No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban & Afghan War History Book - Insightful Account of Afghanistan Conflict for History Buffs & Political Readers

This powerful work is by far the best book about the Afghan war that I have ever read. It is in fact probably the best argument for thoroughgoing pacifism that I have ever seen. My attention was called to this book by an Amazon customer who commented on my review of "America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History," where I argued that the author of that book, Andrew Bacevich, was wrong to oppose the Afghan war.This book focuses on the experiences between 2001 and 2011 of three Afghans: pro-American warlord Jan Muhammad Khan, Taliban mid-level commander Akbar Gul (a pseudonym) and Uruzgan housewife (later nurse and senator) Heela Achekzai. The book's sole weakness is that it doesn't really follow any non-Pashtun Afghans, whose experience of the war I'm sure was significantly different from that of the Pashtuns; but that is not enough to deduct a star. (I was struck by the fact pre-Soviet Afghan leader Daud Khan had argued for "Pashtunistan" to be carved out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, an idea I myself have often thought might provide an acceptable solution to the present war.) At the end of the book Heela is a senator in Kabul, Akbar is a prisoner in Bagram Air Base, and Jan is dead, assassinated most likely by his own nephew Matiullah, who took over his old province of Uruzgan and sent Matiullah's ally Heela to Kabul to represent the province. It was published in 2014, just as the Americans were handing over security in the last Afghan provinces to Afghans and Hamid Karzai was leaving office, so the fates of the two surviving characters may have changed in the past two years.Heela's narrative is by far the most moving and you might argue the most paradoxical of the three. If the Americans had never come to Afghanistan, Heela's beloved husband Musqinyar would still be alive. If they had left before she was widowed in October 2004, two of her four sons would be dead and she herself would have been absorbed into the family of her brother-in-law Shaysta, never to emerge into the larger world (as indeed she mostly had not in ten years living in backward Uruzgan). Instead, she seized the initiative (and a Kalashnikov) and dragged her family to the nearest American base. They resettled her in Kandahar. When she came back to Uruzgan it was on her own terms and from then until the end of the story, she goes from strength to strength.Akbar Gul's story, however, is the most telling as to why the war evolved as it did. He actually attempted to become a small entrepreneur in the new society that was springing up in the wake of the Taliban's defeat and live in peace. It was not until 2005 that the unbearably corrupt Afghan police and continuous American-Afghan raids on suspected Taliban drove him back into the fight. These raids were in essence a necessity of the American presence. The problem in Afghanistan was not that there were too few Americans because of our involvement in Iraq; it was that any Americans stayed after bin Laden was driven into Pakistan. More broadly you could even argue that the problem was that the United States did not accept the Taliban's offer to turn over bin Laden for trial in an Islamic country (which would have had to be one of the three with whom they had formal diplomatic relations: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates). Before the Iraq and Afghan Wars, Islamic jurists in these countries (especially Saudi Arabia, for whom bin Laden was a bete noire) probably would have felt enough sympathy for America after 9/11 to convict and execute bin Laden.Lacking enemies after the Taliban disintegrated in the fall of 2001, the American troops turned to the warlords like Jan Muhammad Khan they had installed as the new ruling elite for "intelligence". These warlords used the American special forces as a club against their ethnic and economic rivals within Afghanistan. Presto, enemies of the United States to justify a gradual American buildup that at its height saw over 100,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan. It is indeed inconceivable that this would not happen in any country where United States troops intervened in the near future, which is why I see this book as an argument for thoroughgoing pacifism.I attempted to answer the question "Who won the Afghan War?" in an essay for the now-defunct website epinions in 2011. I don't even remember anymore what my argument was. My piece is overawed by the final paragraph of Gopal's superb book, which I will reproduce in full:"The darkness was coming on, and the mountains around the capital were already burning bright. Heela said it was time for her to go, and as she left, I knew I didn't need to ask her the final question I'd had in mind. The answer was right in front of me. Winning a war such as this was not about planting flags or defending territory or building fancy villas. It was not about titles or promotions or offices. It was not about democracy or jihad, freedom or honor. It was about resisting the categories chosen for you; about stubbornness in the face of grand designs and schemas. About doing what you had to do, whether they called you a terrorist or an infidel. To win a war like this was to master the ephemeral, to plan a future while knowing that it could all be over in an instant. To comfort your children when the air outside throbs in the middle of the night, to squeeze your spouse's hand tight when your taxi hits a pothole on an open highway, to go to school or the fields or a wedding and return to tell about it. To survive."