The Draw-Down: Using Two Perspectives to Explore the End of the War in Afghanistan

Country:

Afghanistan

Grades:

All grades

Author:

Amanda Ottaway
Pulitzer Center Alum

SECTIONS

Questions for "Meet the Journalist: George Butler"

For how many years was Afghanistan recently occupied by U.S. and British forces?
What happened in terms of safety in Kabul in the weeks after the withdrawal, in October and November 2014?
During the video, Butler says: “I think you get an emotional connection with a drawing or with a painting...You’re trying to draw your experience onto that page, whether it’s sounds or movement, the fact that it was too cold or too sunny or the man moved too quickly or it was too dangerous, you felt nervous. The scene’s unfolding in front of you; all the marks you’re making are influenced by what’s happening.” Do you agree? How much of the reporter’s personal experience do you want to see in the work? Do you feel his drawings are accurate?
Are Butler’s illustrations journalism?
Discuss the ways in which the act of producing drawings like this might help people to communicate across languages and cultures.

Questions for "Days Blend Together for Wisconsin Troops"

Describe a day in the life of a member of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 829th Engineer Co. How does this person’s life differ from the daily lives of the people in Butler’s drawings? How are they the same?
Do you feel like you can relate to the people in Dhaliwal’s photographs? If so, how? If not, why not?
Do you feel like you can relate better to Dhaliwal’s subjects in the photos, or Butler’s subjects in the drawings? Explain.
Why is the United States going to such great lengths to pack up the war in Afghanistan and ship so much of the gear out of the country? Do you agree with this decision? Back up your point of view.

Questions for "Afghanistan: Tanks, Bazaars and Wheelchair Basketball"

One caption reads you can buy a sewing machine from a vendor in Herat for 4000 Afghani. How much is 4000Af in U.S. dollars?
Spend ten seconds examining one drawing and then immediately write down every word or thought that occurs to you about it. Then look back at the same drawing, this time for thirty seconds. Write down your thoughts again. Finally, examine the drawing for a full minute and record your thoughts. How did your impressions change? How might this process be similar to the way Butler does his work?
What is a bazaar? Why might Butler have chosen such a place to sit and draw? If he were trying to get a good picture of everyday life in the United States, where should he go?
Is there a unifying theme among the seven drawings displayed here? If so, what is it?

Questions for "Afghanistan: Bringing Down the House that Bush Built"

In June 2011, there were over 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. By January 1, 2015, according to this blog post, how many remained?
About much money is the U.S. Department of Defense spending to pack up U.S. war equipment and ship it home? How much did the department spend to get it there? What do you think about that?
Find the photo of 1Lt. Michelle Lachat working on an Apple laptop in front of a pile of sandbags -- it’s Dhaliwal’s favorite from the trip. What symbolism do you see in this photo? Why do you think Dhaliwal took this photo?
What symbolism can you find in Dhaliwal’s other photos for this slideshow?

Introducing the Lesson:

What happens when after 13 years a foreign fighting force pulls out of a country and the world turns its attention elsewhere? Life goes on, of course.

In October 2014, U.S. and British military operations in Afghanistan came to an "official" end. George Butler, a reportage illustrator, saw Afghanistan for the first time at age 22 as a guest of the British Army. But on his most recent trip, in 2014, he went without a military escort. Butler wanted to see as "real" an Afghanistan as possible as the world withdrew from the country. The methods and tools Butler uses for his reporting -- blank sheets of paper, a pen, and ink -- allow him time and a kind of intimate access to daily life that other journalists can't always achieve. And as an artist, he looks for the "everyday" story, one beyond those we typically see in the news media.

Meghan Dhaliwal and Meg Jones, an American photojournalist and reporter, respectively, embedded for two weeks in Afghanistan on several U.S. military bases with a Wisconsin National Guard unit, the 829th Engineer Company in charge of -- literally -- packing up the war, dismantling tents and beds, shipping Humvees and computers and refrigerators out of the country. Much like Butler on his first trip, as Dhaliwal snapped photos on the bases she was accompanied by an escort.

Butler and the Dhaliwal-Jones team watched the end of a war from opposite sides of the fence. In this lesson we'll explore the ways in which visual resources can share different information and some of the challenges journalists face when trying to capture all sides of a story.

Essential Questions:

1. What are the central ideas of these "texts" (reportage illustrator George Butler's drawings and photographer Meghan Dhaliwal's images from Afghanistan)? How does each journalist convey these main ideas?

2. What are some important ways in which reportage drawing and photojournalism differ? What are some things we, the audience, get from Butler's drawings that we wouldn't get in photographs? What do Dhaliwal's photographs provide that we don't get in the drawings?

3. Consider the quotation below. What does it mean? How does Butler's work address it? What about Dhaliwal's?

"We have never been closer to, nor further away from, the reality of war."
-Steve Bloomfield

4. Consider this excerpt from Butler in the Guardian:

"Almost each day I spent in Kabul, there was an explosion or an attack from an armed group. But I soon realised that, despite the uncertainty and insecurity, the majority of Afghan life continues to be as close to normal as possible. It was this Afghanistan that I found overwhelmingly inspirational to document. What saddened me was that so many of the articles and reports I read before I arrived – although consistently accurate in detail and honest in their approach – made me expect the worst. This was far from the case in the small parts of Afghanistan I saw, especially in the north and west, away from Helmand and other parts of the south and east, where most of the reports seen on our televisions in UK have come from."

What is he saying here about the way foreign news, particularly war, is covered in the Global West? How does Butler hope his work will counter those narratives?

5. Read this excerpt by Meg Jones, the writer who worked with Dhaliwal, about the U.S. war equipment used in Afghanistan:

"Some equipment will be given to Afghan security forces; building materials like plywood will be offered to Afghan civilians. Items that have outlived their usefulness or are so degraded that they're worthless will be destroyed. And a lot of equipment will return to the United States, including mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) combat trucks, which will be given to law enforcement agencies in the United States under a Defense Department program that has caused controversy recently following the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, as some question why communities need to arm their police departments with such massive firepower."

How does this passage by Jones bring the war "home"? How do Dhaliwal's photographs illustrate the strength and power of these war tools? Do you get a similar feeling about war and military strength when you look at Butler's drawings? Why or why not?

Conclusion:

In a short essay, compare and contrast the work by Dhaliwal and Butler in Afghanistan. Do you feel that one set of images conveyed its point better than the other? If so, why? What is strong about each set of images? What would you have done differently as the journalist?