I enjoyed this documentary very much but not for its message but for its content. I think it gives a very good in depth look into the effects of war on innocent people. National Geographic does an awesome job of illustrating this to us. However I am a little upset to see National Geographic act as Massoud's propaganda machine.
Seeing those 2 babies in that horrible condition almost made me cry. The battle scenes with the young men are just heart breaking. And to see all those people fleeing the fighting and forced to live in camps in their own country is saddening. However what is also saddening is lack of balance and accuracy in this documentary.
This Massoud guy is responsible for a lot of horrible things that happened in that country. This documentary was made after Massoud was literally chased out of power by the Taleban. There are UN reports of Massoud personally being involved in rape and murder. Just look up articles about the Afghan civil war before 9/11 and you'll see the many human rights violations Massoud and his organization "the northern alliance" has been accused of (and rightly so). Massoud and his cronies are single handedly responsible for the destruction of Kabul during the mid 1990s. Please don't judge or make up your mind about Afghanistan's political or social dynamics after watching this video alone. I mean this entire documentary went on the premise that Massoud was an honest good hearted leader. This is totally not the case. Look it up.
And for the people who are complaining about why there is political discussion about this documentary, I say this. This entire documentary was political. It gave inaccurate facts about a civil war thats been going on for the better part of 20 years. It also mislead the viewers into thinking this Massoud guy is a swell character looking out for the interests of his people. It gave credibility to a man whose been accused of some of humankind's worst offenses. Also, this documentary covered Afghanistan's minority ethnic group the Tajiks, which Massoud is apart of, while totally ignoring the majority Pashtun ethnic group. Thats like doing a documentary about the U.K. and covering only the Scottish people, and totally ignoring the English.