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The War Within the War for Afghanistan
Knopf
July 2012
On Sale: June 26, 2012
389 pages
ISBN: 0307957144
EAN: 9780307957146
Kindle: B006S3H9CU
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
From the award-winning author of Imperial Life in the
Emerald City, a riveting, intimate account of America’s
troubled war in Afghanistan. When President Barack Obama ordered the surge of troops and
aid to Afghanistan, Washington Post correspondent Rajiv
Chandrasekaran followed. He found the effort sabotaged not
only by Afghan and Pakistani malfeasance but by infighting
and incompetence within the American government: a war
cabinet arrested by vicious bickering among top national
security aides; diplomats and aid workers who failed to
deliver on their grand promises; generals who dispatched
troops to the wrong places; and headstrong military leaders
who sought a far more expansive campaign than the White
House wanted. Through their bungling and quarreling, they
wound up squandering the first year of the surge. Chandrasekaran explains how the United States has never
understood Afghanistan—and probably never will. During the
Cold War, American engineers undertook a massive development
project across southern Afghanistan in an attempt to woo the
country from Soviet influence. They built dams and
irrigation canals, and they established a comfortable
residential community known as Little America, with a
Western-style school, a coed community pool, and a plush
clubhouse—all of which embodied American and Afghan hopes
for a bright future and a close relationship. But in the
late 1970s—after growing Afghan resistance and a Communist
coup—the Americans abandoned the region to warlords and
poppy farmers. In one revelatory scene after another, Chandrasekaran
follows American efforts to reclaim the very same territory
from the Taliban. Along the way, we meet an Army general
whose experience as the top military officer in charge of
Iraq’s Green Zone couldn’t prepare him for the bureaucratic
knots of Afghanistan, a Marine commander whose desire to
charge into remote hamlets conflicted with civilian
priorities, and a war-seasoned diplomat frustrated in his
push for a scaled-down but long-term American commitment.
Their struggles show how Obama’s hope of a good war, and the
Pentagon’s desire for a resounding victory, shriveled on the
arid plains of southern Afghanistan. Meticulously reported, hugely revealing, Little America is
an unprecedented examination of a failing war—and an
eye-opening look at the complex relationship between America
and Afghanistan.
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