Jon Boone

We all need stories 'to help us make sense of the complexity of reality', intones the sensible sounding voice of Adam Curtis at the start of his new documentary about Afghanistan, Bitter Lake. But stories told by 'those in power' are 'increasingly unconvincing and hollow'. What a relief then that Curtis has raided the archives of BBC News on our behalf for footage of the west’s 13 year engagement in Afghanistan to construct his own more than two hour long story. His conclusion: the crisis in Afghanistan is all the fault of the witless Americans! The problem all began on a US warship parked in the Suez Canal in 1945 (cue newsreel). It was there that President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and agreed to buy all of his oil.

Kabul Every morning, on Kandahar Air Field, the British, US, Canadian and Dutch troops like to start the day with a cappuccino from Green Beans, the US army’s answer to Starbucks. But a few weeks ago the soldiers had a nasty shock: a sign on the Green Beans door saying there would be no frothy coffee for the lads because of a ‘supply problem’ in Pakistan. War is hell, isn’t it? But the sign wasn’t just bad news for coffee-loving squaddies, it also revealed the Achilles’ heel for the entire international mission in Afghanistan: Nato’s supply roots, which are being steadily throttled by the Taleban.