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The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and
honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad
communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster. . .. Our
unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad.
-T. E. LAWRENCE, "A REPORT ON MESOPOTAMIA," SUNDAY TIMES (LONDON), AUGUST
22,1920 America's longest wars are being fought in faraway countries
that until recently were little known to most Americans. Here are a number of
recent books that help fill these gaps
"Eighty percent of Afghans today live in the same exact landscape Alexander the
Great must have beheld when he sacked Balkh in 327 B.C., and Genghis Khan when
he sacked it again in 1221: walls of straw and mud, half-gnawed away by weather
and age; hand-sown fields tilled by doubled-over farmers in unbleached robes
with knobbly, wooden tools. Most have no electricity. No clean water. No paved
roads. No doctors nearby..."
Foreign Affairs, 4/28/2010
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an American president seeks to avoid
difficulties with domestic politics by making a preemptive attack on a vastly
inferior nation. The initial invasion goes well, but is soon bogged
down when the mismatched enemy forces refuse to come out in open field battle.
..... however, this war took place 150 years ago!
An
invading force gets bogged down in New Jersey and
fights an insurgency
Philip Klay - Redeployment
Ahmed Rashid
Taliban -
Rashid's book describesregional instability before 9/11 and shows the historical ethnic
reasons for modern alliances. Published
presciently in 2000, he analyses without the benefit of hindsight -- particularly the US - Taliban
relationship dictated more by Unocal oil interests and an anti Iran foreign
policy than by consideration of the Taliban's actual actions
Descent into Chaos The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia is the disturbing sequel to the first book, following events in Central Asia to 2008.
Ahmed Rashid's comprehensive study argues that the United States should have
focused on nation building in Afghanistan after 9/11 and used whatever resources
necessary. He documents Afghan President Hamid Karzai's rise to power and blames
him for surrounding himself with less than capable people and not making more
progress in combating drug trafficking. Rashid provides a detailed account of
the regional context and interconnections of the Afghan conflict, insisting that
"the key to peace for the entire region lies with Pakistan." He criticizes the
United States for having relied too heavily on former Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf and documents the Inter-Services Intelligence's support for the
Taliban, which he identifies as an extension of its geopolitical rivalry with
India.
Foreign Affairs
The Gilgit Game
and When Men & Mountains Meet John Keay's classic accounts of the British attempts to explore and subdue
Afghanistan and Pakistan's Northwest Frontier
Night Draws Near
In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan
By Seth G. Jones. presents the war in its historical context, beginning
with Alexander the Great and the proven ability ofAfghans to bring down strong
empires.
War - Sebastian Junger One of the finest books ever written on what it's like to face combat day to
day. On a par with John Ellis' Sharp Edge or John Keegan's Face of Battle, Junger tells the intimate stories of a platoon of marines posted to an
isolated lookout and subject to almost daily attacks from Taliban fighters
they can rarely see. There's also a companion Documentary called Restrepo
William Dalrymple Return
of the King -contrasts the British, Russian and American
invasions of Afghanistan. The author bases much of the book on primary
non-English sources,some of which he discovered in travels to Pakistan and
Afghanistan:
Resurrecting Empire - Rashid Khalidi Western Footprints and America's
Perilous Path in the Middle East
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia - Peter Hopkirk--Hopkirk skillfully
provides a clear overview of the geographical and diplomatic framework. The
Great Game was Russia's version of America's "Manifest Destiny" to dominate
a continent, and Hopkirk is careful to explain Russian viewpoints as fully
as those of the British. The story ends with the fall of Tsarist Russia in
1917, but the demise of the Soviet Empire (hastened by a decade of bloody
fighting in Afghanistan) gives it new relevance, as world peace and
stability are again threatened by tensions in this volatile region of great
mineral wealth and strategic significance.
Deja vu: several recent history books off evoke modern
parallels: - |
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The Places in Between. Rory Stewart's account of his trek
across Afghanistan in 2002 reveals the deep impact of decades of bloody warfare
on Afghan society
The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year
in Iraq - Stewart's account of his term as vice governor of a province
in southern Iraq in 2003 and the difficulties in re building a nation destroyed
by 20 years of war
The Ends of the Earth : From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to
Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy Robert Kaplan
Eastward to Tartary - - Robert Kaplan Travels in the
Balkans, The Middle East and the Caucasus
Historical fiction
The Afghan Campaign
by Steven Pressfield- A Macedonians account of the long war fought
by Alexander's Army in Afghanistan covering the last years of Alexander's
campaigns in Afghanistan, trying to quell insurgenices and tribal warfare.
The Storyteller’s Daughter - Saira Shah
The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great
by Steven Pressfield
More links: Modern, cold war
American empire
India - history
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