Salaam

Advantages: See the good the War on Terror has done
Disadvantages: Have AK47s pointed at your head

...Browsing the Sunday Times I came across an astonishing article. Apparently two UK travel agents are offering sightseeing tours to Afghanistan. They plan future trips to "Axis of Evil" countries - Iran, Iraq, North Korea. Can you imagine the tour bus. "And on your right there's the bombed-out anthrax factory and straight ahead is a land mine..."BOOM. Last year I went to Kabul to see how our soldiers were faring in the former stronghold of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and Al Qaida. Not at the Bagram airfield nerve centre or in the mountains with the Marines, but in the capital with ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) troops. Let me tell you Kabul is not a place to lie on a towel and soak up the rays. The Afghans are friendly but the ubiquitous AK47 is everywhere. And this week a suspected Al Qaida man was...

castlebinn 17.08.2002 (19.01.2006) · Read review
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Review of Kabul (Afghanistan)

Inside Afghanistan

Advantages: Well written, colourful stories.
Disadvantages: It's authenticity has been questioned.

...In the spring of 2002 a Norwegian journalist, who had been reporting for Scandinavian newspapers on the offensive against the Taliban, spent four months living with Sultan Khan, a Kabul bookseller, and his family. The resulting bestseller was released to rave reviews in Britain. Asne Seierstad explains in the foreword how she met Sultan and went to live with his family. He presented himself to her as a man who has tried to save the art and literature of his country. He has had his books burned by the communists and again by the Taliban. He has spent years fighting against censorship. Through the Communist, Mujahedeen and Taliban regimes he has managed to hide, buy, collect and sell illegal books. He has been imprisoned. The scene is set for an uplifting book, a story of resistance against oppression, but instead brutality pervades...

noodlebutty 24.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad

The Taliban in Kabul

Advantages: A powerful story
Disadvantages: Quite traumatic

.... Khadra has written two other books, In the Name of God and Wolf Dreams. The story In a war-torn Kabul run by the Taliban, the lives of its citizens are being slowly destroyed, particularly two couples; Mohsen and Zunaira, and Atiq and Musarrat. Mohsen had dreams of becoming a diplomat; Zunaira wanted to become a magistrate, now the two of them are living in poverty. Atiq is a prison guard, who spends his days with those condemned to death; then when he goes home in the evening, he is faced with his wife, Musarrat, who is slowly dying a long painful death. Following a twist of fate, the two couples lives are intertwined. Can the new relationships forged help to save the couples from their seemingly cruel fate? The characters Mohsen and Zunaira are definitely the easiest couple to fathom. Both are young and educated; both had...

sunmeilan 06.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of The Swallows of Kabul - Yasmina Khadra

Afghanistan, Facing So Many Challenges

Advantages: Scenic in parts. Rugged terrain
Disadvantages: Current military campaign. Political instability

...Just about the whole world has recently been inundated with news reports coming out of a country which was formerly largely ignored.Afghanistan, a land-lacked country in south-western Asia, covers an area of 652,225 km2, and almost 75% of the land is mountainous. The highest peak is Istora Nol at 24,458 feet a.s.l. The climate is best described as generally semi-arid steppe, with very wide regional variations; the climate varies distinctly between lowlands and highlands. In the mountainous north-east there are dry extremely cold winters with temperatures falling to as low as –14.8°F in the Hindu Kush. In the desert in the south-west, there is less than 3 inches of rainfall annually and summer temperatures can exceed 95°F in that area. The major cities and towns in Afghanistan include Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar...

ashford 15.10.2001 · Read review
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Review of General: Afghanistan

Afghanistan United States and mail

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: many

......

Rosie6349 08.11.2001 · Read review
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Review of General: Afghanistan

Did we dig up Afghanistan to lay pipelines

Advantages: Pakistan and China gets a New pipeline attached to the Trans Caspian Pipeline
Disadvantages: The West gets increased terrorism

...In order to determine whether this military action was justified or not, I think we need to cover some previous background on this subject. The core issue for bombing Afghanistan was the search for Bin Laden in the post 911 era. Whether the Taliban was wicked or not, poor regimes are hardly rare in many countries in the region. Geopolitically speaking Russia had spent 20 years fighting its "Vietnam" in Afghanistan before pulling out, and since 1991 had reverted from Communism to Capitalism alongside China. Great efforts were made by the International Community to ensure that both Russia and China could be involved into the international Capital system, where they had previously not existed. One of those efforts was to have a pipeline built through Afghanistan by Unocal, GE Electric, Bechtel, Shell and BP. The pipeline was to...

Sbanshee 01.05.2003 · Read review
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Review of Was the military action in Afghanistan justified?

KIDNAP AND KILLING IN KABUL

Advantages: Good Characterisation, Fast paced Narrative
Disadvantages: None, unless you do not like the genre of book

...follows is a trail of drug marketing, people smuggling and conspiracy from within as Nick?s quest for justice takes him from the dusty streets of Basra, to London, Dublin and eventually the Afghanistan capital, Kabul. My Opinion I have long been a fan of Andy McNab; from his nonfiction accounts of war-torn Iraq in Bravo Two Zero and his life as a soldier in Immediate Action, to his fictional series of books featuring ex SAS soldier Nick Stone; he really knows how to grip the reader and draw them in. His descriptive storytelling gives an accurate feel for the scenarios and problems encountered in the face of battle. In Crossfire ? as in his other fictional books ? his knowledge of the subject is strong. Many military writers leave me wondering if their sole experience of anything remotely resembling a warzone is watching Dads...

tractor-boy 19.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Crossfire - Andy McNab

Books & Burkhas: after the Taliban

Advantages: Captivating picture of another time, another place
Disadvantages: -

...Åsne is a war correspondent. Between 1998-2000 she reported on the war in Kossovo for Norwegian television. For six weeks towards the end of 2001 she hitched and trekked around north of Kabul following the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban. When the objective was achieved she followed the Alliance into Kabul. There she met an elegant grey-haired man who sold books, and talked about literature and history. With the serendipity that characterises the lives of war correspondents perhaps more than those of any other journalist, she had chanced upon a man with a story of his own to tell, but more than that, a man with a passion for the stories of his country, a man who would welcome her into the heart of his family to live with them for a protracted period of several months. There is no claim made that the family...

hiker 16.07.2004 · Read review
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Review of The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad

Peeking into Afghan Family Life with Western Eyes

Advantages: Gripping read
Disadvantages: Ethics behind the book - is it exploitative?

...You will either love or hate this book, but whatever your final feeling is, you will be gripped in the process. It is a story of family-life in Kabul, as told by the award-winning Norwegian journalist, Asne Seierstad. Immediately following September 11th, Seierstad flew to Afghanistan to report on the war there. A few months later after the fall of the Taliban in Spring 2002, she returned to live with an Afghan family for four months. As Seierstad admits herself, it is not a typical Afghan family. For that, she would have to live with a family in the countryside, a large family where no one could read or write and every day was a battle for survival. Instead, she chose to live with a middle-class family in Kabul ? the family of bookseller, Sultan Khan (in real life, his name is Shah Mohammed Rais). For over 20 years...

Maia 15.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad

War on Error

Advantages: No-one has cause me any harm yet
Disadvantages: War on Error - What is the price?

...on other nations equipment. Young officers are being deported out from the UK after being trained in the incredibly hot climates of Norwich UK, where tones of sand and mud huts along with old Gurkhas who look foreign, have embarked on a three week intense training program to get these youngsters into the front-line. When I say youngsters; the first item they will pack is their ?Mighty Mouse? PJ?s because Afghanistan gets cold at the dead of night ; many of them haven?t even stepped out of the UK by themselves to even try out the bars in Ibiza; or have even a passport with their own name on it. Yet we, well the government expect them to fight for Queen and country in the front-line, risking their young lives for a salary of 15K. ? I?m not sure if stupidity or its just desperation why these youngsters sign-up. The one major thunder-bolt which I...

1st2thebar 22.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Was the military action in Afghanistan justified?