Sangin... The cost, for ...?

[empip]

Guardian - 2010 - http://tinyurl.com/2vo5js2
...Of the 337 deaths of British service personnel in Afghanistan since 2001, nearly a third – 106 – happened in Sangin...

Ben Anderson - Documentary - May 2013

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[AronSearle]

Give us a text summery.

No, I can't be arsed to watch some random you tube links.

 

[RigidRaider]

....especially when just part 1 is over 90 minutes long!

I watched part 1 and here's the summary:

It shows some sincere and well-meaning American soldiers trying to educate the Afghan Police Force but succeeding only in offending them. It shows Police commanders using the chai boys as wives, an ancient practice which modern ways will not stamp out. It shows Taliban melting into the population of the village and farmers who refuse to stay at home to prevent Taliban from using their houses as vantage points for shooting at Americans. It shows Afghan Police coping with broken-down pickup trucks while Americans drive around in armoured vehicles. It shows Afghan Policemen walking casually along village paths while American troops file nervously along behind them, the first in line waving a mine-detector around. And it shows Afghan Policemen looking bored, stoned and frustrated while their earnest young commander urges them to get up and fight.

That's it really. You don't need to watch more than the first 15 minutes to understand that, as the English film-maker says, it's not about winning, it's about getting out without loss of face.

 

[AronSearle]

Interesting, but flawed.

Go in with the wrong question, and you'll come out with the wrong conclusion.

Changing Afghanistan to be more "modern" would take 50+ years, even that would be a very optimistic timetable, and the military are just a small component of such an endeavour.

So stuff like this is interesting, sad, but not really that relevant if you have a 50+ plan.

The real issue of course is that we don't have that, and the general poooblic think somehow what the military is doing is pointless, well that's only because the grander plan is lacking.

Put in a proper plan, and you can just accept stuff like the above as the inevitable shot term pain to endure before things change.