We're Stuck in the Middle

All we want is peace. People are tired of fighting, people are hungry now, and there is no medicine for the sick. I don’t care who is in control. I want those who can bring peace, justice and Sharia law.
—Farm laborer Ghafar Jan

The Battle for Marjah is about misunderstanding. Focused through one Marine company’s experience of Operation Moshtarak, the documentary shows how U.S. troops, Afghan security forces, and Afghan civilians never quite come together.

Embedded for two months with Bravo Company of the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, British journalist Ben Anderson remains off camera, recording events and interviews. The film—which premieres 17 February on HBO—begins with the start of the operation, a major coalition offensive during the first half of 2010 that intended to implement a new approach to the war: area by area, troops would clear out the Taliban, hold the ground they seized, build infrastructure and governance, and transfer power to the Afghans. As the film illustrates, not one of these steps goes as planned, and none is wholly achieved—despite remarkable displays of action and good intentions and even, by the operation’s apparent end, a poignant flag-raising.

In February 2010, at Camp Dwyer in Helman Province, Captain Ryan Sparks outlines the plan. He feels confident that the Taliban will be defeated, he says, because of his troops’ resolve and training:  “There’s no worse enemy than the United States Marine, you know, we’re masters of controlled chaos and violence.” He uses similar language, poetic and inspirational, as he urges his men. “You have the gift of aggression,” he insists, and as they inflict that gift on their adversaries, they must keep in mind their own futures, demand of themselves that they behave honorably, without succumbing to emotions: “What happens over the next five days will be a cornerstone of your memory for the rest of your life.” 

Framed by allusions to the operation from elsewhere—President Obama’s May 2010 speech to West Point graduates, Western news reports, and maps showing relative positions of the base camp and the objectives—the chaos descends pretty much on cue. Headed into the town of Marjah, Bravo Company means to take one building at a time. As soon as they land, they’re surrounded, by Taliban and other fighters, by hidden explosives. Cpl. Hillis looks out at the ground that is rigged to explode upon a wrong step. “What these IEDs do is they take us away from our game plan,” he nods, his helmet and goggles huge on his head. “It’s a chess game, it’s not checkers now.”

An intertitle underscores the complexities of the Marines’ situation: in the town, where civilians remain even though they’ve been advised to leave, “The Marines can only attack when an ‘undeniably hostile act’ is being committed.” Otherwise, they must search each structure individually, and so become vulnerable to attack themselves. “The Marines believe they’re surrounded,” anther intertitle says. And then they are shot at. The camera tilts and reels, gunshots and curses ring out (“Oh fuck, oh shit!” “Where you hit at?” “My fucking leg, dude”). Hillis describes the difficulty posed by men with guns and a plan: “It’s not just one guy spraying like we usually run into,” he says. “These guys know what they’re doing.” 

The battle goes on for five days, presented here in fragments that approximate the experience. During a lull in the fighting, Lance Cpl. Godwin shows the photo of his five-month-old son he keeps inside his helmet, saying, “I miss him.” The respite is brief and strange here, a glimpse at another world before the film presses forward with the operation. Once they’ve secured a foothold in Marjah, the Marines turn to their partners in the mission, the Afghan Security Forces and also, the civilians besieged by daily ordinance. They meet with the Marines and describe their troubles: they’re stuck inside, afraid and uninformed. As one man puts it, “We’ve been living in constant anxiety. We thought the Taliban would beat us or the government would come and bomb us. We’re stuck in the middle. So we hide indoors worried about the bombings.”

The film suggests this is an unhappy consequence of the coalition’s current “counterinsurgency” strategy. Inserts of General McChrystal speaking before Congress and elsewhere (“This is a struggle for the support of the Afghan people”) remind you that he’s one of the experts on counterinsurgency. But the plan seems far removed from what Marines find “on the ground,” in the lengthy aftermath of the battle for Marjah. Captain Sparks explains,

We pretty clearly understand that the key to winning any fight like this is to control the population, not control them, but. I don’t want to use “winning hearts and minds,” but that’s basically it, to get the people on your side, and let them understand you’re here for them.

He doesn’t want to use the phrase associated with Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam war, but the reference seems disconcertingly apt. No matter their arduous training and careful planning, the U.S. troops appear invaders here. As Sparks speaks, the camera cuts to shots of Marjah’s inhabitants, crouched, miserable, utterly weary. And, as the film shows, their forbearance turns to outrage when the invaders make mistakes, when, for instance, a rocket launched by Charlie Company (in the area to aid in Bravo’s work) hits a house and kills four people.

An interview with 1st Lt. Maclean of Charlie Company has him pushed against the left of the fame, his face drawn. It’s one of those terrible interviews where all that can be said is what’s obvious, leaving all else unsaid: “There’s no way to rationalize in any way that this was a good thing or justified,” he says, “It’s just a terrible thing and a terrible sight.” Meeting with a man who’s lost his family, Maclean and other Marines present him with a “condolence payment” of $10,000 (or, as the film notes, “$2500 per life”). The Afghan man, a farmer, says they only did what they were asked, waiting inside their home until the Marines would arrive to take them to safety. The U.S. lieutenants assure him they’re sorry and “know what he’s going through.” As the payment is made, the presenter adds, “You know, the U.S. marines the citizens of Afghanistan and the government of Afghanistan together can achieve great things to make Afghanistan a safer and more prosperous place for all.” The farmer’s face suggests this promise sounds empty indeed.

The farmer’s silence speaks to mounting, wide-ranging frustrations. When the camera crew returns six months later, the Marines show the park they’ve set up, an effort to support the bazaar, to get the town’s economy moving again. They’ve put up a few green benches, but, as one Marine observes, “People aren’t used to benches here” (the camera cuts to men crouched on the ground, their traditional resting position). An Afghan man explains, “All we want is to feel safe and the coalition forces to leave, so we can sit together and embrace and so people can lead a normal life.” 

By the time Cpl. Hillis sums up, you know what he’ll say. “These people,” he begins,

They’re not like Americans there’s no way you can trust them. They let the Taliban beat them, but f it comes to one of us saying the wrong phrase or anything to these people and they just lose their lid, ‘cause we’re Americans and that Taliban was from the same tribe as me, you know. It’s ridiculous. It’s a mindfuck. It’s frustrating and that’s a losing ballgame.

It’s a mindfuck that affects everyone: that much is made clear in The Battle for Marjah. As the Marines lift weights and build schoolrooms, the citizens of Marjah wait. Threatened by the Taliban, wary of the invaders, they’re unable to make their own plans. As the camera shows armed vehicles raising dust in the street, a civilian says, “They think they’re helping but they’re making it worse. So far I’ve benefited nothing. And I don’t know what will happen in the future.”