Vice: Afghan Money Pit & the Pacification of Rio

Season Two Premiere. Afghan Money Pit (correspondent: Shane Smith) - The U.S. has spent nearly $100 billion on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan - the most spent on any country in our history. Yet John Sopko, the U.S.'s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, has found that much of that money has been wasted and misused--or fallen into the hands of the Taliban. Shane Smith heads to Afghanistan and takes a tour of American money gone down the drain. The Pacification of Rio (correspondent: Ben Anderson) - Rio de Janeiro is working hard to remedy its drug and murder capital reputation in time for the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. The Special Police Operations Battalion, or BOPE, has been charged with pacifying the slums, but their violent military occupation of favelas has been criticized as heavy-handed, to say the least. Some corrupt members of the BOPE, together with ex-police, have formed militia gangs of their own and are controlling many favelas by sinister means: openly extorting, torturing, killing, and disappearing criminals. Still, there are hundreds of favelas the pacification forces have not been able to touch, controlled by drug gangs acting with impunity. Ben Anderson looks under the picturesque facade Rio's sports marketing wants you to see, to reveal the dark underbelly of the city. (TVMA) (AC,AL,V)