Gulliver:
- Ahmed Rashid's acclaimed 2000 book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
- "The People in Arms: A Practitioner's Guide to Understanding Insurgency and Dealing With it Effectively," by retired Army colonel G. L. Lamborn (courtesy of SWJ).
- "The Kill Company," Raffi Khatchadourian's 19-page New Yorker feature on COL Michael Steele and the 2006 killing (murder?) of eight Iraqis by a squad from Steele's 3/101. [I've actually already finished this one, and it's very, very thought-provoking. Find a copy!]
"The Kill Company" is on my list too, as well as Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" (I know, it's about time).
Anyone has something more joyful for a Fourth of July?
Gunslinger:
Other than a ton of articles for work, I'll be reading the "The Soloist" by Steve Lopez (it is a long weekend after all - I can't read COIN all the time) and "The Rough Riders" by Teddy Roosevelt.
MK
I'll be finishing off Woodward's The War Within before turning to meatier stuff, like:
Lil
Gerard Prunier's Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe and I need to find a silly novel to read in the sun...any suggestions?
MK
I'll be finishing off Woodward's The War Within before turning to meatier stuff, like:
- Analytic Support to Counterinsurgency (RAND 2008)
- Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan (RAND November 2008)
- Skimming through USAID's Conflict Assessment Framework half for work, half for interest.
Lil
Gerard Prunier's Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe and I need to find a silly novel to read in the sun...any suggestions?
As far as those Afghanistan selections go, Rashid's book is a narrative that does not do much to inform about the "how and why" in a pursuasive manner (it would die a quick death in even a grad-student level seminar). Sinno's book is the antidote to this. However, the post 2001 in Sinno's book is not helpful. That's when you should pick up Rashid's new book.
ReplyDeleteChristian -- Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteRashid's book, for me, is useful in that it gives a look in on how the Taliban were treated in contemporary media during the pre-9/11 period. It's not so much a work of history as a journalistic accounting, and considering it from that perspective (as basically a collection of news articles, woven together as a narrative) I think it's worthwhile.
I'm about halfway through Descent Into Chaos, as well.
Christian - how do you feel about Sinno's chapter in Tarzi and Crews?
ReplyDeleteI thought his explanation of the Taliban's rise to power (out-Pashtun-ing their competitors) a bit over-determined, and he seemed to leave Pashtun identity un-problematized. But I'm relatively new to this problem-set.
Sinno's chapter in crews/tarzi is not much new. But I really appreciate Sinno's contribution. And as far as it being over-determined, that's what American polisci people do these days (I may be generalizing a bit).
ReplyDeleteAnd IMO, Pashtun identity as a variable is grossly over-rated.
The Rough Riders is excellent as a "you are there" book.
ReplyDeleteWhether it has any contemporary significance is another question.