 20, 2010 12:12 PM

comment #10

dinther says ...

1. yeah, those who haven't served really have no right to have a viewpoint, right homey? it's assholes with faux-patriotic arguments like hip hop homey that led us into the glorious adventure in Iraq. what a crock of shit. anyone with real combat experience (playstation 2 doesn't count homey) will be the first to ask the "why are we here" question. I support the presence in Afghan - for now - but I understand the importance of continuing to ask the question.

2. no one should ever, ever trust anything Junger has to say. he is to war journalism what Nancy Grace is to legal scholarship. he sold his story about picking fights with Serbs in Kosovo and made a cartoon of a very serious situation.

Posted by dinther at June 20, 2010 1:20 PM

comment #11

thasos says ...

The journalist Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for The Independent is starting to see Afghanistan as a huge unwinnable mess heading for disaster:

"The problem is, when you go stomping into this, you know, with our nurses and our doctors and stethoscopes and our nice little earrings, and you say, "Women have to go to school," the men in the village will say, "This is not the custom. This is not how we do it here." And this attempt to bring them into the the light of our wonderful post-World War II world of human rights, Geneva conventions, laws of war - which George Bush spent much of his time tearing up to pieces after 9/11 - this is not seen as an attempt to assist, it's seen as an intrusive, aggressive act against their personality and their culture. It's seen as an attack on them by us. This is not their value! Now, you can make fun of it, you can deplore it, you can point out with considerable self-righteousness, but also accurately, that women should be educated. Of course. But that's like asking Henry VIII to accept parliamentary democracy! It is not a technologically sophisticated society. As the years go by, we must obviously hope that weve increased education by Afghans of Afghans, they will start to evolve in a way that we feel is correct. Lebanon is largely a Moslem country, women are educated equally with men here and it's accepted. Even in the most remote villages of southern Lebanon. 150 years ago that would probably not be the case. See? So - but the longer we're there, telling them that they must, it's not gonna happen."

Posted by thasos at June 20, 2010 1:42 PM

comment #12

polarbear2 says ...

Thasos- "that's like asking Henry VIII to accept parliamentary democracy!"

Or like asking the Confederate South to accept racial equality. If we only waited another fifty years before passing the Emancipation Proclaimation, the US could have avoided a costly civil war. Right?

Posted by polarbear2 at June 20, 2010 2:45 PM

comment #13

WilliamShake2 says ...

I agree with Jeff, we need more of these war documentaries told in more of a political context. How about a documentary about how the "surge" won the war in Iraq? ya think Hollywood would go for that?

By the way, anyone who says "we're not preventing another 9/11 by being in Afghanistan" no knows nothing of the history of that country and the Taliban in the 5-10 years before 9/11. Obama understands that (thank god) despite the pressure from a great (and ignorant) faction of his political party to pull out.

Posted by WilliamShake2 at June 20, 2010 4:32 PM

comment #14

elzilcho says ...

You are so right on this Jeff. I'm so sick of these "we're not political" political movies. There is nothing inherently wrong with focusing on individual soldiers and their experiences. But only focusing on them as individuals removed from any social context makes it something with serious limitations.
Hell, I'd have more respect for a straight up pro war doc. At least then there is a point of view being expressed. (whether I agree with it or not)

@WilliamShake2 I would love to see a documentary about how the surge "won" the war in Iraq.

Posted by elzilcho at June 20, 2010 5:11 PM

comment #15

Travis Crabtree says ...

Frank Rich?

Really?

Posted by Travis Crabtree at June 20, 2010 6:14 PM

comment #16

erniesouchak says ...

A doc without a point of view is boring, and Restrepo is definitely boring.

Posted by erniesouchak at June 20, 2010 6:15 PM

comment #17

thasos says ...

And if the American civil war, with its, what, six hundred thousand dead, is a model for anything in this, God help us all.

Note to self: Must stop invoking God.

Posted by thasos at June 21, 2010 2:26 AM

comment #18

Hip Hop Homey says ...

@JW: Hey, forgive me for not getting back to you on this but I am in one of these crazy, flying from Japan to Hong Kong to visit the wife's family. The Pan-Asian part of my family life still takes it toll and, after years of working mostly nights, well, I'm totally wired differently. Still can't sleep more than 3 hours at any given time. Drives the little lady crazy.

Am I saying if you'd served, your views might be different? In a way, yes. I served in the military when I was a younger man. Thankfully, I missed these awfuls messes we have gotten ourselves into. that being said, as in any war, the grunts on the ground are concerned with one thin everyday: STAYING ALIVE. I know you know this as do we all, but it needs to be understood that the men on the ground are only concerned about the guys pointing guns at them, not at the larger political reality that we at home can pontificate about endlessly.

I say this not only as a vet but as a man who lost his brother in Iraq 2 years ago. I know about the price. Not that that makes my point more or less valid, but I come from a military family and I know what it takes to serve and don't regret my choices. A person doesn't have to serve to have their views validated, but it does add a bit more heft to their argument when they have that. It allows them to not only see but to KNOW both sides of certain issues.

OK, on a lighter note, doesn't this Rachel Reid woman look like she's saying "jump on me, stud!" in that pic above?

Posted by Hip Hop Homey at June 21, 2010 3:37 AM

comment #19

crazynine says ...

Imagine a documentary about the day-to-day life of Steve Schmidt, John McCain's '08 presidential campaign manager, that ignores how the campaign is going and instead focuses on Schmidt's relationship with his family and his dentist and his kids' homework and his visits to a local cafe and his dealings with the guy who mows the lawn once a week. What would you call that approach? Thorough? Honest?

I'd call that approach completely different from Restrepo.

Your analogy is fatally flawed. It'd be accurate if Restrepo spent a year following McChrystal and focused on his family, his dentist, the guy who mows his lawn, etc., but never talked about the overall strategy and progress of the war.

The soldiers featured here, they're like every soldier who has ever fought: whatever their view of the larger issues of the war, those don't visit down to their firebase very often. You're criticizing the movie for being what it is isn't, when you don't appear to appreciate that it can't be anything else.

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing it, if only because I'm sick of the made-in-L.A. documentaries about the war based on reports filed by NYT journalists who never step foot from green zones and Kabul hotels. We already have plenty of those, Jeffrey? Do you really need another one in order to make up *your* mind? Your mind was made up before you stepped foot in the theater-- hell, it was made up *years* ago.

But how many war documentaries do we have? Genuine war documentaries that show what it's like, Michael Yon or Michael Totten or Sebastian Junger style? Not many. Not *enough*. Half of America thinks it's like Call of Duty over there, the other half doesn't think about it at all. Armchair strategists in the general public and blogosphere may or may not be correct in some of their conclusions, but very few of them arrive their with any actual fucking knowledge of what it's like. A subscription to The Atlantic and a bookmark for MSNBC.com does not an Eisenhower make.

Posted by crazynine at June 21, 2010 8:37 AM

comment #20

crazynine says ...

Aww crap, close tags.

Posted by crazynine at June 21, 2010 8:38 AM

comment #21

Travis Crabtree says ...

Junger has a simply EPIC forehead.

Posted by Travis Crabtree at June 21, 2010 10:04 AM

comment #22

artblundell says ...

Is Restrepo selective? Yes, that the point--it's meant to be the soldiers' POV.

You're upset that the film isn't "political" (ie doesnt make a statement in line with YOUR politics about the futility of the war). Fine. But that is not the same as "lying through omission". [ By the way, i did not see anything in the NYT review that implied agreement with your assertion. If anything, there was a quote from a soldier saying "they told the truth"]

You're upset the film doesnt ask the "shit-load of questions about the general game plan" that you would. It strikes me as odd that you think grunt soldiers are permitted to ask these kind of questions. It's not a blog, it's the military. And if Hetherington and Junger had put these questions in the mouths of the soldiers if they aren't asking them, then that WOULD have been misleading and distorting. Their point is that soldiers weren't asking these questions, they were just trying to deal with the lousy situation they found themselves in.

So you dont like soldier POV movies. Fine. But that doesnt mean they are lying or interested in Afghanistan for personal profit or thrill seeking jollies. You want a movie about why we have to leave Afghanistan. Fine. Make one.

Posted by artblundell at June 24, 2010 10:12 AM

comment #23

mucha says ...

You seem to want a film that forces us to discuss how the hell we got into Afghanistan and how we will ever get out. It seems to me the film was successful in generating that debate because here we are having it right now. This discussion is important to have, I agree. But it doesn't belong in the film because it is not relevant to the soldiers' lived (and death) experience, which is the subject of the film, not whether the war makes any sense or not. Your analogy to McCain's campaign aides is, well, not analagous. The absence of "context" (your term) is not dishonest, it is the precise point of the film--soldiers are in that crummy remote outpost living and dying regardless of whether it is a "just war" or fools' errand, whether we leave next month ...or never. It's a shitty situation, but there it is. That's the point.

For erniesouchak who thinks a film about guys getting shot at is boring--have you watched CNN or read Wikipedia lately (which Jeff seems to think are better sources of "context")? Zzzzzzzzz

Posted by mucha at June 24, 2010 2:30 PM

comment #24

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comment #27