Viewpoint: Why we all need to watch Brad Pitt's film War Machine

The longest war the US has ever fought - 16 years and counting - is about to get longer as President Donald Trump decides on sending several thousand more troops to Afghanistan.

As with the wars in the Middle East, Afghanistan highlights the difficult political choices and counter-insurgency strategies the US has been pursuing fruitlessly since 9/11. Today six Muslim countries (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Afghanistan) are in a state of meltdown - partly as a result of US policies.

The "war on terror" launched by President George Bush, the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the conflicting policies of carrying out regime change in the midst of an ever-expanding Islamist extremist opposition have all created greater dilemmas for the US.

Since 9/11 there have been many good books and documentary films made about these dilemmas. Yet in all this time Hollywood has been unable to produce a movie that informs or educates the average movie-goer as to the bigger picture on why failure persists and jihadism spreads.

The few Hollywood films made about America's wars tend to be either satires or action movies in the John Wayne mould, showing US troops as heroic and caring but professional killers.

An exception was the 2008 film Hurt Locker, which won six Oscars and depicted the dilemmas faced by a US Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit in Iraq. But even Hurt Locker dealt with only a slice of the problem, as did otherwise well-made documentaries about US forces in Afghanistan such as Restrepo and Korengal.