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Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground Hardcover – 6 Oct 2011

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Jonathan Steele (Author)
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Jonathan Steele (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars 9 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 437 pages
  • Publisher: Portobello Books Ltd (6 Oct. 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1846274303
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846274305
  • Product Dimensions: 15.6 x 3.9 x 23.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 669,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

`Steele skewers the myths and half-truths that are peddled by politicians, generals, official spokesmen, and too many commentators' --Observer

`A highly readable account... Steele's book is always challenging'
--Sunday Times

`If you want to get your mind round Afghanistan the best place to start is this book'

--Literary Review

About the Author

Jonathan Steele was educated at Cambridge and Yale. He was Washington Bureau Chief, Moscow Bureau Chief, and Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian. He is currently a columnist on international affairs. His previous book Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq was published in 2008. In May 2011, Steele won the One World Media Press Award for his reporting from Afghanistan.

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4.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent historical review of successive foreign involvements in Afghanistan
By Richard Carter on 4 Nov. 2011
Format: Hardcover
Johnathan Steele has written a magisterial review of recent foreign involvements in Afghanistan, starting with (briefly) the British Empire's invasions and going on in more detail into the Soviet occupation, the survival of the Soviet-backed independent government, the Taliban rule and finally, the occupation by the US and its satellites. What might be viewed by some as the drier historical descriptions are leavened with material from many interviews with participants in the last 30 years or so of the country's travails, and these are particularly valuable.

What makes the book stand apart from others on the subject, is that Mr Steele has as a running thread through the book a series of thirteen myths about Afghanistan, such as that Afghans have always beaten foreign armies (they haven't) and that banning girls from schools is a Taliban trademark (it isn't), and these are a very useful corrective to the usual clichés about Afghanistan. But whilst he is very clear on the distinction between Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the text, he might have pointed this up more strongly by adding another myth to make this clearer; I suggest this:

MYTH NUMBER FOURTEEN:
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are synonymous.

The fact is that they are not synonymous, and what the Taliban are concerned with is kicking out the infidels from their country. Incidentally, this suggests an interesting parallel with the Vietnam war, in which an indigenous entity, the Viet Cong, were concerned only with liberating their own country rather than with spreading international communism as the US supposed.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent survey of the wars fought across Afghanistan
By William Podmore on 15 Dec. 2011
Format: Hardcover
Jonathan Steele has 30 years' experience reporting as a foreign correspondent, from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The 9/11 attacks were 'criminal attacks' by a non-state actor. Afghanistan's armed forces had not attacked the USA. UN Resolution 1368 called on all member states to bring the perpetrators of terrorism to justice. Resolution 1373 authorised police measures against terrorists.

Neither authorised the use of military force, neither so much as mentioned Afghanistan. We don't need a 'war' on terrorism. We need to deal with terrorism by a mixture of politics and good police work.

64,000 foreign troops were in Afghanistan when Obama took office in January 2009; by 2011, it was 142,000, but there is no military solution. The main recruiters for the resistance are the presence and behaviour of foreign troops, and the Karzai government's corruption.

Yet Obama still repeats Bush's claim that the war is a war of necessity. Obama said that the Taliban 'must be met with force, and they must be defeated.' In February 2009, he ordered another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan and in December another 33,000. Gorbachev's troop surge of 1985 did not work either.

Afghanistan is strategically valueless ' it has never been a gateway to anywhere, more a dead-end. The war is a stalemate.

Coalition forces killed 230 civilians in 2006, 629 in 2007, 828 in 2008, 596 in 2009 and 440 in 2010. In 2010, 711 foreign troops were killed (up from 512 in 2009), including 499 US and 103 British: the bloodiest year so far. The number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted rose by 62 per cent. They killed 268 troops, as many as in the three years 2007-09.

Two British soldiers are killed every week.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsEssential reading
By shufti on 24 April 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
A page turner. Old school reporting from an 'old master' who is often reporting first hand. The same journalist being able to report in detail about how two superpowers invaded the same obscure, 'unknown' country 10 years apart is remarkable. The similarities and differences explain how the cold war ended in central asia - Afghanistan is a buffer between India, Russia, Iran and China. The USSR collapsed without a fight but the USA carried on fighting its cold war demons and helped to create a new global Jihad enemy. A few diplomatic lone voices told the CIA & the ISA to stop funding the Mujahedeed as soon as the Russians left in 1989 but they were ignored. Bin Laden, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mullah Omar and Pakistan quickly turned against the USA. This catastrophe occurred under the clinton presidency. There was no US embassy in Kabul from 1989 to 2001.

The focus is limited to on-the-ground reporting in Afghanistan. Left alone, Afghans might achieve some kind of political settlement. However, Pakistan keeps fuelling the conflict - all necessities of life for Kabul are flown in from Karachi and all fertiliser for IEDs come from factories in Pakistan. All the AQ leaders and Taliban are based in safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border.

This book covers the Afghan side of things (1979-2010) superbly - I think in years' time it will become regarded as a minor classic on the period, it draws all the threads together without trying to simplify the messiness of it all.
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5.0 out of 5 starsGood to see the whole picture
By Mr. Ed Brann on 26 Dec. 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Great book a good overview of Afghanistan from before the Soviet invasion up till late 2013. I do not belive any help can really be given to Afghanistan as once again you have different tribes fighting, also very backward idears from a people who want to live free from modern values. It is a shame that those Afgans who have been fortunate enough to have been educated out of the stone age are forsed ether to leave or are persecuted by their own country men.
The most important thing that know one has been able to do is convince the people that help does not have a price. If only the clock could be turned back and the west had not been sucked into a war without end.
If I who was educated in a Comprehensive school but has read as much as I can about Afghanistan can understand not getting involved why cant politicians who should perhaps have read this very good book not understand.
All in all a very worthwhile book to read.
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