Inside Afghanistan with Ben Anderson opens with VBS co-founder Shane Smith, who presents the site’s latest documentary vids by explaining that “generally what we’ve found with VBS is what you hear in the mainstream media vs what’s actually happening are two completely different things.”
So there’s the politics right there. This is a piece out to prove a point — that coalition forces are mired in Afghanistan, babysitting an inept army and unable to make good on the original goal of eradicating the Taliban. Move along, no uplifting bromides here.
The footage is all all shot by Anderson, a globetrotting BBC war reporter on location with British forces in Taliban-controlled Helmand, Afghanistan, and what you see mostly supports Smith’s point: the Afgahni National Army (ANA) can’t ration water supplies (“they’re basically children,” is the refrain from several British soldiers), they can’t maintain combat discipline, they get high on opium and hashish during a firefight. Adding to the farce is a British attack helicopter that twice almost incinerates the coalition troops. It’s truly depressing stuff you’re not likely to see on the nightly news.
The vids are also intriguing for their inability, really, to show a firefight in anything resembling the Hollywood style we’re all accustomed to: swooping angles, bright muzzle flashes, burning bodies flying through the air. Here it’s just poofs of dust, radio static and rattling submachine guns, and the echo of bombs landing, somewhere. The video’s confusion mimics the military’s.
That said, it’s still a good watch. Part of the attraction is the gentleman-warrior Brits, who charmingly call in helicopter strikes with lines like “If you could put air on that that’d be lovely, over.”
The problem, though, is that Smith won’t shut up. Instead of showing the video straight, we’re basically watching Smith and Anderson watching Anderson’s videos. Every few minutes the scene changes to Anderson in a video playback room explaining what’s going on to Smith, or Smith reaffirming, in mock-incredulous tones, the onscreen action. He puts himself between us and the film, and basically repeats, “See? I toldja how f*cked we are. Toldja toldja toldja.”
The vids don’t need this. Smith’s a good, if biased, journalist in his own right (e.g., his Korea piece for VBS), and anyone familiar with VBS is accustomed to their show-it-like-it-is reporting. But in this instance, Smith gets in the way. Anderson’s footage speaks for itself.
There’s one other problem: ultimately, the videos don’t completely contradict news reports. They do show, in greater detail and without the obstruction of military PR, the problems inherent in managing any foreign army and fighting an insurgency. But we’ve heard, and seen, these things before — Occupation: Dreamland, No End in Sight, and Gunner Palace, just to name a few docs I’ve seen. Instead of presenting this footage as something that shines a light on previously opaque matters, Smith should pitch it as a reaffirmation of what’s gone wrong.
All in all, a fantastic series. Just take Smith out of it.
