Customer Reviews

Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan

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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.

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.

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.

The title of Robert Kaplan's Soldiers of God made me pick this book up and buy it and I was not sure exactly what to expect from it. What I did not expect was a magnificent account of the mujahedeens' long battle against the Soviets, a clearer picture of the geography of Afghanistan, its relationship with Pakistan and the dark years of Soviet invasion.
Kaplan's description and stories about the Mujaheedeen commanders as well as warlords and pro-Soviet leaders of Afghanistan brings the reader into a tumultuous period of the country's past. His proximity and access to some of them makes me feel like I know something about them that readers of newspapers or articles on Afghanistan don't.
His trips into Afghanistan and how he crossed the tough terrain made me marvel. Anecdotes of fellow travellers, photographers, translators, and hosts of the camps where they stopped at pulled me further into this riveting book. Superb work by Kaplan, he shares with us the face of a war that many did not bother to cover.

You can watch 300 hours of CNN and not learn as much about what is occuring in Afghanistan as you would in 1 hour of reading this book. Even though it was written in the late 1980s it still rings true. Kaplan has an eye for detail and telling a story that makes the conflict real. The challenges that Kaplan pointed out in 1988 are the same ones our leaders are facing today. Well worth your time.

Kaplan's book should be mandatory reading for every single elected official in the Executive and Legislative branch as well as all of our military leaders. Kaplan's understanding of the forces at play in Afghanistan and Pakistan (which are inextricably linked) is second-to-none. As an Infantry Officer with 6+ months experience in Afghanistan, I can say that reading Kaplan's book gave me great insight into the enemy we are fighting and the relationship that exists between them and their Pakistani neighbors who routinely provide them safe haven outside the reach of the Coalition Forces.
Chock-full of insight that few Westerners have ever been exposed to, Kaplan delivers a phenomenal account of the Mujahideen from the inside-out. I highly recommend this book.

I've been reading Kaplan for a few years starting w/ Balkan Ghosts. While his view of the world is pessimistic, it's supported by facts and based on his travels. His analysis is always extremely intelligent and objective and I always learn new things from his books. His bravery to go into Afghanistan is commendable. Just as in the Taliban by Ahmed Rashid, Kaplan identifies the non obvious patterns underlying the conflict, America and Pakistan's hand in it and how things went wrong. It is obvious that Mujahedin commanders such as Abdul Haq deserved respect and support that they never got from Pakistan and the US (Abdul eventually got murdered by the Taliban via CIA bungling subsequent to the book's publication) and could have been great leaders for Afghanistans future because of their moderate views towards the world while still holding their religious values close to themselves. Unfortunately, it's not people like that but the Taliban that came into power because of US and Pakistani bungling and sometimes a deliberate policy to continue unrest. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has eerie similarity to how America is going into Iraq, albeit the fact that the Bush administration calls it a war on terror.

Kaplan, D. Robert, Solders of God (Vintage Books, New York, NY, November 2001). xxi+254. 1 map. Index. ISBN 1-4000-3025-0.
In his own personal account, Robert D. Kaplan, international affairs expert and war-time journalist, chronicles his journey with the mujahidin  holy warriors - through the forbidden and vicious landscape of Afghanistan. In Solders of God Kaplan attempts to unravel the sheer chaos of Afghanistan through an inter-personal level of analysis, first by gaining access to some of the most important tribal/resistance leaders, and then accompanying them on their Jihad  or holy war  against the Soviet Union. Kaplan purposely uses his experience with the mujahidin to help explain the chain of events over the past 30 years which left the door open for the fanaticism of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
In the 80s war-time reporting was largely focused around the civil war in Lebanon or apartheid in South Africa. Rarely was their a first-hand report from the front lines of Afghanistan, which is what makes Kaplans accounts of what some journalists call, the forgotten war, an invaluable tool in understanding present day international affairs.
During his time with the mujahidin, Kaplan details the lives of these mainly young, devote, and incredibly resistant solders who portray almost superhuman like qualities. As the Sherpas of Nepal have essentially evolved to conquer the highest of altitudes, the mujahidin of Afghanistan have evolved to become some of the worlds best guerrilla fighters. Insidious and intolerant as the mujahidin might seem, Kaplan exposes a fissure between the modern day authoritarian Islam of the Arabic world and the more introverted democratic, and egalitarian Islam of the Afghani tribes, specifically the Pathans in the north. Kaplan finds that while they were fanatical, many Afghani Moslems were incredibly tolerant of non-believers and women journalist (who many times felt safest with the mujahidin).
Some of the most shocking pieces of Kaplans account shows the ferociousness, relentlessness, and brutality of the Soviet invasion. Kaplan describes how the miscalculated and misguided Soviet war of attrition has left the footprint of war on Afghanistan to this very day. Riddled with Soviet landmines, Afghanistan has become a country of amputees, disabling a majority of an already diseased population.
Kaplans relationship with renowned leaders such as Abdul Haq (Pathan leader; known as the Lion of Afghanistan), Ahmad Shah Massoud (Tajik leader; known as the Panshir Lion), and Hamid Karzi (current Afghan interim leader), allows the reader to better understand the incoherence and complexity of the ethnic and tribal codes that rule Afghani politics.
Because of his intimacy with the Mujahidin, one might criticize Kaplan for romanticizing the bravado and machismo of these Afghan guerrillas. However, rather than romanticize, Kaplan delivers a telling and respectful account of a people and a country orphaned by war.
In Kaplans final analysis he shifts focus to neighboring Pakistan where the majority of Afghani refugees reside. Combined with past support (financial and political) for the Taliban and a fevering wave of fundamental Islam, seen coming directly from the Saudi sponsored Madrassas (religious schools); an explosive cocktail of factionalism is predicted on the horizon. In a chilling conclusion Kaplan warns of potential Balkanization in Pakistan. However unlike Yugoslavia, Pakistan has a Nuclear Arsenal.

Scott Shadian

World affairs expert Robert Kaplan traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and lived among the ardent Islamic 'soldiers of god': Kaplan's Soldiers Of God assumes new importance in the face of recent events and includes a return a decade later to much-changed conditions. Any who would seek to understand Islamic warriors in the region should place this near the top of their reading lists. A new introduction and final chapters appears in this timely reprint.

As an American living in several parts of the world in which Islam has a strong influence, I have always had a bit of a problem with the mainstream categorization of Islam as a fanatical approach to solving normal human problems.

Kaplan, once again, gets beneath the surface of things to discover that all is not what it seems. As he himself freely admits in the new introduction to this edition, he was somewhat biased by his visceral experiences on the front lines in 1980s Afghanistan, in which he shared life and death with the mujahidin. His square placement of blame on the US for its blind reliance on Pakistan to provide intelligence and diplomacy on the war in Afghanistan is probably a bit short-sighted.

Nevertheless, if anyone has any curiosity about how Bin Laden and his ilk came to find Afghanistan a safe-have, they should read this book. The updated intro and new last chapter are good additions in light of the prescience which lies beneath the surface of the original prose.