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Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan

Door Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Categorie
Geschiedenis Azië
Boeknummer
#269931
Titel
Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan
Auteur
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv
Boektype
Paperback
Uitgeverij
London, Bloomsbury
Jaar van uitgave
2012
ISBN10
1408831805
ISBN13
9781408831809
Taal
Engels
Samenvatting
The American Government invested millions in Helmand, Afghanistan in the 1950s and 1960s to transform the barren desert into a veritable oasis. It became the largest international development effort after the Marshall Plan. 'Little America' was the name for this specific region, first used in the 1940s by Afghanis themselves. Four decades later in 2009, the region was again the focus of the US efforts in the country, as waves of Marines descended upon the Helmand River Valley.

In this extraordinarily insightful, illuminating book, Rajiv Chandrasekaran focuses on southern Afghanistan in the year of Obama's surge. Little America is a story of this long arc of American involvement, and of the campaign to salvage a victory in southern Afghanistan on Obama's watch., and reveals the epic tug
... (Lees verder)of war that occurred between the president and a military that, once on the ground, increasingly went its own way. This political battle's profound ramifications for the region and the world are laid bare through a cast of fascinating characters -disillusioned and inept diplomats, frustrated soldiers, headstrong officers - who played a part in the process of pumping millions of dollars of American money and soldiers into Afghan nation-building. He addresses the British involvement around Kandahar prior to the arrival of the US Marines, and reveals the uneasy - and, at times, openly hostile - relationship between the United States and Britain as they began in 2009 to share responsibility for Helmand.

What emerges is a detailed picture of unsavoury compromise - warlords who were to be marginalised were suddenly embraced, the Karzai family transformed from foe to friend, fighting corruption no longer a top priority - and a venture that has become unsustainable in every way: politically, financially, and strategically. As in his Samuel Johnson Prize-winning Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by bringing to life a corner of a conflict and Chandrasekaran reveals the bigger story of the war. Has the war in Afghanistan been worth the money spent and bloodshed? Through vivid, on-the-ground storytelling, Little America takes readers toward an answer in a way no other book on Afghanistan has.
Pagina's
368
Conditie
Goed
Prijs
€ 8,00

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