Leading commentators examine the Afghan debacle and its parallels with previous British and Soviet occupations.
Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama’s “just war,” the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading commentators, politicians, and military strategists to analyze America’s real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan’s previous occupiers—Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war—The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
Review
A pathbreaking synthesis of American and Russian perspectives on the illusions of empire and the impossibility of ‘victory’ in Afghanistan. As the contributors so eloquently emphasize, the only realistic and humane option can be spelled in three letters: O-U-T. (Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums )
A fascinating and essential guide which puts the war in Afghanistan in the context of its recent history and dispels propaganda stereotypes about how the US, Britain and their allies became involved. (Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq )
A fascinating and essential guide which puts the war in Afghanistan in the context of its recent history and dispels propaganda stereotypes about how the US, Britain and their allies became involved. (Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq )
About the Author
Nick Turse is an award-winning journalist, historian, essayist, and the associate editor of the Nation Institute’s Tomdispatch.com. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday and has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, In These Times and the Village Voice.
Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics—including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome—as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of international relations and history at Boston University.
Tom Engelhardt created and runs the website Tomdispatch.com, a project of The Nation Institute, where he is a Fellow. He is the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. Each spring he is a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in New York City.
Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics—including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome—as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of international relations and history at Boston University.
Tom Engelhardt created and runs the website Tomdispatch.com, a project of The Nation Institute, where he is a Fellow. He is the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. Each spring he is a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in New York City.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful book on why NATO should withdraw from Afghanistan,
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This review is from: The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Paperback)
This useful book is in four parts: the wars for Afghanistan; the Karzai government's incompetence, corruption and the war on women; facts on the ground; and the case for withdrawal.Governments used to tell us the fate of the empire was at stake in every war. Now they tell us the fate of civilisation is at stake, or national security, or NATO. These exaggerations are a mirror image of the fundamentalists' claim that Islam's survival is at stake. Women had equal rights and education only between 1979 and 1989, under secular, Marxist rule. In 2008, President Karzai pardoned a bunch of thugs who had gang-raped a woman in front of witnesses. In 2009 he passed a family law worthy of the Taliban. In Afghanistan's constitution, no law may contravene Sharia law. The UN's Assistance Mission there sums up, "women are denied their most fundamental human rights". NATO forces commit war crimes, bomb civilians and torture prisoners, all in the name of `liberation'. Billions of dollars of `aid' go to the Northern Alliance, run by warlords and drug-runners. Karzai's younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is one of the richest drug barons in the country. There are now 400 NATO military bases in the country and $3 billion worth of base-building projects. There are still 50 US bases in Iraq. In both countries, NATO occupations promise only endless war, costing thousands of lives, civilian and military, and billions of dollars and pounds, all to set up secure bases for NATO's use of force against nearby countries.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An important book to understand the war in Afghanistan,
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This review is from: The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Paperback)
One should read this book to understand why the situation in Afghanistan is a shambles. There are interesting views from both Afghans and Westerners, and put together in one book makes it a very interesting reading.
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