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Thursday, May 24, 2012
June 27, 2010

Peter Van Agtmael: The Ground War

As General Stanley McChrystal’s disgrace this week opened up the larger conversation about counter-insurgency and corruption in Afghanistan, it is worth revisiting Peter Van Agtmael’s photographs from the ground war. These images are from his most recent trip last year to Helmand Province with the Marines, and although the unit was lucky not to lose any dead, I can feel the palpable cost; physically and emotionally.

These soldiers were ten or eleven years old when this longest war began. That Afghan child was not born yet. The classic stalemate of this war — harrowing echos from Vietnam and the Soviet war in these very same places — continues. The Taliban aren’t strong or popular enough to ever militarily defeat the United States or the Afghan government. But no preponderance of firepower and technology can seemingly ever defeat their insurgency either.

It’s probably fair to say that at any given moment, pretty much everybody in this war has forgotten why it started in the first place: September 11, 2001. Not that we’ve lost the memory, or can’t think about it if it comes up. But why would it now? Rather, the bodies trickle home at Dover Air Force Base, and pile up of Afghan civilians. Taliban and al-Qaeda casualties are uncountable. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar remain at large. Our own military and political leadership is utterly divided, Karzai’s regime corrupt and untrustworthy, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay stays open.

Forgive me, it is a terrible cliché to think of this when I look at my friend Peter’s photographs, but then again, so is everything else now after nine years; I cannot help but remember Yeats: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity…what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

–Alan Chin

PHOTOGRAPHS by PETER VAN AGTMAEL / Magnum Photos

captions– (top) A Marine from Forward Operating Base Sharp on a foot patrol in Mian Poshtay. FOB Sharp, in Mian Poshtay, is the combat base of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. The base is named for a soldier from the unit that was killed on the first day of an air assault into Helmand Province in July, 2009. He was killed while assaulting the building that later became the Marine base. Conditions are very rudimentary: soldiers sleep on the floor and there is no running water, showers, or flushing toilets. Most meals are MREs. (Meals Ready to Eat)  Soldiers from the unit take contact from the enemy nearly every day. They are the southernmost Marines of 2/8.

(middle) A Marine from FOB Sharp sets up a machine gun during a firefight with the Taliban.

(bottom) An IED detonates on a Marine patrol: It was detonated too soon by the triggermen, and no one was killed or seriously wounded. There were suspicions that there would be an attack. A few minutes beforehand, Marines had observed from a hillside as a man in a ditch near the site of the IED continuously popped his head up and down to observe the Marine progress.

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  • DennisQ

    I’ve been waiting for somebody to explain what the war is really all about. It’s not about Al Qaeda – it couldn’t be. They’re not there anymore. We don’t have to like the Taliban not to wage war on them. That can’t be the criterion we use!

    I’ll accept any explanation that factors in the apparent pointlessness of the war. Do our top commanders share some collective delusion about the importance of not losing? Even Obama buys into it, saying that we’re protecting the Afghan people from Al Qaeda. But we’re not. This is like the anti-Communist nuttiness of the 1950’s – some invisible enemy is out to get us.

    • http://motherrr.blogspot.com cmac

      When the Taliban ran the government, they provided a safe haven for al Qaeda. The point of the war originally was to drive the Taliban out and deprive al Qaeda of its most important ally. This was apparently achieved, but because the necessary follow-up – the nation building Bush scorned – was not done, the Taliban is back and gaining strength. The immediate goal, then, is to drive them out again. In the long term, the goal is to create an Afghanistan which will not ever again be in a position to shelter and encourage al Qaeda.

      In the process, of course, preventing the Taliban from running the country is a desired side-effect. Their practices are barbaric and have been ruinous for the Afghan people.

      I’m not sure how I feel about the war in Afghanistan. It was, initially, an appropriate response to 9/11 (although I opposed it at the time.) Had it been done correctly, I believe the world – and Afghanistan particularly – would have benefited. I don’t know if it’s possible now to undo the Bush administration’s abject failure in this case, but I understand the Obama administration’s desire to try. It’s not pointless. Unlike the ending of the Vietnam fiasco, which had consequences for our allies in Vietnam but not for us, this time we will likely pay with more and better organized terrorist strikes. Sadly for all of us, it’s probably too late to repair the damage. I hope the administration will choose to cut our losses sooner rather than later.

  • http://sozadee.blogspot.com/ Vigilante

    This has become Lyndon Johnson’s war.

  • bystander

    This is what’s harrowing:

    These soldiers were ten or eleven years old when this longest war began. That Afghan child was not born yet.

    As Andrew Bacevich recently wrote,

    The Long War is not America’s war. It belongs exclusively to “the troops,” lashed to a treadmill that finds soldiers and Marines either serving in a combat zone or preparing to deploy.

    To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed conflict without end.

    How old will they be when it’s done? Will they still be alive when it’s over? If not, will their loss have been worth it?

  • bystander

    :: sigh :: My kingdom for a preview button.

  • Bob

    It’s already been shown that we give bribes to the Taliban to allow supply trucks through their held territory. Like wise we protect the Afghan poppies fields. This is the information age and f you don’t know that by now either you are not paying attention or you are so brainwashed you refuse to accept the truth or you are a government disinformation plant.
    The US pays $400 a gallon for gasoline in Afghanistan. This whole war is not about winning, it is about funneling taxpayer monies to billion dollar contractors and maintaining an occupying presence in Afghanistan for the OIl, the Opium and to be at Irans door at the bequest of Israel.
    Google this – More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years
    Meanwhile the US is collapsing. 46 states are going bankrupt.
    When and if these kids get back home they will be coming to a life they will not recognize.

    • http://motherrr.blogspot.com cmac

      Are you saying I’m a government disinformation plant because I answered Dennis Q’s question, or was this unrelated? I’m confused by the ‘you’ in your post.

  • lytom

    The first picture is fascinating, especially the child standing above in judgment of the troops below. The sunlight at the foot of the child, the staff in hand and light, translucent veil like net… is this the foretelling?

  • Blue Shark

    …Hey Soldier … Look Up!

    …Looks like a lance and a net.

    …definite threat.

    …O, Bring the troops home!

  • Ivyleaves

    These soldiers were ten or eleven years old when this longest war began.

    This was so evocative to me. My son was that age when 9/11 occurred, and my first thought was panic that it could lead to him being drafted into a war, Vietnam all over again. Most people thought I was excessively worried, as if wars are over in a year or something.

    My brother was saved from Vietnam by the draft lottery, my son by the fear of the US government that a draft would wake up the populace and lead to peace protests.

  • Nemo

    The unforeseen consequences of war – that is why it should not be entered into lightly. Domestically, things are tight in the US, yet so much money and lives are being squandered in Afghanistan, with no end in sight. McCrystal said as much.

    For the WWII buffs, the second picture looks uncannily like the Steppes on the Eastern Front – Operation Barbarossa.

    Oh, btw after all this time, how can invading Afghanistan be considered an appropriate response to 9/11?

    • http://motherrr.blogspot.com cmac

      Are you asking me? I said initially it was.

  • Nemo

    “I’m not sure how I feel about the war in Afghanistan. It was, initially, an appropriate response to 9/11 (although I opposed it at the time.) Had it been done correctly, I believe the world – and Afghanistan particularly – would have benefited.”

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