Afghanistan

by Nancy Hendrick
Afghan Air War, etc.: Recent Talk & Books
Blood will flow from the sky
Flames will cover the universe
Hell must burn its height of fire—
And this gives just a tiny picture of life in Kabul.
— Qahar Ausi, 1992 (Afghan poet killed by rocket fire in 1994)

The same week that President Karzai of Afghanistan visited D.C. and spoke out at length against the U.S. bombing of civilians, the Afghan-American Tamim Ansary spoke out against the same practice at Powells’ downtown bookstore.
Ansary, who prior to 9/11, made his living writing school textbooks, was in town on May 12 to promote Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Muslim Eyes. Ansary was known to a number of people in the audience, as at one time he was a counter-culture Portlander (graduated from Reed and worked on an earlier progressive paper known as the Portland Scribe). His first book for a popular audience was a post-9/11 memoir of his young life in Afghanistan, his years in America afterwards, and his musings over his identity and Muslim fundamentalism (West of Kabul, East of New York). At the conclusion of that book, he included his September 12, 2001 email to friends urging the U.S. not to bomb Afghanistan — an email which ended up being circulated to an ever widening circle and brought him media attention. He pointed out there the tragicomic aspect to callers on right-wing radio wanting to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, as it was already too late—the Soviets had already done that.
The author at this recent Portland talk denied being against the U.S. intervention en toto, but noted how death and destruction by bombing as well as late night house raids were turning Afghans more and more against the American forces. As in a Mother Jones interview timed with his book release, Ansary told Portlanders that he had seen an opening for the Americans at first to bring development and relief from the Taliban. However, around 2006, frustrated by the lack of significant economic development and foreign military tactics, a tipping point was reached where more than ever Afghans saw the U.S. presence as an occupation. Though he didn’t discuss this at his talk, he described the Pakistani Taliban phenomenon in an April essay posted to the Powell’s web-site, entitled “Sounds complicated, but It’s Not That Simple”: this article, much like his latest book, explains the cultural context behind the Muslim viewpoint. Interestingly, the author refused, in response to an audience question, to name other authors to read about his native region, as he does not entirely agree with any of the other better known writers.
Perhaps he has a point about no specific, best author to read. Perhaps Americans have to read (or hear) a number of individuals to get a grip on the recent Afghan (or Pakistani) past and the present. Many readers have started with the widely read novels of Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner, The Ten Thousand Splendid Suns). His first novel uses the story of one family and their servants to illustrate the rise of ethnic conflict and the coming of the Taliban (this novel with the kite-flying motif was a Multnomah County Library “Everybody Reads” pick in 2006). The latter novel features two female protagonists, with the younger one having her life changed forever when her parents die under bombing of Kabul during the civil war. Both also have sub-themes dealing with sexual exploitation and hypocrisy during the Taliban years, as does the stark and unsettling movie released in 2003 entitled “Osama” (about an Afghan girl, not Bin Laden).
There are other memoirs including that of the Canadian-Afghan journalist Nelofer Pazira, A Bed of Red Flowers. Her memoir in part captures her heartbreaking quest to reach her suicidal friend trapped inside Afghanistan, as was depicted in the docu-drama of a few years back “Kandahar” (which also amply demonstrates the absolute underdevelopment and barrenness of some of the dessert region). Her book begins with the hope of her parents when young, describes the Soviet occupation of Kabul, the encircling civil war with indiscriminate shelling of the city, and her family’s escape. When the author comes back after 9/11 seeking her friend, she finds that indeed the woman left behind has killed herself because of hopelessness during the Taliban era. In the final sections, she visits the scenes of significant battles, and writes eloquently about the non-glory of war.
Love and War in Afghanistan (Klaits and Gulmadova-Klaits) has a series of memoirs in brief as the authors retell the life histories of Afghans from the northeastern region. Often the stories depict a saga of rags to riches and back again, as individual lives took many twists and turns during the turbulence of recent decades, and often included periods as internal or external refugees. Though the stories are often sad, they also convey a sense of human resilience and the desire of the returning refugees to help their country re-build. It is very well written, at the level of quality of the life story vignettes of Studs Terkel.
The more political or historical books include journalist Ahmed Rashid’s lengthy but quite readable Descent into Chaos, about the combined fate of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last half-century. He also wrote a pre-9/11 book entitled The Taliban. He gives a good overview of background information needed by an American reader (with several maps). Tariq Ali, a Pakistani long living in Britain, provides a leftist and often witty viewpoint in The Duel, again about Pakistan and the interface with the Western powers (but I found his book expected more background knowledge from the reader). Rashid is more specific about the way out of the morass than Ali, advocating for a regional peace agreement.
Political analyst Gabriel Kolko refers to the Afghan conflict this way (in Another Century of War?, bought at Alliance advertiser Laughing Horse Books): “The United States first laid a trap for the Russians but now it too has fallen into it—the consequence of the unlimited ambition of its foreign policy.” He is a fierce critic of the reliance on airpower by the U.S., starting with the Yugoslavian conflict. Such reliance, in his view, has resulted in the initial political goals becoming secondary or even forgotten. The increasing role of air power has to inevitably end with striking civilian populations.
Another piece of the region’s puzzle is brought into focus by the more traditional Afghanistan (A Short History of Its People and Politics) by Martin Ewans (available at a library near you). Particularly striking are the elements of tragic over-reach of the three Anglo-Afghan wars. For example, at the denouement of the first Anglo-Afghan war, in the 1840’s, thousands of British soldiers (perhaps up to 20 thousand) and an unknown number of camp followers were slaughtered en masse as they fled back over the Khyber Pass to the British area of control.
After I bought the latest Ansary book, I couldn’t stop myself from turning first to his description of the Crusades and the story of the heroic Arab general Salah-al-Din (Saladin). Having myself been in a Crusader fort in Jordan (in 2004), this tale of Western doomed folly, Christian intolerance of Muslim, and European over-reach fascinates me. The echoes of this earlier intervention for Christendom in a far off land echoes with our more modern version of imperialism.
Or as Pazira puts it upon her return to Afghanistan: “I have travelled halfway around the globe…to a country that lives in the shadow of its history—a place whose only relevance to the rest of the world depends on the value and extent of a Westerner’s life and security”.

Nancy Hedrick is a sometime writer for the Alliance. If you value having an alternative voice for peace and justice news, she urges you to subscribe to the Alliance. In this almost euphoric and soporific phase of the Obama “honeymoon”, progressives need to keep themselves informed about “Obama’s War” in Afghanistan and related issues.