Ahmad Shah Massoud
(احمد شاه مسعود- Aḥmad Šāh Mas'ūd;
September 1953 – September 9, 2001,
Muslim-Sunni) by Sebastian Junger
(born January 17, 1962 in
Belmont, Massachusetts)

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.

The documentary helps to shed the glorified and numbing violence that hollywood brings us and reveals how much modern news misses when it comes to warfare. The battle scene with the armed young men is harrowing. I felt like crying during the refugee camp scene with the dying children. These are a kind and humble people and all they want is peace. Massoud "The Lion" spoke prophetically concerning the threat posed by the anti-Islamic radical. I don't know what the United State's policy should be concerning the "war on terrorism" but I think it would be unfortunate to come away from this with political idealogies. Rather we should let our hearts be softened by how awful and evil war is and we must work for a more peaceful world.

this is about masood . well the truth is that masood played both sides.. in cold war .. with russians and the cia.. if you read steve collin ghost wars. you will learn.infact he was the one who destroyed kabul.. then taliban emerged after masood and gulbaddin killings and mascare of afghans .. to bring peace and defeated backed by majority of afghans.. masood was not fighting for the independence of afghanistan .. he was only fighting for the presendintal palace.. majority of afghans are hardline islamic people who would never support a communist or any other type of puppet goverment ..like present karzai.. and the documentry is oe sided and cover the notherallaince ..not even tajiks only panjsheris . and afghanistan majority are pashtuns. more than 90% of them supports taliban..

very enjoyable and well made. totally one sided, but i don't really care, it's a cool story. documentaries are rarely all that informative but are usualy trying to show a paticular veiw point, and this one accomplished that goal well.