In a piece published today about Sebastian Junger’s “Restrepo,” the Afghanistan War documentary released over the weekend, Bill Cody at Rope of Silicon admits (accidentally?) what we all knew anyway: that the Sundance Film Festival is all about the leftist political agenda.

Sebastian Junger

Last year “Restrepo” got a big boost out of Sundance, winning the Grand Jury Prize and rave reviews from all the right people. The documentary is supposedly apolitical but over the weekend Junger’s been making the rounds on various news programs promoting his film and the idea that America must win the war in Afghanistan. Having witnessed this surprising development, Cody (who opposes the war) wonders if the leftist film festival was “suckered” by ”a director who is very pro-War”. [emphasis mine]:

On each of these shows Junger was asked his opinion of the ongoing war and each time he argued for more time and more troops. In other words, more war.

As I watched Junger on these shows I wondered aloud if this is what the programmers at Sundance had in mind when they promoted Junger’s film earlier this year and heaped awards and praise on it. I’d like to think they just thought Restrepo was the best documentary out there but I know that isn’t really how Sundance works.

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6 September 2009

This story was published in the New York Daily News on 6 September 2009.

Photo: Jacobson/AP

Helmand, Afghanistan – The West is losing this war. This has been obvious for more than three years. Less obvious is that in 2009, we are down to the wire. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others will soon recommend to President Obama the latest treatment for a dying patient.

Meanwhile, allies and Americans are asking themselves why we are here. Some are saying that Al Qaeda is still here or is waiting in the wings to return to its home. Yet Afghanistan was never Al Qaeda’s permanent home to begin with. Al Qaeda was just renting a little space here, just as it was renting space in places like Germany and Florida. (more…)

13 July 2009
Ghor Province, Afghanistan

The wake-up alarm sounded at 0345, and by 0430 the Lithuanian soldiers were ready to roll. The Lithuanians had always arrived early, prepared for action before every mission, but this time we relied on an Afghan guide. The first part of the mission was to find the Kuchi. Normally, Lithuanian soldiers perform a reconnaissance before a mission, but they decided to skip the recon to find the Kuchi nomads because, well, they are nomads. Even if the recon were to locate the camel caravan in a specific location, the Kuchis would likely have moved by the time we got there. So we were relying on the local guide who had a cell phone number for the Kuchis. He was 21 minutes late and held up the mission by 27 minutes. One guy holding up about three dozen soldiers and a mission should be flogged.

Lithuanian Soldiers Prepare Humvees under the glow of the Milky Way

The base at Chaghcharan sits at nearly 7,500 feet above sea level, so at night the Milky Way hovers in magnificence above the clean, dry air. But come morning, the stars fade as the sun rises with blinding vengeance.

As we rolled to find the Kuchi nomads and their camels, the six vehicle convoy kicked up “moon dust,” which reflected the bright sun, causing instant blindness as if driving through white clouds. The convoy had to space out, else the vehicles would be driving dangerously close through the arid fog of dust. As we passed villages made of stone, mud, and straw, the white smoke from their cooking fires hung low, just above the villages, lightly blanketing their dwellings, as farmers were already heading to the fields. The Afghans are a hard-working lot. The cruel mountains must have killed off the lazy ones a long time ago.

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