HBO - The Battle for Marjah

polkatese

Excellent documentary. Start on Thursday...

Battle for Marjah

toucanet

Thanks for the heads up polkatese,

I've set my DVR in case I am not able to watch it that night.

toucanet

Bumping as a reminder for those that may be interested.

DMara

The bureaucracy was just f@cking unbelivable!

• What kind of war was that that you let the enemies knew you were going in, allowing them to sneak their VIPs out with civilians before attacking?
  
• The government boasted that this was an Afghan-led campaign. Yeah right! Our troops cussed at the Afghan dudes accompanying them almost all the time, commanding them to do this and that. For example, the Marines were yelling to one Afghan trooper: "Sit! Sit the f@ck down! Sit! Sit down!" And he sat down right next to a dog!!! So much for a widely advertised alliance :redface: They were old and tired, too; it was so hilarious that a little Afghan trooper could not even kick a door out
  
• Once the enemies ran out of ammo or wanted to run away, they grabbed women and kids to use as covers while fleeing. One of them was actually shooting at us with a Mauser :biggrin:
  
• Drone film identified the exact location of the enemies, even showing them moving around. But guess what? Here were a few quotes from the documentary:
  "Above Marjah drones film everything on the ground. Requests for airstrikes must go through several levels of authorization, including a General and his staff. Bravo request up to 40 airstrikes a day. Most are denied. Others take up to 2 hours to be approved, by which time planes have run out of fuel and returned to their base."
  "An airstrike on the Taliban fighters entering the 'Porkchop' is finally approved. But due to a malfunction the bomb can't be dropped. Capt. Sparks decides to attack on foot."
  
• At the end, "the operation should now enter its final phase: transferring control to Afghan security forces." Yep, those raggedy looney troopers who couldn't kick a door open and were forced by "allies" to sit by a dog! A quote from the movie:
  "The Afghan National Army and Police are made up almost entirely from the ethnic groups of Northern Afghanistan. Recruitment from the Southern population, who are mostly Pashtun like the Taliban, remains low. The two peoples speak different languages, and distrust remains rife." And our intelligent commanders' best strategy was to allow those northern guys to rule over the southern region. Yeah, so smart! The enemies just moved out, giving our troops the control of the central town, then frustrating us with their petty IED's and sniper shots.
  
• "Condolence payment"!!! What a war! Enough said!

This was a dumb-and-dumber war!

The only uplifting positive thing in the documentary was the little kid Mohammad. He was very bright, funny and practical. Unfortunately, as soon as the Marines moved out at the end of June, he was found beheaded in September :redface: