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The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban
An NPR correspondent presents an account of the return to the violence and corruption of warlord activity in Afghanistan after the displacement of the Taliban, revealing how the U.S. government assisted the return of corrupt militia commanders to the country. 100,000 first printing.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2006
55 people are currently reading
1781 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Chayes
10 books122 followersSarah Chayes is a former senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former award-winning reporter for National Public Radio, she also served as special advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
She graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover (1980) and Harvard University (1984) with a degree in History, magna cum laude. She was awarded the Radcliffe College History Prize. She then served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, returning to Harvard to earn a master's degree in History, specializing in the Medieval Islamic period. Besides English, she speaks Pashto, French, and Arabic.
From 1996 to 2002, she served as Paris reporter for National Public Radio, covering France, the European Union, North Africa, and the Balkans. She earned 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards (together with other members of the NPR team) for her reporting on the Kosovo War. After covering the fall of the Taliban and the early weeks of post-Taliban Afghanistan, in 2002 Chayes decided to leave reporting and stay behind to try to contribute to the rebuilding of the war-torn country.
Chayes lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2002 to 2009. Having learned to speak Pashto, she helped rebuild homes and set up a dairy cooperative. In May 2005, she established the Arghand Cooperative, a venture that encourages local Afghan farmers to produce flowers, fruits, and herbs instead of opium poppies. The cooperative buys their almonds, pomegranate seeds, cumin and anise and artemisia and root dyes, extracts oils, essential oils, and tinctures from them, with which it produces soaps and other scented products for export. The cooperative is an associate member of the Natural Perfumers Guild.
Since leaving full-time radio reporting, she has been a frequent contributor to the print media, contributing to Foreign Policy Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains an archive of her writings.
She graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover (1980) and Harvard University (1984) with a degree in History, magna cum laude. She was awarded the Radcliffe College History Prize. She then served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, returning to Harvard to earn a master's degree in History, specializing in the Medieval Islamic period. Besides English, she speaks Pashto, French, and Arabic.
From 1996 to 2002, she served as Paris reporter for National Public Radio, covering France, the European Union, North Africa, and the Balkans. She earned 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards (together with other members of the NPR team) for her reporting on the Kosovo War. After covering the fall of the Taliban and the early weeks of post-Taliban Afghanistan, in 2002 Chayes decided to leave reporting and stay behind to try to contribute to the rebuilding of the war-torn country.
Chayes lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2002 to 2009. Having learned to speak Pashto, she helped rebuild homes and set up a dairy cooperative. In May 2005, she established the Arghand Cooperative, a venture that encourages local Afghan farmers to produce flowers, fruits, and herbs instead of opium poppies. The cooperative buys their almonds, pomegranate seeds, cumin and anise and artemisia and root dyes, extracts oils, essential oils, and tinctures from them, with which it produces soaps and other scented products for export. The cooperative is an associate member of the Natural Perfumers Guild.
Since leaving full-time radio reporting, she has been a frequent contributor to the print media, contributing to Foreign Policy Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains an archive of her writings.
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December 3, 2014
Sarah Chayes offers an incisive, on-the-ground look at the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. She informs her observations with historical research, ongoing contact with many significant political players in the country and the experience of living in the country for many years, and comes up with a better understanding of the forces at play than I have seen anywhere else. Her story begins while she is working as a foreign correspondent for NPR, and living with an Afghani family in Kandahar. Most telling, perhaps, is her recollection of the reaction to her stories by NPR management. It comes as no surprise to those of us who have mourned the right-wing tilt of much of NPR since the Republicans took control of Washington in 2000. (See http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/ for daily updates) So many mornings in my home have been interrupted by screams of outrage. I cannot imagine how unspeakable it must have been for a reporter of Chayes’ depth to have to confront such daily ignorance back home. Sorry, we don’t want to confuse the American public with nuance or any story that does not toe the extant political line. Thankfully, Chayes was offered an opportunity, outside of NPR, to do some good in a country she had come to love.
Taking a position as a representative for a non-governmental-organization, or NGO, Chayes sought to make a difference in this broken country. Chayes offers us further insight in to the workings of non-profits in Afghanistan, but most of all tells us about how the Afghans relate to each other and to the USA and where those relationships fall in a historical perspective. You will learn a lot and find answers to questions you never thought to pose.
Structurally, Chayes offers contrasting pictures of two main characters. Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal was a police chief and ultimately a friend to Chayes, a bright, basically good guy who tried to do the right thing in the wrong place. Chayes attends his funeral in the opening chapter and pledges to find out who killed him. She offers us a history of his career, pointing out the influences that impacted his ability to function in this or that place and job. Gul Agha Shirzai is his shadow image, a warlord with considerable political savvy and very little by way of scruples. Following the trail of these two individuals offers considerable opportunity for explaining how things work in Afghanistan.
It is a grim portrait Chayes paints. There was a time when Americans were indeed welcomed, and the Taliban reviled. But now, having seen how the USA drove out one band of psychopaths only to install another, patience with America has run out. Chayes goes into serious detail about how this works in the real world, why it is that the US selects this group or person to support while that or another group or person is ignored.
One of the wonderful things about Chayes' book is that she offers several chapters on the history of Afghanistan. These help explain why some ethnic groups view each other with such suspicion and hostility, tradition.
It was interesting to learn that the word “chain” refers not only to a set of overlapping metallic links, but also to having to pay off a chain of brigands in order to travel on major roads in the country. It was this chain that the Taliban was able to remove, but that the USA has inadvertently restored.
She shows how the Taliban is pretty much a creation of Pakistan, designed to keep Afghanistan from becoming a functional nation. There is much reportage on specifics supporting the fact that without Pakistani support, the Taliban would never have become a major power in Afghanistan, and would not, now be resurgent there.
Most alarming was the disappointment she felt with Karzai, the prime minister who seemed to have the charisma, intelligence and courage to lead the nation in a new direction. As it happens, not so much. And so, our hopes for the nation’s future are not reinforced. We get to see that there are many good people in Afghanistan. But the odds are against them.
Chayes' story is one told from the living rooms of the powerful (she worked for one of Karzai’s relatives and had met with most of the important people in the nation) to the neighborhoods in which she lives, among the locals. Hers is a hands-on view, visceral, grounded, incisive, informative and compelling. The Punishment of Virtue is a clear must-read for anyone with an interest in goings on in that part of the world.
P 74
[following the ouster of the Taliban from Kandahar in 2001:] it is no wonder many Kandaharis viewed the coming change with trepidation.
“Now will be the era of robbers,” a young auto mechanic told me in late November 2001, after tribesmen had looted a warehouse for refugees just inside Afghanistan, in the last days of the U.S. bombing. I asked if he didn’t trust the tribal elders to maintain order after the Taliban departed.
“No, I don’t.” He was emphatic. “They held power before, and they plundered the people and did bad things to them.”
Other shopkeepers and small businessmen told of reverting to the defensive measures they had learned during the mujahideen nights: sleeping in different places each night, bringing all their wares home at the end of the day, and shuttering their empty stalls.
P 101
As Michael Barry analyzes it, leadership among Pashtuns is acquired by a pretender’s ability to extract wealth from a lowland power in one of those three familiar forms—plunder or tribute or subsidy—and distribute it among his men. Ahmed Shah’ ability in this regard was undeniable.
P 101
[Afghanistan:] is a state founded not on a set of thoughts held in common and articulated through texts and institutions, but rather a state founded on the strategic nature of its territory—the crux between empires. It is a state founded on a fluid and tenuous interaction between collective structures, structures of nation, of tribe, of family, and a highly developed sense of freedom, a violent aversion to submission.
P 107
[In Kandahar:] there was no hostility to the American presence. On the contrary, Kandaharis were looking to the Americans for help. They expected the Americans to help them gain their country back, help them rein in their own leaders’ well-remembered corruption, help them come up with a new version of qanum, of law and order, which would be a little less repressive than the Taliban’s rendition. Help them start making something of themselves.
I told this to the young marine. I told him U.S. soldiers were in zero danger. They were seen as Kandahar’s ticket out of backwardness.
“That’s really interesting,” the marine replied. “I had a feeling that’s how things were. See, they keep giving us these briefings about the situation here, and I’ve been wondering if they’re bullshitting us. They keep saying this is a combat mission. ‘Combat?’ I’m saying. ‘What combat?’ There’s nothing happening out here. I’m feeling pretty dumb in this hole in the ground. And I’m getting a little ticked off too. I think they’re taking advantage of us. I feel like we’re just a symbol—like a great big American flag stuck in the dirt out here. What’s the use of that? I’d like to do something real. I’d like to get out there and start building that road.
I wanted to throw my arms around the kid. “And you know what?” I said. “If you built the road, it would do more for your security than another thousand guys out here in foxholes. The Afghans would protect you. If they saw you helping them, they would take care of you.
I had this entire conversation down on tape. It was going in my story. Because, like the tale young Fayda had told me on the way to Kandahar a couple of weeks before, it seemed to hold the crux of what was already going wrong.
But my editor nixed it. She said there was nothing new or interesting in this conversation. Soldiers are always disgruntled. This marine was just the same as every other grunt.
Taking a position as a representative for a non-governmental-organization, or NGO, Chayes sought to make a difference in this broken country. Chayes offers us further insight in to the workings of non-profits in Afghanistan, but most of all tells us about how the Afghans relate to each other and to the USA and where those relationships fall in a historical perspective. You will learn a lot and find answers to questions you never thought to pose.
Structurally, Chayes offers contrasting pictures of two main characters. Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal was a police chief and ultimately a friend to Chayes, a bright, basically good guy who tried to do the right thing in the wrong place. Chayes attends his funeral in the opening chapter and pledges to find out who killed him. She offers us a history of his career, pointing out the influences that impacted his ability to function in this or that place and job. Gul Agha Shirzai is his shadow image, a warlord with considerable political savvy and very little by way of scruples. Following the trail of these two individuals offers considerable opportunity for explaining how things work in Afghanistan.
It is a grim portrait Chayes paints. There was a time when Americans were indeed welcomed, and the Taliban reviled. But now, having seen how the USA drove out one band of psychopaths only to install another, patience with America has run out. Chayes goes into serious detail about how this works in the real world, why it is that the US selects this group or person to support while that or another group or person is ignored.
One of the wonderful things about Chayes' book is that she offers several chapters on the history of Afghanistan. These help explain why some ethnic groups view each other with such suspicion and hostility, tradition.
It was interesting to learn that the word “chain” refers not only to a set of overlapping metallic links, but also to having to pay off a chain of brigands in order to travel on major roads in the country. It was this chain that the Taliban was able to remove, but that the USA has inadvertently restored.
She shows how the Taliban is pretty much a creation of Pakistan, designed to keep Afghanistan from becoming a functional nation. There is much reportage on specifics supporting the fact that without Pakistani support, the Taliban would never have become a major power in Afghanistan, and would not, now be resurgent there.
Most alarming was the disappointment she felt with Karzai, the prime minister who seemed to have the charisma, intelligence and courage to lead the nation in a new direction. As it happens, not so much. And so, our hopes for the nation’s future are not reinforced. We get to see that there are many good people in Afghanistan. But the odds are against them.
Chayes' story is one told from the living rooms of the powerful (she worked for one of Karzai’s relatives and had met with most of the important people in the nation) to the neighborhoods in which she lives, among the locals. Hers is a hands-on view, visceral, grounded, incisive, informative and compelling. The Punishment of Virtue is a clear must-read for anyone with an interest in goings on in that part of the world.
P 74
[following the ouster of the Taliban from Kandahar in 2001:] it is no wonder many Kandaharis viewed the coming change with trepidation.
“Now will be the era of robbers,” a young auto mechanic told me in late November 2001, after tribesmen had looted a warehouse for refugees just inside Afghanistan, in the last days of the U.S. bombing. I asked if he didn’t trust the tribal elders to maintain order after the Taliban departed.
“No, I don’t.” He was emphatic. “They held power before, and they plundered the people and did bad things to them.”
Other shopkeepers and small businessmen told of reverting to the defensive measures they had learned during the mujahideen nights: sleeping in different places each night, bringing all their wares home at the end of the day, and shuttering their empty stalls.
P 101
As Michael Barry analyzes it, leadership among Pashtuns is acquired by a pretender’s ability to extract wealth from a lowland power in one of those three familiar forms—plunder or tribute or subsidy—and distribute it among his men. Ahmed Shah’ ability in this regard was undeniable.
P 101
[Afghanistan:] is a state founded not on a set of thoughts held in common and articulated through texts and institutions, but rather a state founded on the strategic nature of its territory—the crux between empires. It is a state founded on a fluid and tenuous interaction between collective structures, structures of nation, of tribe, of family, and a highly developed sense of freedom, a violent aversion to submission.
P 107
[In Kandahar:] there was no hostility to the American presence. On the contrary, Kandaharis were looking to the Americans for help. They expected the Americans to help them gain their country back, help them rein in their own leaders’ well-remembered corruption, help them come up with a new version of qanum, of law and order, which would be a little less repressive than the Taliban’s rendition. Help them start making something of themselves.
I told this to the young marine. I told him U.S. soldiers were in zero danger. They were seen as Kandahar’s ticket out of backwardness.
“That’s really interesting,” the marine replied. “I had a feeling that’s how things were. See, they keep giving us these briefings about the situation here, and I’ve been wondering if they’re bullshitting us. They keep saying this is a combat mission. ‘Combat?’ I’m saying. ‘What combat?’ There’s nothing happening out here. I’m feeling pretty dumb in this hole in the ground. And I’m getting a little ticked off too. I think they’re taking advantage of us. I feel like we’re just a symbol—like a great big American flag stuck in the dirt out here. What’s the use of that? I’d like to do something real. I’d like to get out there and start building that road.
I wanted to throw my arms around the kid. “And you know what?” I said. “If you built the road, it would do more for your security than another thousand guys out here in foxholes. The Afghans would protect you. If they saw you helping them, they would take care of you.
I had this entire conversation down on tape. It was going in my story. Because, like the tale young Fayda had told me on the way to Kandahar a couple of weeks before, it seemed to hold the crux of what was already going wrong.
But my editor nixed it. She said there was nothing new or interesting in this conversation. Soldiers are always disgruntled. This marine was just the same as every other grunt.
August 25, 2008
I have (finally!) finished reading “The Punishment of Virtue; Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban,” by Sarah Chayes. It took as lot longer than I thought it would to finish it. I am both sorry and glad it is over.
This is an intriguing and complex look at warlordism in Afghanistan. It is at times thrilling, a true page turner, made even more exciting by the fact that it is a true insider’s account of post 9-11 Afghanistan. Sarah Chayes certainly knows Afghanistan like no one else - she has lived and worked there, researched elusive primary sources and intimately mingled with leaders throughout the country. She does an amazing job of explaining warlordism, its roots and current implications, though sometimes the purely historical chapter can be a bit of a laborious read.
That being said, I have a few complaints.
Ms. Chayes’s background is in radio- it was as a reporter for NPR that she first went to Afghanistan. There are times in this book that it seems written for radio, rather than print. Not a lot, but enough to make you reread a sentence here and there to make sure you understand. There were many times, too, when the descriptions got overly multisyllabic - lots of million dollar words - enough to detract from the setting she was trying so hard to describe. Its been a long time since I needed a dictionary so often while reading a book in English. Her command of vocabulary is impressive- just sometimes a little disruptive.
Beyond writing style, Ms. Chayes sets herself apart from other foreigners in country. She more than once looks down on aid workers, chastising them for their Thursday night parties and their lack of continuity (in this case not staying in country long enough). She also criticized aid organizations for “being played” by the Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans. That aid becomes political is to some degree inevitable in any country. She condemns them with an attitude of knowing better, when in fact in the end, she doesn’t.
Its absolutely beguiling how she places herself right in the middle of reconstruction politics. She is certainly well connected, working personally with local governors, police chiefs, and the president’s brother. She also holds company with US ambassadorial and military higher ups, Afghan cabinet members and President Karzai himself. Its difficult to tell sometimes, however, whether she is a trusted consult or an opinionated pest. She certainly has strong and well founded opinions of what needed to happen, but it felt like she shared them in such patronizing ways. For example, a memo she drafted for President Karzai was entitled, “How to Fire a Warlord in 8 Easy Steps.” Having never met President Karzai, I guess I can’t judge, but it seems like offering him something akin to “Running Afghanistan for Dummies” is a bit pompous.
All in all, it is a very good book. Ms. Chayes has left no stone unturned in this book. It makes me wish I had paid more attention to names and titles during the Afghan elections, and it certainly makes me more aware of the politics going on today. It is a must read for anyone interested in Afghan politics, development or history. You will learn a lot from this book. You will look at Afghanistan a little differently after reading it. It might take you a little longer than you might think (to get through the history chapters) but you’ll be glad you did.
This is an intriguing and complex look at warlordism in Afghanistan. It is at times thrilling, a true page turner, made even more exciting by the fact that it is a true insider’s account of post 9-11 Afghanistan. Sarah Chayes certainly knows Afghanistan like no one else - she has lived and worked there, researched elusive primary sources and intimately mingled with leaders throughout the country. She does an amazing job of explaining warlordism, its roots and current implications, though sometimes the purely historical chapter can be a bit of a laborious read.
That being said, I have a few complaints.
Ms. Chayes’s background is in radio- it was as a reporter for NPR that she first went to Afghanistan. There are times in this book that it seems written for radio, rather than print. Not a lot, but enough to make you reread a sentence here and there to make sure you understand. There were many times, too, when the descriptions got overly multisyllabic - lots of million dollar words - enough to detract from the setting she was trying so hard to describe. Its been a long time since I needed a dictionary so often while reading a book in English. Her command of vocabulary is impressive- just sometimes a little disruptive.
Beyond writing style, Ms. Chayes sets herself apart from other foreigners in country. She more than once looks down on aid workers, chastising them for their Thursday night parties and their lack of continuity (in this case not staying in country long enough). She also criticized aid organizations for “being played” by the Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans. That aid becomes political is to some degree inevitable in any country. She condemns them with an attitude of knowing better, when in fact in the end, she doesn’t.
Its absolutely beguiling how she places herself right in the middle of reconstruction politics. She is certainly well connected, working personally with local governors, police chiefs, and the president’s brother. She also holds company with US ambassadorial and military higher ups, Afghan cabinet members and President Karzai himself. Its difficult to tell sometimes, however, whether she is a trusted consult or an opinionated pest. She certainly has strong and well founded opinions of what needed to happen, but it felt like she shared them in such patronizing ways. For example, a memo she drafted for President Karzai was entitled, “How to Fire a Warlord in 8 Easy Steps.” Having never met President Karzai, I guess I can’t judge, but it seems like offering him something akin to “Running Afghanistan for Dummies” is a bit pompous.
All in all, it is a very good book. Ms. Chayes has left no stone unturned in this book. It makes me wish I had paid more attention to names and titles during the Afghan elections, and it certainly makes me more aware of the politics going on today. It is a must read for anyone interested in Afghan politics, development or history. You will learn a lot from this book. You will look at Afghanistan a little differently after reading it. It might take you a little longer than you might think (to get through the history chapters) but you’ll be glad you did.
November 26, 2007
This is a weird little number. The author was a reporter for National Public Radio and went in with the U.S. invasion in 2001. She was charmed by both the people and the region she went to - Kandahar. So she left NPR, set up her own charity organization and settled in to do good. She is quickly disillusioned by the U.S. military and government's lack of understanding of the Afghan people and the continuing role Pakistan has been playing in keeping things stirred up. Also, she's a bit too self-important for my taste, but she did do some research on Afghanistan's history and that was interesting.
August 18, 2020
For most of this book it seemed to me like a former Peace Corps Volunteer’s version of working for an NGO in Afghanistan. Which it was. Then about halfway through the author mentions her sister, Eve Lyman. That hit me with a thump. I had been remotely introduced to Ms. Lyman about 12 years ago by one of MY fellow Peace Corps volunteers. I believe we actually emailed each other a time or two. But I was distracted by my impending Peace Corps service and nothing ever came of it. But it was funny seeing the name.
April 18, 2011
Great title, not a very informative book. Despite Sebastian Junger's line on the back ("Every American who wants to know why planes flew into buildings on Sept 11 must buy this book"), this book has nothing to do with that. Nor is Ahmed Rashid or Steve Coll right in their reviews.
I work in Afghanistan (been here 7 months, will be here for 15+ more) and to be honest... by and large, the things she describes are just not all that significant. The murder of her friend (and subsequent investigation) were interesting, but the rest of it... not so much. She makes huge sweeping statements about minor things - she discusses how, when one foreigner working in Kandahar was killed, 'a line had been crossed.' Really? This country sees dozens of people die every week. The project she worked on (building a few houses) will not contribute substantially to the well-being of Afghanistan in the future. Her ideas ("How to fire a warlord in 8 easy steps" - really, she writes the full thing right in the book) are silly - she introduces this topic (how to fire warlords) with a bit of humor, but then later gets angry when her document isn't taken seriously by... anybody, be they US Ambassadors or Karzai. Her chapters go all over the place - during her personal narrative (the book reads more like one long diary entry than anything else) she bounces around to big topics like 'the coming of islam' and chronicles various past empires and their involvement here. Towards the end of the book, we're getting chapters summarizing one or two months - she clearly just flew back into town, checked up on things, and left. These chapters are also only a few pages long - literally, less than 5 in several cases.
As for her conclusion, she writes the words 'this isn't much of a conclusion.' I totally agree - she wanted this book to be something taken seriously (clearly) but all in all, she didn't have a really unique experience that would let her do that. She knows a few people, but everyone (really) has met the people she writes about. She has a few ideas, but many people have better ideas. She has built a few houses - most people do far more than that while they're here. Many work on long-term, big-picture projects designed to give Afghanistan what it really needs (infrastructure and education) rather than cosmetic updates - a house painted here, a farm cooperative there. She had a few interesting lines on the impact of the Soviet invasion and what it did to Afghan 'courage'.
Don't let this be the first book you read about Afghanistan.
I work in Afghanistan (been here 7 months, will be here for 15+ more) and to be honest... by and large, the things she describes are just not all that significant. The murder of her friend (and subsequent investigation) were interesting, but the rest of it... not so much. She makes huge sweeping statements about minor things - she discusses how, when one foreigner working in Kandahar was killed, 'a line had been crossed.' Really? This country sees dozens of people die every week. The project she worked on (building a few houses) will not contribute substantially to the well-being of Afghanistan in the future. Her ideas ("How to fire a warlord in 8 easy steps" - really, she writes the full thing right in the book) are silly - she introduces this topic (how to fire warlords) with a bit of humor, but then later gets angry when her document isn't taken seriously by... anybody, be they US Ambassadors or Karzai. Her chapters go all over the place - during her personal narrative (the book reads more like one long diary entry than anything else) she bounces around to big topics like 'the coming of islam' and chronicles various past empires and their involvement here. Towards the end of the book, we're getting chapters summarizing one or two months - she clearly just flew back into town, checked up on things, and left. These chapters are also only a few pages long - literally, less than 5 in several cases.
As for her conclusion, she writes the words 'this isn't much of a conclusion.' I totally agree - she wanted this book to be something taken seriously (clearly) but all in all, she didn't have a really unique experience that would let her do that. She knows a few people, but everyone (really) has met the people she writes about. She has a few ideas, but many people have better ideas. She has built a few houses - most people do far more than that while they're here. Many work on long-term, big-picture projects designed to give Afghanistan what it really needs (infrastructure and education) rather than cosmetic updates - a house painted here, a farm cooperative there. She had a few interesting lines on the impact of the Soviet invasion and what it did to Afghan 'courage'.
Don't let this be the first book you read about Afghanistan.
January 31, 2008
This was a very interesting read about what was happening in Afghanistan after September 11. Sarah Chayes was a reporter who spent some time in the country while the war was going on and after the war when the government was being established. She was close to some high officials in the Afghan government and met many more. Her story seemed slightly biased in that she was very loyal to a few people and portrayed them as nearly perfect in her book; in reality, they may not have been as angelic as she described them to be. But her experience was an eye-opening one and I'm very glad I read it.
What saddens me about this book is that I walked away with a sense of hopelessness about Afghanistan's government. The Afghan culture is so diverse. There are so many different subcultures that have deep grudges against one another and are very loyal to their own friends, families, tribes; everyone is expected to pay favors to their own people and take what they can from the others. This tradition breeds much of the corruption in the country's government. Officials have such an incentive to do things that benefit their clan - it is what is expected of them - but much of the time to do this they must ignore the greater good of the country as a whole. Afghanistan's recent history just seems to be that of one corrupt official replacing another, and Sarah's book did not seem to offer any hope of an end to this. Many officials that did damage to the country were put into power by our own government, although I'm not sure what the alternative would have been, as Sarah makes it sound like there are very few Afghans who are interested in doing things diplomatically.
This book doesn't give much in terms of a solution to the problems Afghanistan's government is facing, but it was interesting to read and I feel like I know a bit more about what was happening behind the scenes because I read it.
What saddens me about this book is that I walked away with a sense of hopelessness about Afghanistan's government. The Afghan culture is so diverse. There are so many different subcultures that have deep grudges against one another and are very loyal to their own friends, families, tribes; everyone is expected to pay favors to their own people and take what they can from the others. This tradition breeds much of the corruption in the country's government. Officials have such an incentive to do things that benefit their clan - it is what is expected of them - but much of the time to do this they must ignore the greater good of the country as a whole. Afghanistan's recent history just seems to be that of one corrupt official replacing another, and Sarah's book did not seem to offer any hope of an end to this. Many officials that did damage to the country were put into power by our own government, although I'm not sure what the alternative would have been, as Sarah makes it sound like there are very few Afghans who are interested in doing things diplomatically.
This book doesn't give much in terms of a solution to the problems Afghanistan's government is facing, but it was interesting to read and I feel like I know a bit more about what was happening behind the scenes because I read it.
October 18, 2009
This is a heart-wrenching first-person account of an NPR journalist who ends up quitting her job and basing herself in
Kandahar to run a nonprofit organization and try to do some real good for the people of Afghanistan.
This is not an objective account.
She makes it clear right from the start that she is VERY angry about the way things in Afghanistan have been handled on all sides.
She has an agenda and is absolutely certain of the rightness of her cause and methods. Also, this cause is most definitely personal for Chayes. The book is dedicated to a good friend of hers who was assassinated by a suicide bomber, and it begins and ends with his funeral.
If someone blew up my friend, I'd take it personally, too. Good on Chayes for actually doing something with her anger.
Righteous anger, properly channeled, is an effective tool for change.
I was particularly impressed that she took the time to go to the Kandahar public library for historical research
(is that amazing or what? Kandahar still has a public library!) , and took this research seriously enough
to give the librarian her passport so she could take out some books!!
Kandahar to run a nonprofit organization and try to do some real good for the people of Afghanistan.
This is not an objective account.
She makes it clear right from the start that she is VERY angry about the way things in Afghanistan have been handled on all sides.
She has an agenda and is absolutely certain of the rightness of her cause and methods. Also, this cause is most definitely personal for Chayes. The book is dedicated to a good friend of hers who was assassinated by a suicide bomber, and it begins and ends with his funeral.
If someone blew up my friend, I'd take it personally, too. Good on Chayes for actually doing something with her anger.
Righteous anger, properly channeled, is an effective tool for change.
I was particularly impressed that she took the time to go to the Kandahar public library for historical research
(is that amazing or what? Kandahar still has a public library!) , and took this research seriously enough
to give the librarian her passport so she could take out some books!!
May 13, 2013
Drawing upon her firsthand experiences in the country, Ms Chayes gives a vivid account of life in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Her description of the initial invasion of Afghanistan by the US and its allies is wonderfully detailed. Additionally, her insight on major leaders and power players in Southern Afghanistan provides a better understanding of the political landscape.
February 4, 2008
An amazing account of both the history of Afghanistan and its current problems, largely as a result of American mismanagement. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand the current conflict.
July 8, 2021
The more I learn about the U.S. experience in Afghanistan the more I get discouraged that our elected officials were/are so gullible. The U.S. entered Afghanistan to find fix and destroy Al Queda. Part of this was we will have to destroy the Taliban led government of Afghanistan. The problem is that since the U.S. "won" we had no plan to rebuild Afghanistan. Twenty years later we are leaving Afghanistan. This is much more like Vietnam than even Korea or WWII. I am not saying that were leaving because were loosing. Were leaving because the U.S. has lost the public for this continuing fight. I told my Airmen 20 years ago that since we are invading Afghanistan we need to be prepared for 100 years of occupation/teaching. We have not done the teaching and this work shows had bad we have failed.
The work concerns Ms. Chayes experience as a NOGO and Reporter for NPR in Afghanistan. It second persona is Akar, Police Chief Kandahar, Police Chief Merrat, Police Chief Kabul and murdered by, Official version, Taliban suicide bomber; actual version ISI, Pakistan intelligence.
If you read my posts you know that I am highly critical of the U.S. actions in Afghanistan. Again with this one It is very critical. NOGO's, State Dept, U.S. Army and the press just believe what the Afghans and ISI sells us. Chayes points out that in Kandahar the obvious influence of ISI. and the lack of Kharzi understanding what is going on or, even worse, being complicint with Pakistan. I believe that Pakistan wanted exactly what is going on. That the failure of multiple U.S. administrations to even try to find accurate information on what has happened in Afghanistan. The interface of the Sauds, Pakistan, multiple terror organizations and our own gullibility has led to this Vietnamish withdrawal.
The next time we invade Afghanistan, and we will invade again, may be we invade Pakistan also and get rid of ISI interference and have a rebuilding plan for Both countries. I say this because with in 10 years there will be another 9/11 style attack in the U.S. that was planed in Afghanistan. Who ever is in the White House will have to respond and we can only hope that he or she is up to the job and has a rebuilding plan once we win.
Some suggestions for the Biden Administration.
One: their are numerous people who live in the U.S. who have access to the Government of Iran. Biden needs to privately tell Iran that he will jump into a pool of piss as an apology to the Iranians for what Trump did by imposing sanctions. This will bring Iran back to the table and back into the fellowship of nations.
Two: once a relationship with Iran is rebuilt help the Iranians counter the Pakistan/ISI that are operating in Afghanistan. This is in Irans best interest since they have the "Arab" influence on the west and the Pakistan influence on the East. They are squeezed between two forces that historically want the old Persian empire now Iran to cease to exist.
Three: the U.S. needs to employ real experts on Afghanistan. People who have spent years on the ground there. To build our policy. Even after withdrawal we will need policy as this New Afghanistan is going to led by Arabs, who now make up the Taliban and ISI. Afghan hands who know how the nation works, how the tribes and clans work. How the Pakistanis and Arabs will work as the powers behind the new government. This policy will be needed as the Anti-U.S. terror organizations WILL be usingAfghanistan for training over the next 10 years or less.
Four; rebuild U.S. forces based on not just fighting terror cells and terrorist hunting but also projects to rebuild the Afghanis lives after we invade next time. Rules that allow my brothers to build schools, homes and clinics will do more to keep the last 20 years from repeating the next time around.
Five; get U.S. intelligence to not use one clan or tribe as the source for intelligence. Time and time again we see U.S. forces killing the other tribe, NOT the terrorist. And we continue to use this model even though it has shown to be a failure.
Six: The CIA MUST be kicked out of the Heroin supply business. The services know the CIA is and has protected poppy growth in Afghanistan since the U.S. took Kabul. The CIA must give up their contacts to new CIA operatives and Iran. These contacts have used the CIA to get rid of the competition in poppy production leaving themselves the last ones standing. All for the CIA need to kill terrorists. We didn't kill terrorists we killed more innocent civilians than terrorists. These CIA contacts must be hunted and killed with single bullets or hitting their compounds with elite units either U.S. or Iranian. The Iranians will appreciate the assistance with Drug Interdiction and U.S> cities will benefit by having THE major supply of Heroin cut off.
We the United States have screwed up Afghanistan royal. This work shows again how we screwed this up. Lets hope that next time we go into Afghanistan we do it differently and use local resources besides one tribe or one strongman or just one man who the U.S. likes.
The work concerns Ms. Chayes experience as a NOGO and Reporter for NPR in Afghanistan. It second persona is Akar, Police Chief Kandahar, Police Chief Merrat, Police Chief Kabul and murdered by, Official version, Taliban suicide bomber; actual version ISI, Pakistan intelligence.
If you read my posts you know that I am highly critical of the U.S. actions in Afghanistan. Again with this one It is very critical. NOGO's, State Dept, U.S. Army and the press just believe what the Afghans and ISI sells us. Chayes points out that in Kandahar the obvious influence of ISI. and the lack of Kharzi understanding what is going on or, even worse, being complicint with Pakistan. I believe that Pakistan wanted exactly what is going on. That the failure of multiple U.S. administrations to even try to find accurate information on what has happened in Afghanistan. The interface of the Sauds, Pakistan, multiple terror organizations and our own gullibility has led to this Vietnamish withdrawal.
The next time we invade Afghanistan, and we will invade again, may be we invade Pakistan also and get rid of ISI interference and have a rebuilding plan for Both countries. I say this because with in 10 years there will be another 9/11 style attack in the U.S. that was planed in Afghanistan. Who ever is in the White House will have to respond and we can only hope that he or she is up to the job and has a rebuilding plan once we win.
Some suggestions for the Biden Administration.
One: their are numerous people who live in the U.S. who have access to the Government of Iran. Biden needs to privately tell Iran that he will jump into a pool of piss as an apology to the Iranians for what Trump did by imposing sanctions. This will bring Iran back to the table and back into the fellowship of nations.
Two: once a relationship with Iran is rebuilt help the Iranians counter the Pakistan/ISI that are operating in Afghanistan. This is in Irans best interest since they have the "Arab" influence on the west and the Pakistan influence on the East. They are squeezed between two forces that historically want the old Persian empire now Iran to cease to exist.
Three: the U.S. needs to employ real experts on Afghanistan. People who have spent years on the ground there. To build our policy. Even after withdrawal we will need policy as this New Afghanistan is going to led by Arabs, who now make up the Taliban and ISI. Afghan hands who know how the nation works, how the tribes and clans work. How the Pakistanis and Arabs will work as the powers behind the new government. This policy will be needed as the Anti-U.S. terror organizations WILL be usingAfghanistan for training over the next 10 years or less.
Four; rebuild U.S. forces based on not just fighting terror cells and terrorist hunting but also projects to rebuild the Afghanis lives after we invade next time. Rules that allow my brothers to build schools, homes and clinics will do more to keep the last 20 years from repeating the next time around.
Five; get U.S. intelligence to not use one clan or tribe as the source for intelligence. Time and time again we see U.S. forces killing the other tribe, NOT the terrorist. And we continue to use this model even though it has shown to be a failure.
Six: The CIA MUST be kicked out of the Heroin supply business. The services know the CIA is and has protected poppy growth in Afghanistan since the U.S. took Kabul. The CIA must give up their contacts to new CIA operatives and Iran. These contacts have used the CIA to get rid of the competition in poppy production leaving themselves the last ones standing. All for the CIA need to kill terrorists. We didn't kill terrorists we killed more innocent civilians than terrorists. These CIA contacts must be hunted and killed with single bullets or hitting their compounds with elite units either U.S. or Iranian. The Iranians will appreciate the assistance with Drug Interdiction and U.S> cities will benefit by having THE major supply of Heroin cut off.
We the United States have screwed up Afghanistan royal. This work shows again how we screwed this up. Lets hope that next time we go into Afghanistan we do it differently and use local resources besides one tribe or one strongman or just one man who the U.S. likes.
April 19, 2023
Took me a while to kind of sink into this one, but it's an interesting book about the first years of the US war in Afghanistan. The core of this book is about Chayes' relationship with an Afghan police chief who is killed in what was probably a suicide bombing. The main theme is warlordism; Chayes focuses on Gul Agha Sherzai, a warlord the US more or less handpicked to run Kandahar. He was corrupt, regressive, and brutal and helped set the conditions for the return of the Taliban. This episode reflected the overall U.S. reliance on warlords in AF and our minimal presence there for the first 5 years. Chayes was a journalist but got involved in politics, development, etc to the point where she was threatened, probably by SHerzai herself. She doesn't quite spell this out, but the big point I took away is that the US made little effort to actually change AF after the invasion, as the Bush admin was moving on to Iraq. This may have been an impossible task, but the failure to build institutions and accountable gov't certainly didn't help.
Chayes also emphasizes the extreme primitiveness of Afghan politics: it is deeply personal and tribal, with loyalty to individuals rather than to institutions. After decades of war, corruption and theft have become survival skills that Afghans seem to do instinctively. Chayes talks about raising a few thousand bucks from her hometown to improve education in AF, and then it turns out that a local education official just straight up pocketed the money. She also goes into a lot of the history of Afghanistan to show how resistance to outsiders is a major part of their national identity even if they remain divided on ethnic and tribal lines. Chayes definitely has the earnest reformer mindset, but for me the book just reinforced that we never should have attempted nation-building, COIN, democratization, or you name it in AF but instead created a decentralized AF that relied on regional power-brokers (yes, including warlords, bc there was no other option) and that brought the less extreme members of the Taliban into the political process when they were at their weakest.
This book is pretty memoir-ish, and the history she tells relies on other primary sources. It is a little long for what you get out of it, but I enjoyed it anyway. It is best paired with Anand Gopal, Ahmed Rashid, and Rajiv Chandresekaran's books about the AF War to get a variety of viewpoints.
Chayes also emphasizes the extreme primitiveness of Afghan politics: it is deeply personal and tribal, with loyalty to individuals rather than to institutions. After decades of war, corruption and theft have become survival skills that Afghans seem to do instinctively. Chayes talks about raising a few thousand bucks from her hometown to improve education in AF, and then it turns out that a local education official just straight up pocketed the money. She also goes into a lot of the history of Afghanistan to show how resistance to outsiders is a major part of their national identity even if they remain divided on ethnic and tribal lines. Chayes definitely has the earnest reformer mindset, but for me the book just reinforced that we never should have attempted nation-building, COIN, democratization, or you name it in AF but instead created a decentralized AF that relied on regional power-brokers (yes, including warlords, bc there was no other option) and that brought the less extreme members of the Taliban into the political process when they were at their weakest.
This book is pretty memoir-ish, and the history she tells relies on other primary sources. It is a little long for what you get out of it, but I enjoyed it anyway. It is best paired with Anand Gopal, Ahmed Rashid, and Rajiv Chandresekaran's books about the AF War to get a variety of viewpoints.
October 13, 2021
Ms. Chayes' book is one of the best of a handful of good books about our Afghanistan fiasco. She details, from late 2001 into 2005, her experiences in Afghanistan, not as CIA or State Department, not as military or the U.N. or USAID, but as first a reporter, then an aid worker and then, well, I guess as a lover of that country. But though the book, published in2006, does not witness the next sixteen years, that groundwork is laid-corruption of many Afghani leaders and warlords but also corruption of American defense and reconstruction contractors, the absolute bungling slapstick of the CIA, which continues, as almost all other mistakes in Afghanistan, into the Iraqi monstrosity, the overbearing arrogance and carefully and exceedingly prideful ignorance of Americans overseeing the occupation, and the easy subservience of American officials, civilian and military, to the lies of warlords and the Pakistan ISI. One new thing is Ms. Chayes general portrait of mainstream American media in Afghanistan; it's not flattering. And though she does not say this, my first thought on reading that so many correspondents just sat around in Kabul simply regurgitating for us the pabulum handed them and swallowed whole was that it wasn't a question of courage or time; most of them were just lazy. This quote concerns Afghani culture, but it so describes the current Republican party that it is eerie- "It was a notion that cut to the core of the worst cultural clash I confronted in this land I had adopted: its utterly incomprehensible relationship with the truth. Words were not all that important, it seemed, since people lied so systematically."
May 12, 2023
Offers a poignant and insightful examination of the complexities faced by Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Taliban regime. Sarah Chayes, drawing upon her own experiences on the ground, skillfully weaves together personal narratives and political analysis. With a compassionate yet pragmatic tone, Chayes highlights the challenges of rebuilding a war-torn nation and the delicate balance between power, corruption, and the pursuit of virtue. This illuminating account provides a nuanced understanding of Afghanistan's struggle for stability and offers valuable lessons for policymakers and global citizens alike.
June 22, 2025
I've been a big fan of Chayes' work ever since I read "Thieves of State", but this was even better than I anticipated. This is a biographic tale of a visionary Afghan police chief, an informative and fascinating history of Afghan identity, and journalistic piece on corruption and institutional challenges in the the state whose workings seem to be the most elusive to the Western political, military, and intellectual establishments.
January 19, 2018
A much more personal viewpoint on the days just after 9/11 than normal, very informative, but as always, remember to be healthy skeptical.
September 6, 2021
Fantastic book
Read
October 5, 2021Inconsistently written. Some very good parts, some sections are completely incomprehensible.
October 14, 2022
This book provided a different perspective on what was going on with the war in Afghanistan. The background research and first hand perspective was fascinating and created more understanding.
September 10, 2023
Was looking for a better explanation
dnf
August 3, 2024Listened to the audiobook.
DNF @ 2%
DNF @ 2%
February 7, 2009
Chayes gives a first-hand look at the politics and society of southern Afghanistan from 2001 to 2005, with some chapters on the history of the area since the ninth century. She tells a tragic story of a country steeped in tribalism, a government saddled with a tradition of corruption, and damaging U.S. policies based on misunderstandings of the Afghan social power structure.
11 I don’t believe in the clash of civilizations. I believe that most human beings share basic aspirations and values.
It seemed urgent to me to counteract the tendency to caricature. My background and abilities equipped me. I could talk to people on both sides of the alleged divide. I could help them hear each other.
57 My editor wins, so I never get to tell the story I think is key to what kind of Afghanistan will emerge from U.S. intervention. I’m doing that now.
68 A tribe’s feeling for its ancestral territory ran deeper than its loyalties to the institutions of national government. So when that empire or national government came under attack, Afghans were quick to dissolve it, and run like water between the fingers of their would-be conquerors.
123 Afghanistan defeated the British in the 1878 second Anglo-Afghan war, as it would the Soviets a hundred years later, by dissolving.
129 Fighting a war at a distance is an invitation to disaster. [Heterogeneous groups that join forces to fight their biggest common enemy are generally more successful than those who fight each other first.:]
169 Westerners, to a degree unique in history, invest their loyalty in institutions, regardless of the individuals who happen to be staffing them at a particular time.
But Afghanistan is not there yet. In Afghanistan, loyalties and allegiances are to individuals.
181 – 185 Governor Shirzai exerted a high degree of control over U.S./Afghan interaction, selectively permitting and distorting communication to promote his own interests.
193 By supporting warlords like Shirzai, American policy in Afghanistan was not encouraging democracy, it was institutionalizing violence.
236 By refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change or the Land Mine Treaty, and by seeking to undermine the International Criminal Court, the United States seemed to be sticking out its tongue at the rest of the world, and the rest of the world had no leverage to respond.
Afghanistan is a place where mutually assured destruction remains a viable doctrine. It is a culture retribution.
237 The way to stay safe in Kandahar was to suggest the certainty of violent revenge should you be killed or dishonored, so as to deter attack be it is undertaken.
237 – 238 The humanitarian community expects its neutrality to assure its safe conduct of its mission, but aid workers are now in the crosshairs themselves. Their services tend to reduce polarization and extremism, which is detrimental to the goals of militants. Humanitarian workers are the principal foes of extremists.
241 – 242 Pakistan supports religious extremists as a way to maintain an upper hand in the regional balance of power, especially vis-à-vis India.
243 Pakistan welcomed Usama bin Laden’s aid to the Taliban, but his agenda was global, not local. He wanted to provoke world war. After 9/11, Pakistan stopped protecting Al-Qaeda operatives, but detained dozens of them and turned them over one a time in exchange for U.S. indulgence.
244 Pakistan continues to support the Taliban.
285 I would up briefing officers of the Twenty-fifth Light Infantry Division by way of a coincidence. No concerted effort was being made to educate the army about the radically new peacetime nation-building duties that had been thrust upon it.
286 The U.S. Army, I discovered to my disbelief, had no institutional memory at all. How is it that an organization as rich in capabilities and resources as the U.S. government can so neglect the fundamental task of learning?
310 – 311 The September 11 terrorist attacks were designed to help bring about some version of the “clash of civilizations.” Those attacks were an effort to force people—Muslims as well as Westerners—to withdraw from contact and exchange with each other, and to acquiesce to oppressive policies at home and bloody ones abroad that they might not really approve of, because the situation seemed to warrant them, and because the other side no longer seemed to be composed of human beings.
11 I don’t believe in the clash of civilizations. I believe that most human beings share basic aspirations and values.
It seemed urgent to me to counteract the tendency to caricature. My background and abilities equipped me. I could talk to people on both sides of the alleged divide. I could help them hear each other.
57 My editor wins, so I never get to tell the story I think is key to what kind of Afghanistan will emerge from U.S. intervention. I’m doing that now.
68 A tribe’s feeling for its ancestral territory ran deeper than its loyalties to the institutions of national government. So when that empire or national government came under attack, Afghans were quick to dissolve it, and run like water between the fingers of their would-be conquerors.
123 Afghanistan defeated the British in the 1878 second Anglo-Afghan war, as it would the Soviets a hundred years later, by dissolving.
129 Fighting a war at a distance is an invitation to disaster. [Heterogeneous groups that join forces to fight their biggest common enemy are generally more successful than those who fight each other first.:]
169 Westerners, to a degree unique in history, invest their loyalty in institutions, regardless of the individuals who happen to be staffing them at a particular time.
But Afghanistan is not there yet. In Afghanistan, loyalties and allegiances are to individuals.
181 – 185 Governor Shirzai exerted a high degree of control over U.S./Afghan interaction, selectively permitting and distorting communication to promote his own interests.
193 By supporting warlords like Shirzai, American policy in Afghanistan was not encouraging democracy, it was institutionalizing violence.
236 By refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change or the Land Mine Treaty, and by seeking to undermine the International Criminal Court, the United States seemed to be sticking out its tongue at the rest of the world, and the rest of the world had no leverage to respond.
Afghanistan is a place where mutually assured destruction remains a viable doctrine. It is a culture retribution.
237 The way to stay safe in Kandahar was to suggest the certainty of violent revenge should you be killed or dishonored, so as to deter attack be it is undertaken.
237 – 238 The humanitarian community expects its neutrality to assure its safe conduct of its mission, but aid workers are now in the crosshairs themselves. Their services tend to reduce polarization and extremism, which is detrimental to the goals of militants. Humanitarian workers are the principal foes of extremists.
241 – 242 Pakistan supports religious extremists as a way to maintain an upper hand in the regional balance of power, especially vis-à-vis India.
243 Pakistan welcomed Usama bin Laden’s aid to the Taliban, but his agenda was global, not local. He wanted to provoke world war. After 9/11, Pakistan stopped protecting Al-Qaeda operatives, but detained dozens of them and turned them over one a time in exchange for U.S. indulgence.
244 Pakistan continues to support the Taliban.
285 I would up briefing officers of the Twenty-fifth Light Infantry Division by way of a coincidence. No concerted effort was being made to educate the army about the radically new peacetime nation-building duties that had been thrust upon it.
286 The U.S. Army, I discovered to my disbelief, had no institutional memory at all. How is it that an organization as rich in capabilities and resources as the U.S. government can so neglect the fundamental task of learning?
310 – 311 The September 11 terrorist attacks were designed to help bring about some version of the “clash of civilizations.” Those attacks were an effort to force people—Muslims as well as Westerners—to withdraw from contact and exchange with each other, and to acquiesce to oppressive policies at home and bloody ones abroad that they might not really approve of, because the situation seemed to warrant them, and because the other side no longer seemed to be composed of human beings.
October 28, 2010
It's a sobering look at the realities of life in Afghanistan. One of the prime points that emerges is that there is not one, nor even three (as in the case of Iraq) entities to deal with to reach an agreement on how the country should be governed. There are instead a multitude of tribes. It would be as if the British, instead of coming to North America to colonize in the 1600s, had come instead come to help the native population establish a national government. How do you get tribes that have been attacking each other, as a way of making a living for 1000s of years, sit down and decide on a mutually agreeable form of government.
According to the author, if you ask the average Afghan, they would love to have a national government that provided security, justice, education and a commercial infrastructure. The question is, how to get from "Warlordism" and tribilism to something that approaches that ideal. The irony is that it is the US and coalition forces that brought the warlords back into power after the Taliban were defeated. Now, the Afghan people see the US as making things worse rather than better.
The author comes across as an incredibly brave and self-sacrificing person, giving up her job to start a civilian aid organization. Unlike other aid workers who live in secure compounds with other ex-pats, she chooses to live with the Afghans. And unlike many journalistic books about wars where the writer is strictly an observer, in this case Sarah Chayes is one of the prime players, dealing with President Karzai, his staff, the warlords and the military, trying to directly influence their tactics and policies. This is what makes the book beyond ordinary.
In recent interviews (4/10) with the author it sounds as though not a lot has improved since her book was published. The new administration's strategy appears to deal almost exclusively with the military aspects with little or no planning or proportional effort on the civilian government aspects.
Based on this book I would say the US needs to either figure out how to help delivier a responsive government, or get out of the way and let the Afghan people muddle through it themselves. All we seem to be doing is shedding blood and providing stacks of money to warlords who in turn pay it out in patronage, even to the insurgents that are attacking US forces.
According to the author, if you ask the average Afghan, they would love to have a national government that provided security, justice, education and a commercial infrastructure. The question is, how to get from "Warlordism" and tribilism to something that approaches that ideal. The irony is that it is the US and coalition forces that brought the warlords back into power after the Taliban were defeated. Now, the Afghan people see the US as making things worse rather than better.
The author comes across as an incredibly brave and self-sacrificing person, giving up her job to start a civilian aid organization. Unlike other aid workers who live in secure compounds with other ex-pats, she chooses to live with the Afghans. And unlike many journalistic books about wars where the writer is strictly an observer, in this case Sarah Chayes is one of the prime players, dealing with President Karzai, his staff, the warlords and the military, trying to directly influence their tactics and policies. This is what makes the book beyond ordinary.
In recent interviews (4/10) with the author it sounds as though not a lot has improved since her book was published. The new administration's strategy appears to deal almost exclusively with the military aspects with little or no planning or proportional effort on the civilian government aspects.
Based on this book I would say the US needs to either figure out how to help delivier a responsive government, or get out of the way and let the Afghan people muddle through it themselves. All we seem to be doing is shedding blood and providing stacks of money to warlords who in turn pay it out in patronage, even to the insurgents that are attacking US forces.
April 2, 2012
This highly readable book is part memoir and part political analysis. The author, a former overseas NPR correspondent, describes her sojourn over the years 2001-2005 in Kandahar, the ancient capital of Afghanistan, where she worked for an Afghan-based NGO and, as an instinctive investigative reporter, formed her own assessment of the political forces at work in that post-Taliban city.
Her conclusions are both alarming and disheartening. She comes to believe that Pakistan is the root cause of political instability in Afghanistan and that through its support of warlords it uses resurgent Taliban forces to manipulate and regain control of large parts of the country. More discouraging is the author's portrayal of President Hamid Karzai as an intelligent, gifted, and cultured man who is often ineffectual as a leader.
The book is framed by the account of an assassination of the Kabul chief of police, a man of unusual integritiy and ability (hence the book's title) and its subsequent coverup as a suicide bombing. Set against him is the power-hungry and corrupt governor of Kandahar, who has won the confidence of the Americans while secretly amassing a fortune that he uses to fund a private army, meanwhile working deals with Pakistan to keep alive the threat of Taliban terrorism that makes the Americans even more dependent on him.
There are large swathes of Afghan and Persian history woven into this modern-day accounting, which reveal patterns of political and cultural forces at play that go back to Alexander the Great. Vividly written, the book provides a disturbing portrayal of failed leadership on the part of both the U.S. and the current government in Kabul. Read it and weep.
Her conclusions are both alarming and disheartening. She comes to believe that Pakistan is the root cause of political instability in Afghanistan and that through its support of warlords it uses resurgent Taliban forces to manipulate and regain control of large parts of the country. More discouraging is the author's portrayal of President Hamid Karzai as an intelligent, gifted, and cultured man who is often ineffectual as a leader.
The book is framed by the account of an assassination of the Kabul chief of police, a man of unusual integritiy and ability (hence the book's title) and its subsequent coverup as a suicide bombing. Set against him is the power-hungry and corrupt governor of Kandahar, who has won the confidence of the Americans while secretly amassing a fortune that he uses to fund a private army, meanwhile working deals with Pakistan to keep alive the threat of Taliban terrorism that makes the Americans even more dependent on him.
There are large swathes of Afghan and Persian history woven into this modern-day accounting, which reveal patterns of political and cultural forces at play that go back to Alexander the Great. Vividly written, the book provides a disturbing portrayal of failed leadership on the part of both the U.S. and the current government in Kabul. Read it and weep.
August 11, 2013
An amazing account of Afghanistan post Taliban by former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes. A fascinating insider account of the opposing forces, duplicity, backsliding, lies and downright stupidity that has plagued that country.
What an extraordinary brave woman Ms Chayes is and she clearly loves Afghanistan and it's people and has gained a superb understanding of the culture and character of the Afgha people but she does not allow that love to blind her to the negatives. Amazing that a woman journalist should be able to gain the trust and regard of powerful men in this staunchly conservative country.
I found her blunt views on NGO's and humanitarian agencies enlightening and long overdue ... "humanitarian agencies devise projects within driving distance of their spacious headquarters, and new restaurants open to cater to the foreign crowds". Further in the book she asks "what civilian NGO has post-operation assessment built into its mode of functioning?" Extraordinary given the vast budgets they are given control over.
She is equally scathing of US policy (or lack thereof) and the interm Afgan government but it is Pakistan that really gets the brunt of her displeasure.
This is a brilliant book for anyone interested in looking beyond bare news headlines and really getting to know the history of conflict and IMO is required reading if we care at all about what our world. It should also be required reading for anyone interest in being a journalist or reporter.
What an extraordinary brave woman Ms Chayes is and she clearly loves Afghanistan and it's people and has gained a superb understanding of the culture and character of the Afgha people but she does not allow that love to blind her to the negatives. Amazing that a woman journalist should be able to gain the trust and regard of powerful men in this staunchly conservative country.
I found her blunt views on NGO's and humanitarian agencies enlightening and long overdue ... "humanitarian agencies devise projects within driving distance of their spacious headquarters, and new restaurants open to cater to the foreign crowds". Further in the book she asks "what civilian NGO has post-operation assessment built into its mode of functioning?" Extraordinary given the vast budgets they are given control over.
She is equally scathing of US policy (or lack thereof) and the interm Afgan government but it is Pakistan that really gets the brunt of her displeasure.
This is a brilliant book for anyone interested in looking beyond bare news headlines and really getting to know the history of conflict and IMO is required reading if we care at all about what our world. It should also be required reading for anyone interest in being a journalist or reporter.
February 18, 2008
Sarah Chayes was an NPR reporter until she was sent to Kandahar. She decided then to quit her reporting job, learn Pashto, and help the Afghan people rebuild their homes and start cooperatives. More than that, her judgment and willingness to adopt the Afghan way of life allowed her to work as intermediary between the Afghani people and the U.S. military.
This wonderful, passionate, and engaging book retells Chayes' first years in Afghanistan and presents a moving portrait of the Afghan people. It also chronicles how the U.S. government wasted every single opportunity to help the Afghan people rebuild their cities and their lives. Afghanistan is a country mired into collective post-traumatic stress. Its increasingly disconnected cities are ravaged daily by warlords, and the Afghan people are coping with the fact that the U.S. intervention in their country was only a pit-stop in the race towards the war in Iraq.
In the middle of all this, Sarah Chayes maintains a combative spirit and, most importantly, a lucid mind. Her analysis of the Afghan situation and the story of her involvement in the local politics and economics will open your eyes on one of the big tragedies of our time. Please read this book!!!
This wonderful, passionate, and engaging book retells Chayes' first years in Afghanistan and presents a moving portrait of the Afghan people. It also chronicles how the U.S. government wasted every single opportunity to help the Afghan people rebuild their cities and their lives. Afghanistan is a country mired into collective post-traumatic stress. Its increasingly disconnected cities are ravaged daily by warlords, and the Afghan people are coping with the fact that the U.S. intervention in their country was only a pit-stop in the race towards the war in Iraq.
In the middle of all this, Sarah Chayes maintains a combative spirit and, most importantly, a lucid mind. Her analysis of the Afghan situation and the story of her involvement in the local politics and economics will open your eyes on one of the big tragedies of our time. Please read this book!!!
January 18, 2009
The author tells the story of her entering Afghanistan as an NPR reporter when the war first began after 911. She then became an NGO employee, and finally, a business woman making soap and moisturing products from the resources around Kandahar. Since Kandahar was the home of the Taliban who were just ousted before she arrived as a reporter, the city was still dangerous. However she insisted on staying with the people in Kandahar rather than with her fellow reporters or NGO workers. Through her many friendships and contacts, her reporter instincts, and sense of fairness, she begins to realize the treachery of the warlords, the Taliban, and the Pakastan government, and even tries desparetly to help, especially the Kandahar chief of policy who becomes a close friend. The book definitely will add to your knowledge of the history, culture, and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Terrific book!
January 14, 2011
Wow, I feel like I've just taken a course on the history, government, and political situation in Afghanistan. The complexity of it all baffles me! I hear again and again how we lack a strong intelligence network, and then I read this account by Sarah Chayes and see how her deep knowledge was ignored again and again... I see how U.S. foreign policy is often determined by troops on the ground with little understanding of background or longterm implications of their actions... And I now understand that the warlord mentality of those in power or desiring to hold power in Arghanistan preempts any movement toward democracy. What a mess!
This book imparted a lot of wisdom, but ultimately little hope. Chayes fought for 4 years to influence policy in Afghanistan, utilizing contacts on every side, and at last decided things had only gotten worse. It's hard to believe the situation can ever be resolved in this turbulent region.
This book imparted a lot of wisdom, but ultimately little hope. Chayes fought for 4 years to influence policy in Afghanistan, utilizing contacts on every side, and at last decided things had only gotten worse. It's hard to believe the situation can ever be resolved in this turbulent region.
April 15, 2009
This book is a very mixed bag. The historical chapters make me want to go and read the Shahnameh and to find some good sources on the Mughal empire. The contemporary chapters are exciting and informative. I have to admire Sarah Chayes' honesty: when she realizes she's made a mistake or she has been too naive or trusting, she lets you see exactly how. Yet somehow, she still seems confident in her own judgment. I can forgive that: I used to say, "I'd rather be self-righteous than not be righteous at all." But as Anand says, the facts as she lays them out should dispel the notion that the U.S. can ever play a constructive role as long as it occupies Afghanistan, and should cast doubt that the U.S. even knows what a constructive role might be. Somehow, she never reaches waht seems to be the obvious conclusion.
July 24, 2010
I read this a couple of years ago. Like many people I was fascinated by her account of living in Afghanistan after 9/11. Just this month (july 2010) I gave this book as a house present to a family full of people interested in the world. Although it was published several years ago I think it's completely relevant to our current involvement in Afghanistan. I heard Chayes say in a TV interview last year that she was working now with the US military. I wonder if she has revised her opinion. What I take from her description of what happened in Kandahar in 2002 is that our (US) position in Afghanistan is pretty hopeless. Now we have a hug military presence in Kandahar, but I'm not sure we have any better idea what we're doing than we did in 2002.
So her book is completely relevant. Read it and draw your own conclusions.
So her book is completely relevant. Read it and draw your own conclusions.
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