Join the Marines, get high, kill (video)

Combat Obscura (film); Pfc. Sandoval, Crystal Q., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The world's largest Buddha statues are Afghan from Bamiyan, 140 miles NW of Kabul.

“So raw the [Marine] corps doesn’t want you to see it. One of most genuine looks at what the Forever War was like for those who waged it.” - James Clark, Task and Purpose

Combat Obscura (official trailer)

Oscilloscope Laboratories HD 2019

Just out of high school, at the age of 18, Miles Lagoze enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was deployed to Afghanistan, where he served as Combat Camera -- his unit's official videographer -- tasked with shooting and editing footage for the Marine Corps’ recruiting purposes and historical ["propaganda"] initiatives.

But upon discharging, Lagoze took all the footage he and his fellow cameramen shot. He assembled quite simply the very documentary the Corps does NOT want you to see. 

Combat Obscura is a groundbreaking look at daily life in a U.S. war zone as told by the Marines themselves.

More than a mere compilation of violence, the edit ingeniously repurposes the original footage to reveal the intensity and paradoxes of an ambiguous war all while getting high and doing unspeakably callous things for the military-industrial complex.

We kill and cover it up.

Watch their daily activities filmed from an unvarnished perspective. This film by Miles Lagoze is in theaters and video-on-demand beginning March 15th. Find out more at combatobscura.oscilloscope.net.

“The beauty of the film is its realness. All the footage is taken directly from his camera. Lagoze went on to compile all the events he felt were representative of his experience. He shows the gun fights, the cursing, the shouting, the laughter, the fear, and the hostility of the men in the war. Nothing is withheld.”

- Jessica Duffield, Vox Magazine

 

“War is not fought but lived, and this is as close to first-person as one can get without being there. ...America’s presence in Afghanistan overwhelms the troops...their jokey comradery gives way to vicious menace.”

- Daniel Schindel, The Film Stage

• NOW PLAYING: Glendale Laemmle's, L.A.
• REVIEW: Grade "A" (thefilmstage.com)
• Who cares about Afghanistan -- called Kaplilavastu when the Buddha was born there (see Bamiyan)

Trump meets with top officials about US War on Afghanistan, now in its 17th year

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan

(AP, 3/15/19) A meeting in the secure room at the Pentagon called "the tank" included V.P. Mike Pence, Sec'y of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and Pres. Trump's national security adviser John Bolton, among others. The session was a classified briefing about [the U.S. War on] Afghanistan, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the [specific] subject of the private briefing.... Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said he has no orders to reduce the U.S. troop presence, although officials say that is at the top of the Taliban's list of demands in exploratory peace negotiations. More