Author : Avinash Paliwal
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 29,53 MB
Release : 2017-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0190911581
The archetype of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend', India's political and economic presence in Afghanistan is often viewed as a Machiavellian ploy aimed against Pakistan. The first of its kind, this book interrogates that simplistic yet powerful geopolitical narrative and asks what truly drives India's Afghanistan policy.
Author : Kim Barker
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 15,20 MB
Release : 2011-03-22
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0385533322
A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents. Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments flounder. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled colleagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.
Author : Zalmay Khalilzad
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 365 pages
File Size : 44,11 MB
Release : 2016-03-22
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 125008301X
Zalmay Khalilzad grew up in a traditional family in the ancient city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. As a teenager, Khalilzad spent a year as an exchange student in California, where after some initial culture shocks he began to see the merits of America's very different way of life. He believed the ideals that make American culture work, like personal initiative, community action, and respect for women, could make a transformative difference to his home country, the Muslim world and beyond. Of course, 17-year-old Khalilzad never imagined that he would one day be in a position to advance such ideas. With 9/11, he found himself uniquely placed to try to shape mutually beneficial relationships between his two worlds. As U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, he helped craft two constitutions and forge governing coalitions. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN, he used his unique personal diplomacy to advance U.S. interests and values. In The Envoy, Khalilzad details his experiences under three presidential administrations with candid behind-the-scenes insights. He argues that America needs an intelligent, effective foreign policy informed by long-term thinking and supported by bipartisan commitment. Part memoir, part record of a political insider, and part incisive analysis of the current Middle East, The Envoy arrives in time for foreign policy discussions leading up to the 2016 election.
Author : Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher : Hurst & Company Limited
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 49,93 MB
Release : 2011-06-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1849041520
Abdul Zaeef describes growing up in poverty in rural Kandahar province, which he fled for Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979. Zaeef joined the jihad in 1983, was seriously wounded in several encounters and met many leading figures of the resistance, including the current Taliban head, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued after the Soviet withdrawal, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. He then details his Taliban career, including negotiations with Ahmed Shah Massoud and role as ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Islamabad and spent four and a half years in prison in Bagram and Guantanamo before being released without charge. My Life with the Taliban offers insights into the Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock and helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.
Author : Abdullah Anas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 14,84 MB
Release : 2019-03-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1787381803
The Algerian Islamist Abdullah Anas, 'perhaps the greatest warrior of the Afghan Arabs', fought the Soviet Union for a decade. As one of the earliest Arabs to join the Afghan jihad, he counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of Al-Qaeda's global war, from Abdullah Azzam to Osama bin Laden to Omar Abdel-Rahman, and befriended key Afghan jihadi figures such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir. To the Mountains is an intimate portrait of this brutal war, tracing Anas's involvement in the conflict, as well as his experiences of the Algerian civil war (1992-8) and his sojourn in 'Londonistan'. Brushing shoulders with everyone from Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi to Jalaluddin Haqqani, Anas opted for his own independent route, seeking to persuade the Afghan Arabs that they should not be distracted by attacks on the West. Paradoxically, he remains committed to the broader Islamist movement, believing that jihad will continue till the end of time, yet has also spent years talking to the Taliban, seeking to build a lasting peace in Afghanistan. This is his story. Co-written with investigative journalist Tam Hussein, Anas's memoir will doubtless become a seminal primary source on the rise of global jihadism.
Author : Saima Wahab
Publisher : Crown
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 32,29 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0307884945
Relates the author's decision, years after her father was taken away by the KGB, to relocate to her uncle's home in America, where she pursued an education and worked as an interpreter before becoming a cultural adviser for the U.S. Army.
Author : Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 565 pages
File Size : 30,26 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0544370481
A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.
Author : Jerri Bell
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 11,55 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 161234934X
This inspiring anthology it the first to convey the noteworthy experiences and contributions of women in the American military in their own words-from the Revolutionary War to the present wars in the Middle East. Serving with the Union Army during the Civil War as a nurse, scout, spy, and soldier, Harriet Tubman tells what it was like to be the first American woman to lead a raid against an enemy, freeing some 750 slaves. Busting gender stereotypes, Inga Fredriksen Ferris's describes how it felt to be a woman marine during World War II. Heidi Squier Kraft recounts her experiences as a lieutenant commander in the navy, deployed to Iraq as a psychologist to provide mental health care in a combat zone. In excerpts from their diaries, letters, oral histories, military depositions and testimonies, as well as from published and unpublished memoirs-generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking with social norms and at great personal peril.
Author : Mohammed B Alikhail
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 19,64 MB
Release : 2008-10-20
Category :
ISBN : 9780595470488
Mohammad Alikhail's mother never forgot that her fifth son was born the day her husband turned his affections to a younger bride. She cradled the newborn in her arms and called him Bad-bakht, the unlucky one. The name followed him, and it fit. Despite fate's timing, in the end she couldn't tangle him. Mohammad's tact on the soccer field, a layover in India, and a daring move were all he needed to change the course of his life. He left Afghanistan twenty-two years ago with the assumption that the hard part was over. But the journey had just begun. This book inspires heart-to-heart connections across cultures, connections that, in today's world of difference and indifference, can ease foreign conflict - and perhaps inspire others to achieve their own goals along the way.
Author : Douglas Grindle
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 11,47 MB
Release : 2017-11
Category : History
ISBN : 1612349935
Douglas Grindle provides a firsthand account of how the war in Afghanistan was won in a rural district south of Kandahar City and how the newly created peace slipped away when vital resources failed to materialize and the United States headed for the exit. By placing the reader at the heart of the American counterinsurgency effort, Grindle reveals little-known incidents, including the failure of expensive aid programs to target local needs, the slow throttling of local government as official funds failed to reach the districts, and the United States’ inexplicable failure to empower the Afghan local officials even after they succeeded in bringing the people onto their side. Grindle presents the side of the hard-working Afghans who won the war and expresses what they really thought of the U.S. military and its decisions. Written by a former field officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, this story of dashed hopes and missed opportunities details how America’s desire to leave the war behind ultimately overshadowed its desire to sustain victory.
