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Caught in the Crossfire
330 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 17, 2012
Jan Goodwin was an investigative companion to freedom fighters at a time before the Taliban had infiltrated Afghanistan with their toxic view of the world and suppression tactics. Her book has not been made redundant by the wave of books by subsequent journalists; it stands out as a historic feat on its own. Many of these Afghan fighters were wiped out or driven out, for there was a reason they were called freedom fighters.
I reviewed Goodwin's book in 1988 for the Arab News and was bowled over by it then. Today I am stunned to see so few reviews. Consider for a moment that her journey began when, as executive editor of Ladies' Home Journal magazine, she was handed the startling fact that a full fifty percent of the world's refugees were Afghan. She couldn't understand why a story like that wasn't being written.
How many executive editors of a women's magazine would hurry off to a war zone to get that story? There was hardly a precedent for her to follow in those days.
After touring some Pakistan refugee camps and conducting scores of interviews, she managed to get letters of introduction to two resistance groups, one of them being NIFA, the National Islamic front of Afghanistan. It was probably the most broad-minded and moderate resistance group, and the commander who welcomed her, Wakil Akberzai, explained how willing he was to smuggle in foreign correspondents for the sake of gaining freedom from Soviet oppression. Goodwin's first excursion into the war zone lasted only four days, but it left her with haunting memories, as of the blind young mother, Kabalee, who admitted that her greatest fear in crossing the mountain passes en route to refuge had been that each time she lost her footing she feared she would drop her five month old son over the edge. Goodwin, an excellent, writer, shows in her own descriptive terms how treacherous these paths were (are).
What I remember most and loved about the book is Goodwin's courage, her crazy new ideas that could have gotten her killed, yet which she kept following up on. After three months in Afghanistan and secret excursions here and there, she snuck into the Soviet Union in order to try and contact the families of dead Soviet soldiers, some of them Muslim. She just wanted to elicit their views and feelings--something any great reporter worth his salt would do.
She got so ill with all of this work that the reader suspects it was threat of dying that forced her to toss down the pen.
Any student of modern Afghanistan history would be seriously mistaken to not read this book. It is embracing!
I reviewed Goodwin's book in 1988 for the Arab News and was bowled over by it then. Today I am stunned to see so few reviews. Consider for a moment that her journey began when, as executive editor of Ladies' Home Journal magazine, she was handed the startling fact that a full fifty percent of the world's refugees were Afghan. She couldn't understand why a story like that wasn't being written.
How many executive editors of a women's magazine would hurry off to a war zone to get that story? There was hardly a precedent for her to follow in those days.
After touring some Pakistan refugee camps and conducting scores of interviews, she managed to get letters of introduction to two resistance groups, one of them being NIFA, the National Islamic front of Afghanistan. It was probably the most broad-minded and moderate resistance group, and the commander who welcomed her, Wakil Akberzai, explained how willing he was to smuggle in foreign correspondents for the sake of gaining freedom from Soviet oppression. Goodwin's first excursion into the war zone lasted only four days, but it left her with haunting memories, as of the blind young mother, Kabalee, who admitted that her greatest fear in crossing the mountain passes en route to refuge had been that each time she lost her footing she feared she would drop her five month old son over the edge. Goodwin, an excellent, writer, shows in her own descriptive terms how treacherous these paths were (are).
What I remember most and loved about the book is Goodwin's courage, her crazy new ideas that could have gotten her killed, yet which she kept following up on. After three months in Afghanistan and secret excursions here and there, she snuck into the Soviet Union in order to try and contact the families of dead Soviet soldiers, some of them Muslim. She just wanted to elicit their views and feelings--something any great reporter worth his salt would do.
She got so ill with all of this work that the reader suspects it was threat of dying that forced her to toss down the pen.
Any student of modern Afghanistan history would be seriously mistaken to not read this book. It is embracing!
July 28, 2013
It's impressive to see that an American woman accepts all the hardships of Afghanistan and the war against the Russians. Jan Goodwin went to Afghanistan a few times and crossed the mountains with the Mujahideen. She has quoted the story in a good way. Not bad to read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews