# Kesterson At War



## hammond (3 Feb 2009)

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/militaryafghanistan/kesterson_at_war.html
U.S. photojournalist Scott Kesterson spent 15 months embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan in an effort to understand the conflict

An interesting piece by CBC. Some tough comments are made, and the continue referral that Canadian troops are Peacekeepers.

On a side note, its interesting to see the WO and his Recce element have arm pockets on their TW combats.


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## Haletown (3 Feb 2009)

The film was shot in early 2006.


The CBC story doesn't make this clear and the presents the film as "what is happening now"

In other words, the CBC has their agenda and they won't let either facts or truth get in the way.


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## GDawg (3 Feb 2009)

If only "journalists" were required to time stamp their images and footage and provide footnotes and sources for their reporting.

Alas, "journalism" is one of the few businesses left with no standards or regulations, which enrages me due to the vital importance the news media has in maintaining an effective secular democracy.


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## GAP (3 Feb 2009)

Scott Kesterson's clips have been playing for at least 2 years....this clip is a little longer, and is interesting, but not totally new.

The clips of the firefight at the schoolhouse I believe were done by Scott Kesterson. They are the stock in trade when Canadian News outlets show anything of the fighting in Afghanistan. 

Everyday Canadians should see more. This conflict involves them too.


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## Infanteer (3 Feb 2009)

Haletown said:
			
		

> The film was shot in early 2006.
> 
> 
> The CBC story doesn't make this clear and the presents the film as "what is happening now"
> ...



Kesterson's footage was shot in mid 06 but the CBC footage is 08 - the journalist makes mention of "2 years ago" and of Kesterson finishing the movie (it just went through advanced screenings).

I don't understand why the debate of "peacekeeping" came into the report - I don't think any Canadian believes this to be anything other than what it is, a gritty, tough counterinsurgency.


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## Armymedic (3 Feb 2009)

Mark Kelly does mention that these were shot during Scott's time in Afghanistan in 2006. And again at the end, when he mentions that the film is almost finished 2 years after Scott's time in in country.


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## MarkOttawa (3 Feb 2009)

From another topic:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/49908/post-807663.html#msg807663

A curse upon the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (please check the links within _The Torch_ post):
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/curse-upon-canadian-broadcasting.html

Some general blogosphere reaction here:
http://www.damianpenny.com/comments/display/12630

Mark
Ottawa


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## 54/102 CEF (3 Feb 2009)

Haletown said:
			
		

> The film was shot in early 2006.
> The CBC story doesn't make this clear and the presents the film as "what is happening now"
> 
> In other words, the CBC has their agenda and they won't let either facts or truth get in the way.



I agree on the agenda business - shades of Jane Fonda all over again

The video is great - too bad for the CBC and the photojournalist Mr. Scott (as if we need to do this lastname shtick) are so inept with their anti-war insights. Get a writer for your anti war diatribe - what ever you do you should be excellent in it - unfortunately it sits on the fence and falls off. 

Try try again


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## vonGarvin (3 Feb 2009)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Kesterson's footage was shot in mid 06 but the CBC footage is 08 - the journalist makes mention of "2 years ago" and of Kesterson finishing the movie (it just went through advanced screenings).
> 
> I don't understand why the debate of "peacekeeping" came into the report - I don't think any Canadian believes this to be anything other than what it is, a gritty, tough *counterinsurgency*.


Canadians don't have a clue what a counterinsurgency is.  Neither do most military members.  Some have no idea what it is, others think it's some sort of highly cerebral type of conflict with no place for Maintenance of Morale (3 legged races in the off time, internet connectivity to home, regular postal services) and Administration (10000 man base, where all the planes, logisitics, medics, etc are staged so that the troops in the field don't starve) have no place.  What happens over here is that they shoot at us, we shoot back, sometimes with tanks, and in the meantime, we try to get the Afghans to do the job.  When all is said and done, we are targetting two things: the enemy morale and logisitics.  Everything beyond that is plain wordsmithing.

Why "peacekeeping?"  Well, the notion (false though it may have been) is that our military was designed to wear blue berets, weapon slung and a pair of binos up to our faces.  Hell, when Rick Mercer was in Kabul in '03, he probably said "peacekeeper" about a billion times during his schtick.

Anyway, back to making more history.


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## Infanteer (4 Feb 2009)

Midnight Rambler said:
			
		

> Canadians don't have a clue what a counterinsurgency is.  Neither do most military members.  Some have no idea what it is, others think it's some sort of highly cerebral type of conflict with no place for Maintenance of Morale (3 legged races in the off time, internet connectivity to home, regular postal services) and Administration (10000 man base, where all the planes, logisitics, medics, etc are staged so that the troops in the field don't starve) have no place.



Zing - still dwelling on that one, eh.

I'd argue that most Canadians have a vague idea of what's going on - enough at least to know that Canadian troops are engaged in a gunfight and that it is not a peacekeeping mission, as Kesterson asserts.


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## GDawg (4 Feb 2009)

Midnight Rambler said:
			
		

> Canadians don't have a clue what a counterinsurgency is.  Neither do most military members.



Roger that. I am getting sick of explaining things to civies, should it be my job? Yes and no. I talk about my experience and it blows peoples minds. And explaining it to military members? It blows _my_ mind how ignorant some folks in the forces are about the mission. Most folks in the forces are on the same page, but I've met several (one or two who actually _did_ deploy) who are borderline idiots when it comes to their understanding of the mission, and they talk to the public too. I don't think any individual soldier has a crystal clear image of the "big picture", and thats why we higher up types who have a bead on the big picture to be honest and frank with the public through the media. 

I believe strongly that the next phase of journalism is the blogger, who has a command of a multitude of mediums and the ability to make as much raw or processed information at the disposal of the public on demand. Look no further than _The Torch_ as an example. You've got news articles, a news aggregator, video, maps, relevant links to official websites, photos, technical data etc.  A blogger can now embed with a military unit if they choose, and they won't be tied down by a production entourage, or limited by political caveats imposed by MSM corporate puppet masters. 
Bloggers typically specialize on a niche news market, you can seek out the news _you_ want as opposed to getting the entertainment news, sports scores, and weather from the same talking head. I often observe the "telephone game effect" in the MSM, where you have a field reporter filing a story to a news agency, which is picked up by network, and regurgitated downwards to a local channel or paper and lost context, accuracy, and clarity along the way.


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## midget-boyd91 (4 Feb 2009)

> The video is great - too bad for the CBC and the photojournalist Mr. Scott (as if we need to do this lastname shtick) are so inept with their anti-war insights. Get a writer for your anti war diatribe - what ever you do you should be excellent in it - unfortunately it sits on the fence and falls off.



When I watched this, I absolutely noticed the spin that the CBC reporter put on it. I did not however pick up any anti-war drivel from Mr. Kesterson. So as the responses came on here, I had to go back to listen to it again. Still picked up on the disgusting amount of an agenda that the reporter put into it (I'm not convinced that it was the CBC as much as Mark Kelly individually), but I still didn't pick up much of an anti-war feel from Kesterson. He had words put into his mouth by the narrator non-stop, but when you listen to _what he said personally,_ not what Mark Kelly said he thinks, or wants, or believes... he's just talking.

* "This is an individual who is coming towards them with a knife. He's a threat, there is a fear that he may be a suicide bomber. They have an interpreter telling the man to 'Stop, put the knife down.' And the man keeps coming. Another warning shot is fired. "* - Scott Kesterson 

When talking about the same incident, here's how the reporter put it.

*But is he the enemy? In Afghanistan, it's not always clear whose on your side. ... The Afghan did die. There. Where he was shot, and in the end there was no evidence that he was a suicide bomber, or that he understood the interpreter. *

Really, the only thing that Kesterson said that bothered me at all, was when he was telling Mark Kelly that Canadians don't know that it's a war, and that we think it is peacekeeping. Aside from that, I found he was very balanced.

I found the amount of a personal agenda put into this by Kelly to be nothing short of shameful. Even compared to what the CBC usually spits out towards Afghanistan.

Asking the veteran if he 'killed a Taliban?'
 Good God, buddy. All I can picture is a mountie going to a Kintergarden class and being asked umpteen million questions along the lines of "Have you ever shot anyone? Have you ever used your beater-uper stick?" 

Oddball


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## vonGarvin (4 Feb 2009)

uncle-midget-Oddball said:
			
		

> *But is he the enemy? In Afghanistan, it's not always clear whose on your side. ... The Afghan did die. There. Where he was shot, and in the end there was no evidence that he was a suicide bomber, or that he understood the interpreter. *


I got the same from that, and as I told others here "He didn't understand?  WTF?  I mean, even if he didn't understand Pashto or Dari or whatever, EVERYONE speaks "gun", and if you are wielding a knife, approaching guys with guns, who then yell and point at you (even if it's gibberish) and then fire a round off to your side, well, dude understood and knew what he was doing."

Mark Kelly's assessment was outright wrong, in that dude understood.  Poor 'journalism' in this example.


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## chrisf (4 Feb 2009)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Zing - still dwelling on that one, eh.
> 
> I'd argue that most Canadians have a vague idea of what's going on - enough at least to know that Canadian troops are engaged in a gunfight and that it is not a peacekeeping mission, as Kesterson asserts.



Don't underestimate the ingorance of the general public...

The AVERAGE Canadian is probably perfectly sensible, and as an idea of what we're doing over seas, and why where there... note that I said average... so even if we assume that the "average Canadian" comprises 50% of the population,  that still leaves us with a lot of ignorant people... I've talked to to many personal acquantinces, who don't believe we should be doing what we're doing in Afghanistan, who think we should be (and it's more or less a direct quote) "Peacekeeping there instead", which absolutely no idea what we're doing in Afghanistan (Rebuilding a country and driving out an insurgency which threatens it's stability while protecting it's people) and what exactly "peacekeeping" is (Their idea of "peacekeeping" is wearing blue hats and handing out candy to local children, I've even met quite a few people who don't even understand how or why the military is involved in peacekeeping, they're quite confident the same could be accomplished by unarmed civillian groups).

I'd go so far as to say a great many individuals I've met have no distinction between the operations of NGOs and peacekeeping missions.


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## midget-boyd91 (4 Feb 2009)

Midnight Rambler said:
			
		

> I got the same from that, and as I told others here "He didn't understand?  WTF?  I mean, even if he didn't understand Pashto or Dari or whatever, EVERYONE speaks "gun", and if you are wielding a knife, approaching guys with guns, who then yell and point at you (even if it's gibberish) and then fire a round off to your side, well, dude understood and knew what he was doing."
> 
> Mark Kelly's assessment was outright wrong, in that dude understood.  Poor 'journalism' in this example.



If I had a better ability to put the words from my head down into words on the screen, I'd consider sending off an e-mail to not only Mark Kelly to see what response, if any, I would get back, but also one to Scott Kesterson asking if he has seen this piece and just how it was narrated.

Oddball.


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## The Bread Guy (4 Feb 2009)

uncle-midget-Oddball said:
			
		

> When I watched this, I absolutely noticed the spin that the CBC reporter put on it.



On!  My fave quote from the reporter, about 8:35 into the piece, makes it pretty clear: *"Images can change opinions. If Canadians think their soldiers are still peacekeepers, Kesterson's footage will change that too."*


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## vonGarvin (4 Feb 2009)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> On!  My fave quote from the reporter, about 8:35 into the piece, makes it pretty clear: *"Images can change opinions. If Canadians think their soldiers are still peacekeepers, Kesterson's footage will change that too."*


Actually I believe that I felt that this quote was good, though innaccurate.  In fact, a false dichotomy, if you will.  Just as during the 60's, 70's and 80's we were thought to be peacekeepers, let us not forget the brigade GROUP that was in Germany, much larger (by double) than our force in Afghanistan. Its role was pure warfighting.  So, the notion (then) that we were "only" peacekeepers is false, just as the notion that we are "just" war fighters is also false.  We have troops on UN Peacekeeping missions right now.  So, though perhaps the "journalist's" sentence was off in accuracy, I think we know what he meant.  Perhaps a more accurate statement could have been "If Canadians think their soldiers are only peacekeepers, Kesterson's footage will change that too."


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## 54/102 CEF (4 Feb 2009)

Midnight Rambler said:
			
		

> Canadians don't have a clue what a counterinsurgency is.  Neither do most military members.



Where oh where is the Canadian version of the following

Most things ref our forces overseas that are "hush hush and on the Q T" are found sooner or later in open source info

Which leads me to see our involvement being flitered through the oddest political Taliban Jack fearing Spin Meisters

Here's a good (I think) synopsis of the higher level story in Afghanistan from the US General Accounting Office http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40156.pdf

This report provides:
• A concise summary of the war’s background, context, and early execution;
• An analytical discussion of the COIN war to date, including strategy, organization, participation, and key facets of the effort including population
security, advising the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), counternarcotics, reconciliation, community outreach, and civil-military coordination;
and
• An analysis of major strategic and operational issues and options that the new Obama Govt will have to consider


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## vonGarvin (4 Feb 2009)

That may be fine for the strategical or operational method of engaging, which does of course filter down (eg: conventional war doesn't have reconstruction teams in the front lines: we wait until Germany surrenders before rebuilding it, we don't have OMLT or whole of Government working in an AO), but at the tactical warfighting level, it boils down to the principles of war.  And "Find - Fix - Strike" remains valid.  It's just that we can operate with such near-impunity that as a result, Finding is hard, but fixing and striking is easy. It's the finding that's the bitch.


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## Pointer (5 Feb 2009)

54/102 CEF said:
			
		

> I agree on the agenda business - shades of Jane Fonda all over again
> 
> The video is great - too bad for the CBC and the photojournalist Mr. Scott (as if we need to do this lastname shtick) are so inept with their anti-war insights. Get a writer for your anti war diatribe - what ever you do you should be excellent in it - unfortunately it sits on the fence and falls off.
> 
> Try try again



I didn't really find him necessarily anti-war, but he does seem to have issues with aspects of the war.  I watched "At War" and he doesn't really come across as against the war so much as wanting more sobriety from politicians when making decisions that might affect their respective militaries.


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## MarkOttawa (17 Feb 2009)

From Peter Worthington (usual copyright disclaimer):

CBC AWOL in Afghanistan
http://www.winnipegsun.com/comment/columnists/peter_worthington/2009/02/16/8404971-sun.html



> Earlier this month, CBC-TV ran a documentary by American filmmaker Scott Kesterson about the Princess Pats in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, back in 2006.
> 
> There was nothing wrong with the documentary, which in some ways was as much about Kesterson as it was about the Pats. In fairness, Kesterson has quite a record as a war photographer -- though some respondents on the CBC blog weren't impressed, and wondered why an American was chronicling our part of the war.
> 
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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## Infanteer (17 Feb 2009)

The Kesterson bit seems like a bit of a red herring - IIRC, he was embedded with a US OMLT team that happened to be fighting with the Canadians when he shot the footage.  Can anyone verify that?


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## tomahawk6 (17 Feb 2009)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> The Kesterson bit seems like a bit of a red herring - IIRC, he was embedded with a US OMLT team that happened to be fighting with the Canadians when he shot the footage.  Can anyone verify that?



When I first ran across Kesterson's posts from the theater and video he was with an Oregon NG team advising the ANA who also happened to be operating with the Canadians so I think I can safely say I was the first to post his stuff here.  ;D

Kestersons blog from 06.
http://www.beloblog.com/KGW_Blogs/afghanistan/2006/03/editorial_note.html


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## 54/102 CEF (17 Feb 2009)

Never do nuthin lest an Army.ca member is awake


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## MarkOttawa (17 Feb 2009)

From American milblog _Bouhammer's Afghan Blog_:

Scott Kesterson featured on CBC
http://bouhammer.com/wordpress/?p=2843



> Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) did a good story on Scott Kesterson and his making of the documentary, At War. You can watch the entire interview and read a little about the story they did and some positive and hateful comments over at
> http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/militaryafghanistan/kesterson_at_war.html.
> 
> If you have ever watched the trailers and raw footage that I have posted on here or on other sites and you liked it, then you need to watch the interview above. There is some of the same footage in there, but lots of never before seen footage that I am sure is in the actual movie. You also get to watch and hear Scott talk about his experiences, feelings, etc. while in Afghanistan and while watching his own work afterward.



Mark
Ottawa


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## MarkOttawa (19 Feb 2009)

More at _Bouhammer's Afghan Blog_:

Scott K comments about At War feedback
http://blog.bouhammer.com/?p=2883



> February 19th, 2009
> 
> It has recently been brought to my attention that several blogs and websites in Canada have been chatty about the CBC story on Scott and his Documentary, At War. I forwarded the sites to Scott so he could read them. Last night while he was at Ft. Bragg, NC doing screenings for members of that base he took some time to talk about the chatter from our cousins up north and about the feedback he has received from the half-dozen screenings he and David have done across the country.
> 
> ...



Please go to the first link above and then listen to the podcast.  A very good discussion I would say, but also one that fails, perhaps understandably, to appreciate the Canadian, er, context of the CBC piece.  But maybe I'm dead wrong.

Mark
Ottawa


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## Coldplay (21 Feb 2009)

When does "At War" come out? does anyone know how long it's going to be?


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