Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Roots of the Taliban, January 27, 2005
This review is from: Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Paperback)
Soldiers of God is a first-hand narrative of journalist Robert Kaplan's travels with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan during the waning days of the Soviet occupation. Set in the late 1980s, this book does not cover the more recent Taliban movement that will probably be of more immediate interest to most readers. However, Soldiers of God does impart a clear understanding of the background conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban and the influence of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Soldiers of God is the story of a third-world nation that was brutalized by the Soviets, then manipulated and mismanaged by the Pakistani agents who were acting as U.S. surrogates. Kaplan explains how the United States entrusted the Zia and Bhutto regimes of Pakistan with most of the day-to-day details of the war. The result was the gradual encouragement of the militant Islamist elements that would eventually coalesce into the Taliban.
Tragically, Afghanistan was a comparatively minor sideshow in the Cold War. The country was difficult for journalists to enter, so the conflict was largely neglected by the American press; and Eastern Europe and Nicaragua were much higher on the list of U.S. priorities. Kaplan provides detailed accounts of Soviet atrocities which received little mainstream press attention at the time.
However, the most captivating aspect of the book is richness of the narrative itself. Part diary, part political commentary, Soldiers of God gives the reader a visceral sense of what it was like to live as a mujahadeen during the Soviet-Afghan conflict. Kaplan describes the miserable climate, maggot-infested food provisions, and the constant fear of Soviet mines with exacting detail.
Kaplan also gives us insights into the characters of the mujahadeen themselves. As a reader, I felt a mixture of contempt and admiration for the men who lives unfolded in this book. On one hand, the mujahadeen emerge as heroic underdogs fighting to free their country from a vastly superior Soviet military. On the other hand, Kaplan acknowledges many of the Afghan societal flaws which would later be amplified by the Taliban. We read about a country in which women have little or no rights, and religious laws have no secular counterbalance.
I have found few books on the Soviet-Afghan conflict; and I would guess that this one is among the best of the bunch.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A war forgotten and rediscovered, September 4, 2005
This review is from: Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Paperback)
September 11 offered an obvious answer to why Afghanistan mattered, and several books have examined the interaction between the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the rise of militant Islam. Last year, Steve Coll was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Ghost Wars," a twenty-year history of America in Afghanistan. But save the exception of Taliban published by Ahmed Rashid, Afghanistan was consistently conspicuously absent from the Western booklist.
When Robert Kaplan first published this book, in 1990, he meant to shed light into a war whose geopolitical importance was inversely related to its attention in the press. "Soldiers of God" is a typical Kaplan book that interweaves the author's first-hand account of the region with a deep interest in understanding its history and a solemn sense of realism that pervades the narrative.
In telling his story, Mr. Kaplan begins with an introductory chapter on the war's barbarity-particularly the impact that Soviet mines had on the war and the country's landscape. He then looks at Peshawar, the Pakistani city that acted as the war's staging room, at least for the mujahedin side, before examining the tribal dynamics of the war, and specifically the Pathans' men relationship to their women.
It is in chapter 3 that Mr. Kaplan makes his trip into Afghanistan and gives a first-hand account of the Khyber Pass that connects Pakistan to Afghanistan; from then on, the reader gets an intimate and intricate image of the war's first line of attack, just as the portraits of the mujahedin get enriched with more detail and precision.
The greater image that emerges is how America let the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, run this war and how this jeopardized the subordination of American interests to Pakistan's own geopolitical priorities. Mr. Kaplan is very somber about this: "In the end, the mujahidin's willingness to suffer to a nearly unimaginable degree eventually overcame, and thus masked, the awful mistakes of American and Pakistani policy makers."
The revised edition includes a new chapter, "The Lawless Frontier" which marks Kaplan's return to the region (in the spring of 2000), and which narrates the way that Pakistan promoted the Taliban as a substitute for Gulbuddin Heykmatyar's inability to consolidate his power in Afghanistan and thus serve Pakistan's interests.
If there is an easy way to explain this complex dynamic between Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans, "Soldiers of God" is it. But in the end, Mr. Kaplan would shy away from any grandiose statements; "For American policy makers, there may be no reliably applicable lessons of the Afghan war except that you win some and you lose some," he writes. A sad conclusion to a war that cost 1.3 million lives.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb insight, well written., June 28, 2005
This review is from: Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Paperback)
This is an extremely well-written book that covers many asepcts of the mujahidin battle against the Soviets (and their Afghan proxies) in Afghanistan throughout the 1980's. Although Kaplan gives a disclaimer in his new forward that, "Soldiers of God is not a primer for current or future policy in Afghanistan," I disagree and think this should be at the top of the list for an easily digestable and insightful view into what it was like to be with the mujahidin then-- a view that is probably still applicable today.
This was the third Kaplan book I have read. It differs from the other two (Eastward to Tartaray and Balkan Ghosts) in that it is a more focused-- both geographically and in its narrative-- and Kaplan reveals a lot more of himself, especially in candidly revealing his weaknesses in trying to keep up with the muj. He also discusses his personal views and biases about faith, and how those views evolved after observing the muj he was with exercise their beliefs and faith in a simple, noble fashion.
Kaplan was lucky enough to have fallen in with a group of "good" muj-- they took care of him and earned his admiration-- he admits this bias. Even back then, however, the more fundamentalist groups were extremely hostile and the sinister designs that would culminate in the catasrophic events of 9/11 were developing.
Kaplan's insights from that era are just as relevant today. Many of the same characters are still running around, and the struggle is in many ways similar-- an element of the population revolting not just against the foreign influence, but also against the Afghan government and its forces.
Overall, this is an excellent book to read if you want to understand the motivations and intricacies of this conflict, which still rages today. Kaplan is honest and articulate in his assessments not only of events on the ground, but also the international community's treatment of the problem, and his own personal views and how they were formed.
This is an informative, engaging, and most importantly essential read if you want or need to know about Afghanistan.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
