Homework

Writing my City Arts Blog review on Restrepo it was hard not to fall into arguments like "as an American, you need to see this to understand why we need to get the fuck out of Afghanistan." In spite of certain realities, I don't like to consider myself a shrill liberal bedwetter and the film really does do a good job of skirting the politics around the war.

But it's so disheartening watch a man who really cares about proper counterinsurgency, Capt. Kearney, undo his own laborious attempts at diplomacy with rash (if justifiable) assaults on villages that may or may not be providing material support to the Taliban. And to see in long take, close up young men who will never be the same for the things they've seen and done in the Korengal has upset me for days in a way that reading the daily New York Times stories never has.