Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA scathing dispatch from an embedded journalist in Afghanistan. . . . Pungent, embittered, eye-opening observations of a conflict involving lessons still unlearned.
* Kirkus Reviews *
One of the state's most intrepid combat reporters, Wissing went to Afghanistan for a third time in 2013, expecting to watch the war wind down. Instead, he found a place still rife with conflict. . . . [Wissing] gives readers a view of both the perils and the many examples of money being wasted in a country where even something as seemingly benign as digging wells has devastating consequences.
* Indianapolis Monthly *
It's that kind of book. It reminds us of Peter Van Buren's We Meant Well book on Iraq.
* Diplopundit *
This is not a book that directly engages the theories and conceptions of twenty-first-century US military intervention, in its full-spectrum approach from counterinsurgency to development, in numerous working papers, articles, and monographs. It does not invoke 'hard power,' 'soft power,' or 'smart power.' But in this case, that is an asset. Sometimes the most effective response to all the proposals of what could or should be is the observation of what is.
* H-Diplo *
Wissing's moving and exceptionally well-written account makes sad reading . . . The book becomes a heart-breaking travelogue, accompanied by Wissing's own photos. . . . [but] however corrupt and misguided the war, however much damage it has done, Wissing says, 'I met American after American determined to make the world a better place.'
* Bloom Magazine *
On page after page, as Wissing travels around the country, we are told how U.S. operatives continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over, leaving a trail of unfinished/sabotaged projects that have no value to the people of Afghanistan.
* OpEd News *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations
Prologue
1. Landing
2. Problems
3. In/Out
4. Reify
5. Shoulders
6. Salerno
7. Retrograde
8. Better
9. Boom
10. WHAM
11. Luck
12. Shitholes
13. Road
14. Friends
15. Kandahar
16. Leatherneck
17. Sex
18. Drugs
19. Brains
20. Birds
21. Geronimo
22. Dream
23. Ship
24. Slaughter
25. System
26. Believers
27. Rumi
28. Enduring
29. Beauty
30. Sustaining
31. Challenges
32. Women
33. Dutch
34. Intermediates
35. Embassy
36. Loss
37. Optimism
Epilogue
Index
