VICE - 2013-05-16
"This Is What Winning Looks Like" is a disturbing new documentary about the ineptitude, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and corruption of the Afghan security forces as well as the reduced role of US Marines due to the troop withdrawal. In part two, we see on-the-ground footage of fighting between the Afghan forces and the Taliban as well as insightful commentary from the documentary's producer, Ben Anderson. There are also exclusive interviews with the US Ambassador and the British Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan about the prospect of peace in the region. Watch parts 1 & 3 here: http://bit.ly/What-Winning-Looks-Like-1 http://bit.ly/What-Winning-Looks-Like-3 Read the full article here: http://www.vice.com/read/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-0000111-v20n5 Follow @BenJohnAnderson on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/BenJohnAnderson Part 3/3 coming soon. Click here to subscribe: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE Watch our podcast interview with Ben Anderson, the producer of "This Is What Winning Looks Like," here: http://bit.ly/Ben-Anderson-Podcast Check out our full video catalog: http://bit.ly/VICE-Videos Videos, daily editorial and more: http://vice.com Like VICE on Facebook: http://fb.com/vice Follow VICE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vice Read our tumblr: http://vicemag.tumblr.com
Respect for that one competent Afghan commander.
@Jim *they're
Mario W
‘I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion’. - Alexander the Great.
RA you have nothing to say because your nation is nothing with us
W
Jim this has to be one of the most ignorant comment I have seen in a long time. The United States are the main reason for many wars that are still waging today, and yet you blame these afghans for fighting a war they were forced into. What a shame.
Major Steuber, wherever you are, I hope you are doing well
amen brother
@Dezzatube: Would he get court marshaled for talking to the ambassador in private when he walked around the base? That's where I would have gotten into contact.
@Chudy Ilozue: Honestly, I am surprised the Pentagon and Marine Corps green lighted this documentary given how bad the situation was back then. Maybe even a lot of people in high command positions wanted to get these informations out.
I m all good, how about you commander
MOST DEFINITELY...
These clowns are less organized than your average Airsoft players. What a joke.
You not kidding. I played competitive paintball for years - I would play on Saturdays with athletic shorts and a teeshirt, so I was pretty confident. We would play in a massive 50 v 50, heavily wooded area, with different buildings and structures, and it would go on for hours sometimes. Many times it would end due to time. These were all 'freeplay', and still better than this. The coordination that would take place ahead of time was like 1hr per team, and everyone would memorize their routes, possible flanks, possible chokepoints, we would have hand signals in buildings to eliminate sound, etc. The total map and playing area was miles long. I truly think the people that I used to play with would be far more coordinated.
Well they probably need more proper training.
Because the thing is, these guys aren't soldiers. They're random schmucks who are looking for an easy way to make quick money, and the easiest way to do that is to join the army and police and start shaking people down. The Americans were so desperate for bodies to fill up the ANA's uniforms, they essentially cast the net to include anyone showing even a modicum of interest. But the truth is, this is a country that hasn't even reached the Bronze Age. The people are selfish, uncaring. They don't see the bigger picture.
While I'm not blind to the fact that most soldiers aren't joining their militaries for altruistic reasons and many are simply doing it as a career, most soldiers in most militaries still have some sense of responsibility to their country. The Afghan soldiers are just there to loot and pillage. The minute the Americans leave, the Taliban will go on the offensive and the ANA will disintegrate.
@C P it created the end of the cold war but also created a failed nation and 9/11
Worst thing is we have sposed to have trained them, u guys and us in the UK, I was a soldier and not front line but it's fucking embarrassing that on its own😔 the 2 best armies the world has ever seen at some points in past few years an I would rather trust a 13 year old cadet who knows how to fire a rifle in the right direction and follow simple instructions...😲
Soldier: "You have to LOOK who you are shooting at!"
Afghan Policeman: "?"
Lukas Rosa every pilot is an Air Force, but not every air force is a pilot. I’m making complete sense
@Rojoyerf Marines don't like to be called soldiers themselves as for them they see it as an insult. It's a lot of reasons honestly, one of them is just for formalities sake like you call someone who's in the Air Force as a pilot an airman, someone in the Navy or even the Navy Seals a sailor, someone in the Army infantry a soldier, and this also goes along with calling someone who's in the Marine Corp a Marine. Other reasons are in some ways the Marines see themselves as the superior fighting force than the Army and calling the soldiers instead of Marines is an insult to their level of skill. Why do they think this?
Well, I think it has to do with the fact that out of all boot camps, the Marines boot camp is considered, physically speaking, the most difficult of all the branches and of course it is mentally difficult in its own right. And this is proven more by the fact that let's say your in the Navy, Air Force, or Army and you finished your contract but now your thinking about switching branches and joining the Marines. But if you go through with that choice even though you did boot camp already for whatever branch you came from before the Marines, it doesn't matter you're still going to have to go through the Marines boot camp. This isn't the same for Marines as let's say for example they served out their contract and now want to join the Army, they don't need to do the Army boot camp and this is the same thing for the Navy and Air Force if a Marine wants to switch and join their branch.
Another way they probably think of themselves as the more "superior" fighting force is because they usually are equipped with older gear and because they do not have as many personnel as the Army that also means a smaller budget for them, so Marines also pride themselves on that aspect of making do with less. One last reason is the brotherhood that is built between fellow Marines that you can't find in the Army which is something you might hear a lot is that the brotherhood and loyalty to each other are the best in the Marine Corps. I hope this helped a bit in your question. Peace.
@Bandit To us Brits it's all the same. Seems pretty pedantic to me.
JAMESON McDANIELS soldier is a general term for any military personnel
@Rojoyerf Yeah, it's more of prideful thing for the Marines of the U.S. Armed Forces I guess.
Not shooting until you see the enemy is not a very hard concept to understand
NOT TO THESE MORONS WHO ARE FUCKED UP ON DOPE AND DUMB AS A BUCKET OF HAMMERS !
@Andrey Rioux
'Yooo check this sick pre-fire'
empty's magazine into a house
'Its all about the lineup'
throws grenade into hospital
Well when the people your working with have a IQ of a -15 wtf do you expect !
the first thing we learn in the military training camp is how to shoot a rifle by aiming the right target. I guess these people can't even do that right.
@Ak47hash its just a mental thing, to bring destruction, terror and fear but these pp are not afraid of anything so yeah you are right, firering without target is useless
6:37 standing straight up and pointing "sniper" lmaooo
Matt Murray he was so happy too
The Taliban accuracy is 0.1%
Matt Murray luckily for him the Taliban are even less competent.
That old elder dude that was picking up bullet casings. A part of me felt sad cause he ain't getting paid and have to do stuff like that.
@Devon Bustard He would earn more on selling the actual round so I don't think so.
@L E M Ø N I dont think he could get away with selling ammunition. Bullet casing on the other hand...
He was also one of the few ones who knows how to handle an AK. Most of these guys don't aim, they just auto-fire. The US soldiers next to them were quite baffled when that one dude hip fired an LMG literally spraying bullets. But they didn't say anything.
Their society is like the 21st century passed them by! Literally stuck in the 1700s, bury their feces type shit. They dont want to progress.
@Billy B.A. I would say foreign military intervention didn't help the matter
Afghan General: “All unnecesary fire should be avoided.”
Afghan soldier: “aLL uNnEcEsArY fIrE sHoUlD bE aVoIdEd"
Tom McAteer So what was your point with you every other Capital letter?
@Michael Mills bit late it's a visual way to Express that they don't take what they're saying seriously, mostly used to convey sarcasm
Commander:
"Don't waste ammo"
Soldiers when they see air:
"PRATATATATATATATATATATA"
This is what I fought for... I am dead inside.
I feel you. This is tough to watch when you think about the fact that friends died alongside drug addicts who are too lazy to even build fortifications.
shut up boot
Hope you're good wherever you are brother.
@Michael Jarrett only prob with this is I don't even have a clue what your proof is, different country like , but benefit of the doubt, usually people bullshitting would be back an forth messaging digging a bigger hole for themselves they can't help It, but id rather take people at face value
@Bang Arang actually its not about any of That, most people just want to do some good an your right the army isnt best place for that but your not fighting for a country after that first day your fighting for your mate who shit his pants he was so drunk a while back and it was funny as fuck watching his jeans turn brown😆 but at the same time hes stood there next to you an shitty pants Murphy is just as good a soldier as the 30 other guys who are putting themselves on the line
Lil uzi has more armored vehicles than the entire Afghan army
I feel for Major Steuber. You can tell he's a man of honour, yet it is deeply conflicted by it all. I hope he's found peace at the end of 2019
when NATO leaves these guys are basically dead...
Nah, they'll just join the Taliban and give then all those weapons.
The smart ones will have their exit routes planned out, either by defecting to taliban or immigration
And that's basically what happened
@Anglo Fyrd yeah
Probably go join the Taliban, an actual effective fighting force with a sense of purpose and vision.
3:57 special forces written on the helmet...then a flashy blue rug around the neck...specially idiotic must be the type of "special forces" he belongs to...
Fuck he needs an eyebrow wax asap
I think the Special part was in parenthesis. Lol You have to think most of these soldiers probably have a 2nd grade education if any and their main study is the Quran that i am sure comes from the perspective of their Imam. Its not hard to figure out why they cant think for themselves and are easily controlled. I hate to say it but we will probably regret not being more forceful but hey they found a way to unload all that cold war era hardware and keep the troops busy.
Pierre Alie 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
“Fahk you taliban” that just made my day XD
3:59 to see a God tier uni brow
It's clear the afghans don't want to fight for themselves
they just want to be left to smoke weed, opium and diddle boys
Pashtuns don't want to fight, cuz they are on the other side(Taliban). As soon as they (Pashtun) got time they'll backstab you.
CrustyChris I agree, there cowards who are really the emeny
The afghan are fighting you and winning, what you see here are leftovers. As for diddling little kids... I’m sure the church and the American elite never did that, unlike Epstein, Clinton, priests etc
@Shaz B. almost like taking the word of god literally isnt a good idea
Not surprising really. The Taliban believe they're freedom fighters on the side of God who will be eternally rewarded for martyrdom while the Afghan forces believes they're collecting money from foreign occupiers to shoot at their own righteous countrymen and are just trying to survive until next month.
Exactly! The terrorists are more organized because they’re fighting for a cause and they believe in that cause! It’s sad that these afghan security forces don’t seem to have an ounce of courage or patriotism in them. Bring our soldiers home fuck these guys
9/10 TimesMyCommentsROffensive what the hell is “patriotism” for a nomadic people that have never known or wanted or been inclined to form any type of a nation state? Lol
@9/10 TimesMyCommentsROffensive patriotism, or rather: nationalism as we should better call it, does only exists in nation states. Those are tribal societies, that do not recognise the "nation" afganistan. They are loyal to their villages and tribes, but do not care about the nation, because that does not exists for them.
These men are totally useless. Throughout the documentary you can feel they have a very sedentary attitude about their situation. They are cowardly and can only express their manliness by subjugating their women and growing their beards to over compensate for the lack of sheer willpower.
The guy at the start seems really intelligent.
Splitting a force into an Infil Group, Attack Support Group, and Reservists is smart.
Also utilizing local resources is smart as well to know where and how much the enemy presence is in certain areas.
Yeah, I would guess he is one of the few that actually paid attention to the training/education by western forces. I can't speak for other branches or militaries, but that was some of the basics from battle drill 1: conduct a platoon attack.
Those useless ambassadors....
This video makes you love where you live
@John Schauder it's the Western religious fundamentalists that seems to wish this kind of "culture" from Afghanistan.
@Noah Dunford I used to live in the UK. I'm an American citizen now thank god. In the UK the medical system is terrible, gun rights are terrible, taxes are terrible, free speech laws are terrible. Only thing i miss in the UK is football.
@Get Offended I never understood why people like Nigel Farage believe England has free speech.
This video makes me hate where I live, an the imperialism it pursues to the demise of so many
Even black neighborhoods are far better. Probably because they get billions in free money from the government.
Democracy is not for every country. Afghanistan is a perfect example.
gotta protect these poppy fields somehow
These people have issues i feel because they leave way too much up to “God”
4:00 lmao "ANA SPECIAL FORCES" xD
"another asshole"
Nani the fuck? Those guys were SPECIAL FUCKIN FORCES? That look like a airsoft team that got their hands on some guns
It's sad that a good leader has incompetent soldiers.
You found out that's normal yet?
the majority, not all.
CNX625 but its always worse when a incompetent leader leads good soldiers
Because they have been forced to fight a cause they have no interest in, its an ignorant imperialist cause
If soldiers are incompetent how good can their commander be? It’s his job to whip his men into shape. If he can’t do that and he’s supposedly the best frontline commander they have. They’re beyond fucked. Literally if you count that one commander who rapes and molests probably all the new recruits (seeing as how most of the recruits seem to be young boys)
All they do is blame others and want everything for themselfs without working for it... what a joke.
Watching this 7yrs later and Afganistan has still not changed ☹
Seeing the Afghan solder wearing a Russian helmet from the Soviet invasion really just shows you how much of a futile effort the US involvement in Afghanistan really is
Love how that guy was just standing in the open pointing at a sniper lmao like dude how are any of them still alive 😂😂
These guys are hopeless. Have we tried training the women? They would probably be better. I'm serious.
old bloke as a woman I can say that women have egos that are sometimes far larger than men’s.
N1ghtStalker I don’t think they were implying she was real. I think they were saying that even in Ancient Greece, women we recognized as strong, and strategic.
Sazed HeroOfAges feminist don’t want that kind of equality .... they prefer lazy jobs with more income, if they make mandatory of women also. Feminist will come yelling with a illogical reason like “female are so less are in the world , as our power are increasing they want us to be send to force”
I actually agree, I feel like the women there have more ambition to make their country a better place
hhaaahhaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaa
I was hesitant to watch this for years thinking it would be some anti-military propaganda or something along those lines. I will be the first to admit that I am wrong. This documentary really shows the "damned if we do, damned if we don't" nature of US-Afghan relations at the time, and it's saddening to me to see that there is so little that can be done, but so much that should.
6:38 "sniper" 👋🤣😂
They don't seem to understand the basic principle of a weapon
Instead of shooting bullets we should just spray them with a bottle of raid
Well we did that in Vietnam and everyone got all mad about it
A full scale nuclear attack on that entire part of the world is long overdue.
3:47 now that's the most square face I've ever seen the fifth dude
Actually, the Afghan army remembers me when I play with a random squad in pupg!!
So basically americans are sacrificing themselves and their own young educated men into nothing but black holes?
Hey, it’s an all recruited force. Can’t pout too much about it.
"We can't really say the effect this will have, post 2014..."
Update, 2018: ISIS
2019, Everyone who has paid only a tiny bit of attention: CIA built ISIS
Dude the Taliban is afghan born people ... Isis is the Islamic state of iraq and Syria .. your concept apply to the Iraq war what’s happening in the afghan nation has been happening for thousands of years they’ve never had a actual govt or peace time ... the Taliban is a enemy from the dark ages
David Helmer update, 2020:might be going to war with the Middle East, clearly progressing very well
@Aw350m3 H3R0 the thing some of this people are dumbass because as muslim faction I'm
Well all know. Bin Laden hate Zahid and Zahid hate bin Laden 😂😂😂
Major Steuber..a real good honest man.we salute you sir...😣
5:53 sick unibrow
who knew colin kaepernick was an afghani army leader
The whole culture of keeping Chai boys really isn't as foreign as it sounds. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans did it as part of an "education". These guys are just 2000 years behind us.
thou wierdo bullshit, a history lesson will teach you any of that was frowned upon and outlawed.
@Dimas Akbar bull fuckin shit... Japan was never like that... Do not think everyone is a Muslim... Please
I'm British, it's foreign to me because it was never a thing here in all of our history and it's fucking evil and disgusting. Doesn't matter who did it in the past, it was just as evil then as it is now.
USA made the taliban to defeat the Soviet Union and now they are fighting them back.
Go educate yourself.
@TheTaterTotP80 pedophilia wasn't a thing in Britain? excuse me while I collect my sides.
Spray and pray silver in CSGO
Negev needs nerfed
Major Steuber just won my heart and respect. Wherever you are sir, may God bless you and I hope you doing well......
#LoveFromIndia
okay, I'm 18 years old and in my life I've only ever shot a pistol, no type of ar, ever. BUT I'm pretty sure I could do more with my common sense and one of those ak47s in a day than these dumbasses could in a week. how hard is it to understand that you have to see someone before you shoot.
they’re like 11 year olds having a paintball war literally shooting at nothing
i want my tax money back...we're financing a three stooges comedy
Its a war crime
You're the idiot who decided to pay in the first place. DOn't insul them when they didn't ask for an invasion.
Hermann Schloffer von Graz what we just not pay taxes? Dumbass
I Agree
@Hermann Schloffer von Graz So you’re saying that we shouldn’t pay taxes. You must be a very special kind of stupid.
maximkazhenkov11 - 2016-09-11
Forget democracy, this place hasn't even reached feudalism yet.
RA - 2020-02-02
@Bring me Peter pan Just like America, Detroit, Skidrow, Slums in NYC. Just one big shithole.
Jamar Williams - 2020-02-16
maximkazhenkov11 Greeks, Persians, Mauryans, Turkic, Timurids, and British empires all died here. They can’t organize their stuff in Afghanistan. Look at those clowns they call the police/
MrKarabz - 2020-02-23
@paul productions that moment someone wants proof of a conspiracy you make fun of em, such a tribalist way of thinking u ape. How can a country that historically can't seem to hold its borders and diplomatically cant hold its self together, own the world
The Sher - 2020-02-27
@Khalil Mason Wahabism and Islam are two different things, you are a serious error.
L C - 2020-03-19
paul productions its a pit of dung.