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The interest in a book about the Taliban is obvious, and Ahmed Rashid brings certain undeniable strengths to the subject: he is a Pakistani journalist who has travelled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and conducted many interviews which make this a truly unique and indispensable book. I am not aware of any other history with the same access to sources that Rashid enjoys.
But the execution of the book is poor. First (and this isn't Rashid's fault), it is badly out-dated. It was published before the Taliban assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud (which probably would have changed many of his predictions), before 9/11, and before the U.S.-led coalition invaded.
Second, the organization is odd, and the book gets tedious as a result. The first third is a military-political history of the Taliban from its first appearance in 1994 until its military actions in central Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000. The second section deals with religious and cultural aspects of life under the Taliban, in both Pashtun and non-Pashtun areas. These first two sections are both readable, informative and useful. The final section deals with foreign relations issues, such as regional competition over oil and gas pipelines, proxy wars fought by regional powers like Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and problems like drugs and smuggling. This final section is poorly-written and arranged, so that the reader is constantly jumping around in chronology and geography (unless you already have some background in the geopolitics of the region, I imagine the rapid-fire discussion of names and places can quickly become impenitrable). In addition, Rashid's background as a journalist, which serves him so well in recounting the history and culture of the region, does little to aid him in his economic analyses and prognostication.
Rashid relies heavily on the usual cliches, such as traditional Afghan independence. For example, "Throughout Afghan history no outsider has been able to manipulate the Afghans, something the British and the Soviets learnt to their cost. Pakistan, it appeared, had learnt [sic] no lessons from history while it still lived in the past, when CIA and Saudi funding had given Pakistan the power to dominate the course of the jihad" (p. 185). Rashid makes no attempt to explain the apparent contradiction between his claim that Afghans resist outside influence, and his simultaneous claim that Pakistan heavily influenced the Afghans.
Indeed, Rashid (and many others) like to extrapolate from British and Soviet military defeats in the region a lesson about Afghan independence that is contradicted by all the other evidence. Throughout the colonial period, Afghan rulers played the British against the Russians for concessions, which was replayed again in the 20th century between America and the Soviets, each of whom aggressively competed with one another for development projects. Afghan leaders have been heavily influenced by Western thoughts (such as Amanullah's modernizing reform attempts, and heavy Soviet influence after the communist revolution), and Afghan citizens were educated in Soviet- and French-style universities, or in Saudi-funded and Pakistani-run madrassas. During and after the Soviet invasion, the mujahideen groups competed with each other for foreign equipment and training.
Finally, and most bizarrely, at the end of the book when Rashid proposes a plan to resolve the conflict (all badly out-of-date after 9/11), he inexplicably suggests that only further intervention by regional powers and especially by the U.S. is the only way to bring lasting peace and stability. Why such foreign influence is the best prescription by the end of the book, when he hectored Pakistan's naivetee only a few chapters before, must remain a mystery.
Despite its flaws, the book is valuable, and I recommend the first two-thirds as possibly the definitive work on the subject -- at least until Mullah Omar writes his memoirs.
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It's hard to think of a book that was published with as much good timing as Ahmed Rashid's Taliban. The book itself is heavily academic and therefore largely unexciting, but remains the best treatment of the Taliban up to 2001. Readers wanting analysis of events afterward will obviously have to look elsewhere.
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This fellow is an arm chair quack. He grew up in Pakistan, but that's all about it. Now he makes his living saying cocophony about Pakistan and that region of the world on US TV networks. And with so many networks looking to fill up their airtime, he is having no trouble making this living. He has no clue of what the conditions are on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Says that Musharraf could have 'nipped the evil in the bud' if he had acted sooner in Swat. If Musharraf had done that, then Mr Rashid would have accused Musharraf of being trigger happy. So if you can see, Mr. Rashid is just a monday morning quarter back. All he is doing is second guessing whatever Musharraf does. And in a couple of months he'll be doing the same with the new govt. in Pakistan, because that's what the US TV networks want him to say.
Why would you pay to read baloney from such a quack?
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This was a great novel, go buy Detained Differencesby J. Robert Rowe. It is about Detainee Operations inside Afghanistan.
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If you want to understand Afghanistan latest history, this is a great choice. The narrative is center on the Talibans of course, how this group was invented after the end of the cold war and after fighting against the Soviets in a united front known as the Mujaheddin. It is clear to all of us that the Taliban are Islamic Fundamentalist and that its presence on Afghanistan has rendered the country on a violent and unstable path.
Again we found here the endemic problem of some countries of the middle east and central Asia: several ethnics groups with different Islamic religion flavours, Sunni and Shi'ite, with external players trying to consumate the country to a sole religion, and I am referring to external players like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan representing the Sunni side and Iran defending shiism. This is the pitiful case of Afghanistan and in this book all these importants facts are depicted by the author so you become aware of the difficult geography of this country, the ethnics groups that inhabit it and the relation to neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and Iran.
In my opinion, a worthy person that had the character, education and leadership to run Afghanistan future was the Lion of the Panjshir, Masud, but he was also killed either by the pickup warriors or by Bin Laden terrorist, with the latter the most likely. Now president Karzai, has a very difficult task to deal with, to pacify the country and the spirits, finish the war against the Taliban, improve the economy and the relations with their neighbours and of course help the people of Afghanistan. Is my belief that in order to do that, external aid is absolutely needed for a long time, in particular from the UN which must include more countries apart from the current ones. It is important to improve education for all, so these people do not based its life only on religion and to stabilize the country so Central Asia Energy projects can successful be realized, using Afghanistan as a transit for the gas and oil to South East Asia. I hope Afghanistan finally choose Peace as its way of living and get accustom to it.
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