Anand Gopal
Anand Gopal
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travails of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and the 2015 Helen Bernstein Award. It was awarded the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for demonstrating "why the United States' emphasis on counterterrorism at the expense of nation-building...
ProfessionJournalist
scary
Seen through the eyes of a U.S. soldier, Afghanistan is a scary place.
saw towers
I was living near the Twin Towers on 9/11, so I saw the attacks, and I had friends who were killed in the attacks.
communists islamists joined
After the Soviet withdrawal, many Afghan Communists had rebranded themselves as Islamists and joined the mujahedeen.
raids
If night raids and detentions are an unavoidable part of modern counterinsurgency warfare, then so is the resentment they breed.
afghans celebrated government november reviled taliban
When US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime.
base country hub key local player web
A military base in a country like Afghanistan is also a web of relationships, a hub for the local economy, and a key player in the political ecosystem.
fighters illiterate taliban worldly
For years, Hizb-I-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers.
base heard information leading names north offering second sitting town
In the summer of 2004, Malem Jan was sitting with Sirajuddin Haqqani, the second son of Jalaluddin, in their Pakistani base in the North Waziristan town of Miram Shah when they heard their names on the BBC. The Americans were offering $250,000 and $200,000, respectively, as rewards for information leading to their capture.
bases detention field nine officially prisons process raids sent series sites suspects
Night raids are only the first step in the American detention process in Afghanistan. Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on U.S. military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance.
central deputy drained failure hear iraq pundits resources richard scholars secretary state thesis war
The central thesis of the American failure in Afghanistan - the one you'll hear from politicians and pundits and even scholars - was succinctly propounded by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: 'The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan before things were under control'.
bring existence helping people role stories understand
The existence of the Taliban, in my view, is a tragedy for Afghanistan. We as Americans need to understand our role in helping bring that tragedy about. So I think it's important to look at the stories about why these people are fighting.
radical taliban unlike worldly
Unlike other Taliban groups, the Haqqanis' approach to mayhem was worldly and sophisticated: they recruited Arabs, Pakistanis, even Europeans, and they were influenced by the latest in radical Islamist thought.