Small Wars Permitting [Import] [Paperback]

Christina Lamb (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harperpress (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007256892
• ISBN-13: 978-0007256891
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,877,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Penetrating insight of much of the world during the last two decades, December 29, 2009

By 

Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Wars Permitting: Dispatches from Foreign Lands (Kindle Edition)

Christina Lamb is one of the greatest international journalists out there.

Always courageous, a penetrating mind that misses nothing, an engaging sense of humour and biting wit, compassion and a talent for putting what she witnesses onto paper.

Ms Lamb has a deep understanding of Afghanistan, where she has worked on and off for 21 years.

From the resistance to soviet occupation by the mujahideen to the unspeakable horrors and tortures committed by the Taliban during their nightmare rule over Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001.

Where people were tortured and killed for breaking the dark code of Taliban rule which included a ban of people owning pets of any kind, flying kites or woman being unaccompanied by a male relative or not wearing a Burka at all times.

It is harrowing to read of this as well as Saddam's genocide of the Marsh Arabs during the 1990s by draining the water bodies on which they survived, the organized killing of children and the war against his own people by Robert Mugabe and his totalitarian ZANU PF , in which mass rape camps have been set up by the ruling party's militia where systematic rapes of girls as young as ten years old take place daily.

There is also as witnessed by Ms Lamb, an organized systematic depopulation of urban areas al la Pol Pot.

One of Mugabe's top Gauleiters ZANU PF Organisation Secretary and Senior Cabinet Minister Didymus Mutasa spoke of ZANU PF's plans to halve Zimbabwe's 12 million strong population so only loyalists of ZANU PF would survive : "We would be better off with only 6 million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle."

A few months later South Africa's then Minister of Intelligence and Stalinist hardliner Ronnie Kasrils said at a joint press conference with Mutasa' "Zimbabwe and South Africa have a joint world view and will march together shoulder to shoulder."

Ms Lamb wryly pontificates at the begiining of the book that the pen is not that mighty otherwise Robert Mugabe would not still be in power.

Lamb also includes lighter relief of the night spots around the places she covers and Nigeria's 'fat farms'. for a penetrating insight of much of the world during the last two decades.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful reporting, December 14, 2008

By 

asiana (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Small Wars Permitting (Paperback)

Ms. Lamb is a gifted writer and I am anxiously awaiting her new book. Her adventures in and knowledge of the areas she reports are absolutely wonderful. Have recommended this book to everyone I know and their opinions echo my own.