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A review by thisotherbookaccount
No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal
5.0
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America had been at war in the #MiddleEast for more than half my life. So when the war officially came to an end, with men trucking into #Afghanistan’s capital carrying Kalashnikovs, desperate mothers handing their infant children to US soldiers across barbed wires and refugees clinging onto departing airplanes, I couldn’t help but ask: what was that all for?
#NoGoodMenAmongtheLiving follows the lives of three Afghans — Akbar Gul, a Taliban commander; Jan Muhammad Khan, a US-allied militia leader; and Heela Achekzai, a civilian woman — each with a perspective on the war.
What comes across is that allegiance and morality, like the shifting sands in a desert, are relative concepts. There are no ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ in war. Yes, the Taliban regime was brutal and oppressive, but America spent US$2.3 trillion to prop up a corrupt Afghan government and powerful warlords, all while committing atrocities of their own. Innocent Afghans were tortured/imprisoned, villages were razed and murders were committed based on bad intelligence. Gopal makes it clear that there were no plans, no exit strategies and no path to victory at all.
Afghanistan is an abyss, and America tried to fill the hole with money, which only fattened the coffers of corrupted officials and warlords, and with bombs, which only made the hole larger and deeper. Twenty years is enough time for every pair of hands to touch blood. What I love about this book is how Gopal, without condoning their actions, expertly explains why different factions did the things they did, how the conflicts began and how it descended into a hell pit filled with blood, sand and dirty money.
My only complaint is that this book was published in 2014, and a lot has changed. We now know the true conclusion to the story: America lost, the Taliban won, the warlords are rich and everyday Afghans will be paying the price for decades to come.
America had been at war in the #MiddleEast for more than half my life. So when the war officially came to an end, with men trucking into #Afghanistan’s capital carrying Kalashnikovs, desperate mothers handing their infant children to US soldiers across barbed wires and refugees clinging onto departing airplanes, I couldn’t help but ask: what was that all for?
#NoGoodMenAmongtheLiving follows the lives of three Afghans — Akbar Gul, a Taliban commander; Jan Muhammad Khan, a US-allied militia leader; and Heela Achekzai, a civilian woman — each with a perspective on the war.
What comes across is that allegiance and morality, like the shifting sands in a desert, are relative concepts. There are no ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ in war. Yes, the Taliban regime was brutal and oppressive, but America spent US$2.3 trillion to prop up a corrupt Afghan government and powerful warlords, all while committing atrocities of their own. Innocent Afghans were tortured/imprisoned, villages were razed and murders were committed based on bad intelligence. Gopal makes it clear that there were no plans, no exit strategies and no path to victory at all.
Afghanistan is an abyss, and America tried to fill the hole with money, which only fattened the coffers of corrupted officials and warlords, and with bombs, which only made the hole larger and deeper. Twenty years is enough time for every pair of hands to touch blood. What I love about this book is how Gopal, without condoning their actions, expertly explains why different factions did the things they did, how the conflicts began and how it descended into a hell pit filled with blood, sand and dirty money.
My only complaint is that this book was published in 2014, and a lot has changed. We now know the true conclusion to the story: America lost, the Taliban won, the warlords are rich and everyday Afghans will be paying the price for decades to come.