The Awl

Blackwater and the "Military Aged Males" of Iraq

Choire Sicha — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:30:37 +0000

John Cook's 4500-page Blackwater document dump is incredibly engrossing. These little stories! It's like, "we shot this dude's car, then everything was okay." What a nightmare Baghdad must have been (for Iraqis, I mean).

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

7 comments

Why Do People Take Snapshots of Themselves Holding Decapitated Heads?

Choire Sicha — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:10:49 +0000

Last year, the Army undertook a war crimes probe, with, as evidence, some 4000 photos and videos from Afghanistan. Which sound in some cases really bad, and in some cases, in extremely poor taste: posing next to dead bodies alone seems like a gross way to pass the time. Apparently people really get into this: "Soldiers have told investigators that such photos of dead bodies were passed around like trading cards on thumb drives and other digital storage devices." 12 soldiers in all have been charged, most of them for lesser crimes; five were charged regarding "premeditated murder." Now Der Spiegel has just published three of the photographs, but apparently has access to a large number of them. And now, what will happen? "Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of 'trophy' photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed." The first court martial will result in a guilty plea to murder—and evidence against the others involved.

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

27 comments

Yay the Afghanistan War is Starting to End! (Starting in 2014)

Choire Sicha — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:00:55 +0000

"So 2014 is the new July 2011. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the caveats and the asterisks that the Obama administration and NATO want to place onto the dates, and understand that neither date heralds the End Of The War. But there’s a word for politicians who need you to listen carefully to their statements to grasp the full depth of their meanings: liars. They’re putting out a line that suggests on its face that the war will wind down or end when they’re actually promising no such thing."
—Oh I see.

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

0 comments

Afghanistan's Bank Thinks It's Goldman Sachs Or Something

Choire Sicha — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:10:22 +0000

Oh cool. Now we're supposed to "shore up" and guarantee Afghanistan's bank too? I mean, haven't we done enough, what with helping Iceland and Latvia and Greece and-oh, wait, what's that you say?

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

0 comments

Hey You! Send a Photographer to Afghanistan!

Choire Sicha — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:30:17 +0000

Conceptual photographer Nicholas Grider has started a Kickstarter project to embed in Afghanistan. Grider has extensively photographed "Fake Afghanistan"-the training sites in the U.S. for Marines-and now he wants to photograph the real one. (The "real" one?) Give a little!

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

10 comments

'Time' Regrets To Inform You That We Will Kill These Women

Choire Sicha — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:11:22 +0000

"We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it." That's Time editor Rick Stengel on his new cover story.... which is coverlined "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan," and has a portrait of a woman brutalized by the Taliban. The story contains this: "As the war in Afghanistan enters its ninth year, the need for an exit strategy weighs on the minds of U.S. policymakers. Such an outcome, it is assumed, would involve reconciliation with the Taliban. But Afghan women fear that in the quest for a quick peace, their progress may be sidelined.... For Afghanistan's women, an early withdrawal of international forces could be disastrous." So... which is it? That sure sounds like an argument-and, you know, a very moving and affecting one!-for something like a permanent or at least extended occupation. Making things a little more complicated? The new issue also has an article by expert-without-portfolio Joe Klein, which goes: "Afghanistan is really a sideshow here. Pakistan is the primary U.S. national-security concern in the region." So now what am I supposed to think while I'm not going on summer vacation because it makes our children stupider?

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

53 comments

The Wikileaks Data: Where to Start

Choire Sicha — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:00:50 +0000

If you're going to spend the day digging in on the just-released 75,000+ reports from the U.S. military provided by Wikileaks, and why shouldn't you, you should start with their mirror site, as their main site has gone down due to massive, crushing fascination. But first! It's time to learn the Afghan base acronym list and figure out who's all fighting whom. Here are a few other ways to dip your toe in: what the data reveals about reconnaissance drones; how they show that "the Pakistani military has acted as both ally and enemy"; and, that old chestnut, where in the world is Osama bin Laden. Here's some unhelpful response-talk from the White House! "Wikileaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes US policy in Afghanistan." Oh, well then, let's ignore... the data from the U.S. military? (An organization that, by the way, works for us. This is our information.) The White House also said: "The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information." Sure! That's why Wikileaks withheld more than 15,000 of the reports, which will be released when "the security situation in Afghanistan permits." Let's not forget, as Guardian editor David Leigh points out: "All this information is historical, ending at 31 December 2009. Nothing in it can endanger current military operations."

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

36 comments

Read the 'Rolling Stone' General McChrystal Profile

Choire Sicha — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:05:53 +0000

Once again, we're having that magical moment where the world-from the President on down-is up in arms over a scandalous piece of magazine writing that pretty much no one can read. Rolling Stone's profile of General McChrystal, the top man in Afghanistan, is now big-Drudge-banner, front-page Times news. But the magazine isn't on stands yet and most likely it won't be on the website for weeks, as is the top-down military strategy of RS owner Jann Wenner. (This was the bizarre situation we found ourselves in a couple years ago, when the magazine published the world's most compelling story of Britney Spears' meltdown.) [UPDATE Bad news! The McChrystal profile that was being hosted as a PDF by Politico has now been taken down, after much yelling by Rolling Stone publicists. Here's a small, fair-use excerpt.] Oh, and the content? "The amazing thing about it is there's no complaints from McChrystal or his staff about the administration on any substantive ground," reports Spencer Ackerman. It's just a bunch of boys being petty-though he predicts the General will be scolded but not fired. So, two strategies aren't working: McCrhystal's press strategy and Rolling Stone's web strategy. Over at RS, according to outside traffic measures, pageviews are way up-but unique visitors are way down over the course of the year. Lots of photogalleries, you know. UPDATE: Annnnd it's finally online! Mazel tov to the web people at Rolling Stone.

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

11 comments

In 2021, Afghanistan Looks Back

Choire Sicha — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:21:21 +0000

After much searching, in the summer of 2021 we found Afghanistan napping in a small hut that had been hastily built into a bombed-out former mountainside. "I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare," said Afghanistan. "Sure, we called the Sudden Money Institute, those people who try to help lottery winners who live in trailers to not go crazy, but they were annoying and they kept talking about 'trusts' and 'foundations' and interest ratings, so, whatever, we eventually just blew them off."

"Everybody had a hand out," Afghanistan said. "All my cousins wanted a piece. How could I say no?"

Then, in the mid-10s, Afghanistan spent most of its money on an international chain of drive-through highway carwashes, called the Tribal Chieftains' Rain-Makers, which were not a success. Afghanistan was forced to settle a class action lawsuit on behalf of employees over the uniforms-women employees claimed they were mangled because they couldn't see through the headgear while operating machinery. The Rain-Maker chain closed, and Afghanistan went back home.

By then, all the money was gone.

"Yeah, it sucked," said Afghanistan. "But at least I got laid a lot for a few years. Had a few laughs. You'd be surprised how many Miss America contestants you can fit in a Lamborghini ReventÃ³n."

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

18 comments

Can you imagine sitting through this PowerPoint presentation?

Alex Balk — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:40:21 +0000

I cannot understand why Obama took so long to make his decision on what to do in Afghanistan. Look how simple it all seems!

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

16 comments