Now that President Trump is ready to reopen the CIA torture camps

Disclaimer: I didn't serve in Afghanistan, but I have did read all of the annual status reviews of the Guantanamo captives, who were mainly captured in Afghanistan, including the small number of captives who were actually captured on a battlefield.

CIA case officer conspires with Marine Captain to secretly hand over a captive, to keep him "off the books"

The episode portrays the CIA having to trick the military. In the show it is so they can acquire Mullah somebody or other, and torture him. In fact the military routinely deferred to the CIA in a disgustingly obsequious manner. An example being the individual GIs called Triple X, after a movie character popular at the time.

George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, personally asked Donald Rumsfeld to hide this individual from the ICRC. He requested this captive be kept, "off the books". Rumsfeld complied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiwa_Abdul_Rahman_Rashul

Note: This was Tenet and Rumsfeld in a conspiracy to commit a serious war crime.

The leadership of the CIA and the Pentagon conspired, at the highest level, to commit war crimes. It wasn't necessary for individual CIA case officers to subvert infantry Captains, in the field.

ISIS makes beheading videos. Zarqawi's group, the lineal ancestor of ISIS, makes beheading videos. The Taliban doesn't make beheading videos

However, the show conflates the Taliban with ISIS style fanatics.

How did the Taliban guy who bust out with the RPG know Sniper Boy was supposed to be hiding in tower?

CIA guy observes Captain Epps brief his men. He then tells Captain Epps he wants the record to show that Mullah VIP died in combat, but he actually wants him to be secretly captured, and secretly handed over to the CIA, for secret torture.

He tells Captain Epps, in particular, that he doesn't want heroic Sniper Boy to kill Mullah VIP.

So Captain Epps makes a last minute visit to Sniper Boy, and orders him to use the tower as his sniper hide, rather than let him choose his own hide. At this point we know three people know Captain Epps gave this order to Sniper Boy: Epps, Sniper Boy, and Sniper Boy's spotter. Yet, the Taliban guy with the RPG knew. So, who told the Taliban? Unlikely to be Epps, as the Taliban's plan was to then videotape Epps decapitation. More likely Epps was told to use the tower by the CIA guy, and the CIA guy told the Taliban.

Why doesn't Captain Epps think the CIA guy who told the Taliban where Sniper Boy was supposed to be was also part of the plan to decapitate him? He was either part of the plan, or so incompetent that he let the Taliban play him so badly he might as well be treated as if he was part of their plan.

Where any CIA clowns in Afghanistan that incompetent? Yes! My reading of the documents made public through FOIA suits, this monumental level of incompetence was routine.

When Captain Rahim changes sides, it looks like Captain Epps men are killed, yet, thirty seconds later...

Captains Epps and Rahim, each with half a dozen of their men, are in an alley, in an Afghan village, when Rahim suddenly shows his true allegiance, surprising wily Captain Epps, when the half dozen Afghan soldiers suddenly shoot his Epps men, and Epps is captured, without having time to put up a fight.

RPG guy emerges and shoots an RPG at what he thinks is Sniper Boy's hide. Then Captain Rahim signals for Mullah VIP to emerge to cut off Captain Epps head.

Sniper Boy steps in, kills Mullah VIP, kills Rahim's men. Epps trains a rifle at dangerous and duplicitous Rahim, order Sniper Boy not to shoot him.

Then Epps orders one of his men to cuff Rahim, and turns his back on him, before those cuffs are secured.

I have two problems with this. Hadn't the Afghan soldiers already killed all Epps men? So where did this subordinate emerge from? Second, since Rahim is so duplicitous, shouldn't Epps have continued to aim his gun at him, until after the cuffs had been secured? We are only talking about five seconds more attention here. What else did Epps have to do that was more important?

Expendable red shirts

Viewers like to joke about the old Captain Kirk Star Trek, that any new characters on a landing team with Kirk, wearing a red shirt, had about a minute left to live. Adding all the episodes together, the Enterprise lost dozen of these expendable red shirts.

Captain Epp's soldiers were treated like the 21st Century equivalent of Star Trek's expendable red shirts.