I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan [Hardcover]

Kathy Gannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2005

This gripping, intimately-observed history of Afghanistan from 1986 to the present - by the longest-serving Western journalist in the region - overturns our conventional and simplistic understandings In early 1986, Kathy Gannon sold pretty much everything she owned (which wasn't 'much) to pursue her dream of becoming a foreign correspondent. She had the world to choose from: she chose Afghanistan. She went to witness the final humiliation of a superpower in terminal decline as the Soviet Union was defeated by the mujahiden. What she didn't know then was thet Afghanistan would remain her focus for the next eighteen years. Gannon, uniquely among Western journalist, witnessed Afghanistan's tragic opera: the final collapse of communism followed by bitterly feuding warlords being driven from power by an Islamicist organization called the Taliban; the subsequent arrival of Arabs and exiles, among them Osama bin Laden; and the transformation of the country into the staging post for a global jihad. Gannon observed something else as well: the terrible, unforeseen consequences of Western intervention, the ongoing suffering of ordinary Afghans, and the ability of the most corrupt and depraved of the warlords to reinvent and reinsert themselves into successive governments. I is for Infidel is the story of a country told by a writer with a uniquely intimate knowledge of its people and recent history. It will transform readers' understanding of Afghanistan and inspire awe at the resilience of its people in the face of the monstrous warmongers we have to some extent created there.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing upon Gannon's years of experience as an AP correspondent in Afghanistan, this contemporary history of the country is strongest when it focuses on the ins and outs of reporting. Particularly compelling is her account of being the only Western journalist allowed into Kabul after 9/11. Less gripping, but still sound, is her "big picture" overview of the Taliban regime, from its origins as a humble vigilante force assembled to stop post-Soviet corruption to its eventual overthrow in 2001. Gannon takes the United Nations to task for refusing to confront the Taliban on women's rights, thereby abetting its repressive edicts, and argues that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the destruction of Afghanistan's ancient Buddhist temples in order to turn the country into a safe zone for himself. But Gannon also has little respect for the current mujahedeen leaders, underlining their reputation as "mass murderers" while noting their possible links to bin Laden. Some readers might wish that Gannon had tied together the various strands of her analysis more neatly, but her firsthand knowledge of the region ultimately gives her interpretation of its recent history strong legitimacy.
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Review

"...Gannon offers a concise and bracing account of Afghanistan from a post-Sept. 11 perspectiveher passion for her subject is obvious" -- The San Francisco Chronicle, 9/11/05

"Her closely observed chronicle of Afghanistan's descent...and its attempts to rebound, is full of vivid incident and astute analysis" -- The Wall Street Journal, 9/14/05

PPParticularly compelling account her firsthand knowledge of the region gives her interpretation of its recent history strong legitimacy. -- Publishers Weekly, July 18, 2005

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 186 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (September 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586483129
• ISBN-13: 978-1586483128
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,907,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I is for Inquisitive Intellect, January 3, 2006

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan (Hardcover)

The Taliban have been a hot topic for about a decade now. Googling "Taliban regime" shows 2,666,000 references and 5260 pages in Google books alone. Studies, investigations and personal accounts of living under the regime abound. Yet, very few outsiders could report from within the country during that period. Kathy Gannon, a veteran Canadian correspondent with AP in the region since 1986, was the only western journalist allowed to stay during the whole time. Her long-term and close association with Afghans of different political and religious persuasions have given her unique insights into the society that are conveyed in this lively and personal account.

Gannon debated with leaders and moderate members of the Taliban movement, with commanders of the Northern Alliance as well as Pakistanis, intimately involved in recent events. Her analyses and conclusions don't make for comfortable reading, yet they are essential to appreciating the complexities and dangers of the political developments in the region. For example, she exposes the naïveté and short sightedness of western governments. Rather than building on their influence, she contends, they abandoned the Afghani people several times. Once the Soviet Army had withdrawn, the US and its allies left warlords and mujahedeen commanders in control. Many Afghans saw their new regime as a reign of lawlessness and arbitrary terror. When the Taliban fought back, many Afghans initially welcomed them as protectors. Yet, the West, Gannon claims, ignored the moderate Taliban, who were eventually overwhelmed by the movement's fundamentalists. There were strong indications that bin Laden and Al Qaeda commanders consistently influenced the Taliban leadership also towards its role in a global jihad. Even after the defeat of the Taliban regime, western governments were not systematically supportive of re-emerging moderate forces in Afghanistan. This lack of engagement facilitated known criminal elements and brutal warlords to retake large parts of the country. In many Afghans' view only a strong and competent military presence of western allies could have overcome the political crises that continue to unfold, Gannon argues.

She presents solid evidence by way of examples. Several warlords, now participating in the government and supported by the US and its allies, were in fact close collaborators with first the Soviets, then the Taliban. They were also part of the group that welcomed Osama bin Laden into Afghanistan. For obvious reasons they had no interest later in handing him over. At the same time, under the disguise of exposing Taliban fighters, longstanding ethnic and political feuds are being violently settled, in particular against ethnic Pashtuns.

Gannon quotes extensively from her interviews with various leaders, conveying their positions directly and candidly. She depends on the insights of several contacts, who she has learned to trust over the years. The picture that emerges is highly complex defying simple interpretations and generalizations. Pakistan's role in Afghanistan is a case in point. Gannon is quite candid in describing the contradictory behaviour of political leadership and military in that country. While on the one hand supporting the US administration's "war on terror", there is continued support for the Taliban among Pakistani leaders. For example, Gannon provides disturbing insights into the role of the Pakistani Intelligence who seem to support the Pakistani jihadists and Al Qaeda in contradiction of official Pakistani positions.

Gannon's lively, engaging and personal style makes the reader forget how close to danger she often was during her travels. She does not question her reasons for being in the country despite the looming threats to her safety. While the immediacy of her reporting style had strengths, it also has weaknesses. She sometimes jumps the timelines and assumes context knowledge that may not be at hand for the less familiar with the region and its history. For all the information contained here, one can only hope that many will read this book to better understand the challenges we all face from the continued conflicts in the region. [Friederike Knabe]

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I is for Incredible, October 27, 2005

By 

Mike Levin (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan (Hardcover)

In Kathy Gannon's Afghanistan, mistakes can get you killed. She probably made a few during nearly two decades in the country reporting for Associated Press on three regimes of repressive government. Yet there's an obvious savvyness revealed in I is for Infidel that explains why she's not only alive but remains the journalist other journalists seek out when they want to write about this volatile nexus of Asia.

Gannon has written a break-neck account of the violence, corruption and plain stupidity that has often defined Afghanistan since Soviet occupation. She takes no sides (unless you consider civilians caught in war a side) and is just as likely to point out the tragically blinkered view of American government as the obvious cruelty of the Taliban. Her criticisms and revelations make you wonder how she can feel safe in our War-On-Terrorism world.

The book is as compelling a read as there is on who the major players were in a geopolitical game that continues to use Afghanistan and its people as virtual colonials. It's almost too much to take in at once. Yet Gannon's access and insight provide treasures for anyone interested in this place and time.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appalling, January 2, 2006

By 

Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan (Hardcover)

I came away from reading this book more dismayed with the Bush administration's response to 9/11 than ever. If Kathy Gannon has got it right, and she certainly has the credentials: AP correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1986 to 2005; recipient of the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism award; and an Edward R. Murrow fellowship--if Gannon has got it right, the US basically fired enough rockets and dropped enough bombs in Afghanistan to chase the Taliban into the hills; and then instead of relying on US Special Forces to get the job done, the Bush administration let the warlords take over.

Actually it was worse than that. Gannon reports on several incidents where the US military allowed the Northern Alliance warlords to direct US rockets and bombs at personal enemies or people allied with rival warlords. They told the Americans these people were Taliban, and got them mowed down.

Well, war is hell, you say. What Gannon argues is that the US only made a half-hearted effort to get Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, leaving most of the work to the Northern Alliance of murderous warlords (Reagan's old Cold War "freedom fighters") whose main desire was to retake their territory from the Taliban and return to business as usual. Which they have.

From Gannon's tone and from the evidence she presents, the warlords are in some ways worse than the Taliban. Be that as it may, and both are pretty horrible, the fact remains that we killed a lot of people in Afghanistan but really did not do anything substantial in ending the terrorist threat. The main reason for that, according to my reading of Gannon, is that the Bush administration found no way to get to the real source of Al Qaeda terrorism which just moved inside Pakistan. Bush talked to Pervez Musharraf, the head of Pakistan's military government and got his assurance that he would support the US in its war on terrorism. That was it.

The problem for Bush was he had no plan to force the military government in Pakistan to hand over bin Laden and no plan to make Musharraf close down the madrassas religious schools that flourish to teach young men how to be terrorists and indoctrinate them into hating the West. Toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan was only one step in the war against terrorism, the easy part. The hard part remains: how to persuade Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and some other states from supporting terrorism. Bush had--and apparently still has--no idea how to do that. He couldn't invade Pakistan. Regime change there was too dangerous considering Pakistan's nukes and other considerations. He didn't dare go after the Saudi princes who are the source of the wealth of many of his top supporters. Instead he did a non-sequitur: he invaded Iraq.

What is most enlightening about this book is how it reveals the dismal failure of the Bush administration to meet the challenge of terrorism. But the book is also a vivid and fascinating reportage on personalities of the warlords and the Taliban in Afghanistan and the extremist Muslims in Pakistan, some of whom Gannon personally interviewed at great personal risk. She is one gutsy reporter and does the profession proud. She could easily have ended up on Al Jeerza television begging for her life. She was also lucky not to have been bombed or rocketed by the US military since she was in Kabul when the strikes began.

I have only one small fault with this book. She writes that the West ought "to take a critical look at itself and examine the apparent double standards at work that allow it to attack Iraq for possessing weapons of mass destruction but not North Korea, whose leader shares Saddam Hussein's megalomaniacal qualities; that permit it to rail against Iran about nuclear weapons but be silent about Israel's arsenal..." (p. 172)

Actually, if anything North Korea's Kim Jong Il is even worst that Saddam Hussein in what he has done to his people. However, it is one thing to attack a second-rate conventional force in the Middle East and quite another to attack a nation with nuclear weapons and a million-man army that has Seoul in virtual hostage. And as for the difference between Iran's incipient nuclear program and Israeli's established (although illegal) program, it is essential to understand that Iran is run by radical Islamic clerics who have expressed their hatred for the West and their desire to wipe Israel off the map. Israel is a democratic country with checks and balances whose leadership is interested in self-defense first and foremost--not to mention that as a practical matter there is nothing the West can do about Israel's arsenal.

Gannon believes the primary reason the Bush administration failed to put enough boots on the ground in Afghanistan and relied almost exclusively on the warlords to get Al Qaeda was because George W. and the neocons wanted to save the troops for the big splash in Iraq. In other words, Al Qaeda kills 3,000 Americans and in response you topple a dictator in another country. However that doesn't explain why it took the Bush administration so long to act. They knew immediately who had attacked America. Bush's response to the attacks on America amounts to a kind of bait and switch. Here are the murders, but we can't really get them, so we switch to a "shock and awe" demonstration of our military strength and our will to use it. That ought to work, or at least keep us in office.

If you want the appalling reality about Afghanistan and the war on terror not seen on the sanguine six o'clock news, I recommend that you read this book.