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Summary: Rashid owned the Taliban story
Review: A cliche is appropriate here. Ahmed Rashid owned this story. A long-time correspondent based in Central Asia, Rashid was singularly situated to tell the world about the Taliban. Written well before the United States invaded Afghanistan, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia is a testament to the author's power of observation, ability to cultivate excellent sources, and prowess as an interviewer and a researcher. To the outside world, the Taliban seemed insane. Rashid chronicles why that distant perception was correct. Years as a journeyman reporter provided Rashid entree into places few independent sources could go. This unprecedented access, and Rashid's talent as a writer, convey the sheer madness that gripped Afghanistan. The result is the definitive book on the Taliban. Rashid proves to be a brilliant analyst as well as an intrepid reporter. As an example, the author gives the best explanation to date of why the Taliban was so virulently misogynistic. Many of these Islamist fanatics, Rashid explains, were raised in all-male orphanages, educated only by men, and lived exclusively among other boys. This incisive explanation of the gender issue is typical of the author's best analyses, some of which come across almost as throwaway lines ("failed states are not necessarily dying states" springs to mind). Rashid also has a keen eye for the absurd. The number of Taliban officials missing limbs, eyes and other body parts, he notes, was quite disconcerting. On a serious note, Rashid also examines the wider issues the Taliban represented. In the process, he spares no one. Such diverse personages as American oil barons, old-style Russian expansionists, Islamic religious fanatics, atavistic communist tyrants, and corrupt Muslim officials all receive the harsh treatment they richly deserve. The Taliban's Afghanistan truly became a quagmire for its enablers and enemies. As some regional powers promoted their vision of a religious utopia, they also sowed the seeds of their own destruction as Afghan-based terrorists put those very governments in their crosshairs. Unfortunately for the West, this failed state also gave al-Qaeda and heroin producers a sanctuary. Western energy interests, Wahhabi-promoting Saudis, Central Asian dictators, and power-crazed Pakistani intelligence officers sacrificed national interests for their narrow concerns, and Rashid makes it clear the world is a much more dangerous place as a result. This book is a triumph precisely because the author ties together all these seemingly disparate evils--terrorism, repression, gratuitous violence, corporate greed, geopolitical hegemony, Islamic radicalism, drug trafficking----and makes a compelling case that the Taliban was more their symptom than cause.
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Summary: A Must Read For Understanding The 911 Devastation
Review: Ahmed Rashid spent over 20 years as a reporter in Pakistan/Afghanistan. He has written a 216 page book filled with facts concerning the history, politics and culture of the Taliban, Terroism and American Oil Companies. Mr Rashid reports in a clear and organized style about events between 1978-1999 in this part of the world in the context of the history of the Middle East. His insights and reporting are both surprising and informative. He covers religious and political groups and factions and sects as only someone who has lived in this part of the world could do. It is amazing how he is able to present a straight-forward and intelligble account of so complex a situation. He deals with international intrigue by American Oil Companies, about the treatment of women, about Pakistan's and Saudi Arabia's support of the Taliban. Each and every chapter of this book contains valuable information to anyone interest in understanding how a small, unknown and uneducated group of religious Islamic extremist could assist in the destruction of the WTC on 911 and threathen the financial security of many Western economies. Turn off CNN, put down the Times and sit down to read a book which will provide an important framework for dealing with the problems we face today.
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Summary: A Fascinating Study
Review: Ahmed Rashid's book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and the Fundamentalism in Central Asia" is an excellent book for those who would like to understand the Taliban, its background, rise to power as well as US and Pakistan's support of the fundamentalist regime. Published in 2000, it is a very timely book given the tragedy of the World Trade Center plane attacks on September 11th. The main factor contributing to the strength of the book is Rashid's extensive access to Afghanistan and key players who have shaped the policy of the country. He has spent the better portion of the last 21 years in the country and knows it intimately. Although himself Pakistani, he is very critical of his country's role (and that of the the United States)in nurturing the most radical elements in the Afghan opposition that fought the Soviet Union in the 1980's as well as the Taliban. The most important chapter of the book for our purposes today is Chapter 10 which deals with the rise of Osama bin Laden in the context of the Afghan-Soviet war and US/Pakistani support of the opposition. Rashid explains in detail American support for the ISI's involvement in drug trafficking as a means to raise money for the anti-Soviet resistance. He laments the American-Pakistani practice of consistent and unwavering support for the most radical elements in the Afghan opposition, virtually ignoring the more moderate opposition. The result: thousands of radical Muslims, armed and trained by The US and Pakistan, sparking "holy wars" against countries deemed anti-Muslim. As I re-read the book after the terrible attack on the US on September 11th, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the lack of foresight the United States policy-makers had in supporting these radicals. Particular blame, in my view, must be meeted out to Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, in his pathological anti-Soviet and anti-Russian passions, went to great lengths in the 80's to push the US to support the Mujahideen radicals. His misguided policies violently bore their fruits in New York and Washington on September 11th. Rashid also does a great job untangling the web of oil and gas pipelines that lie at the heart of the world's interest in the Central Asian Republics of the former USSR and Afghanistan. The post Cold War American policy of eliminating Russian and Iranian influence in Central Asia has lead to the US Administration to support, without giving formal diplomatic recognition, to the Taliban. The reason for this, Rashid explains, is to circumvent Iranian and Russian territory and lay gas and oil pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan for eventual Western consumption. Again Pakistan is a key ally for the US in this venture, along with Turkey. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are the Stone Age social practices of the Taliban, including their horrific treatment of women. In his appendix he lists most of the decrees the Taliban issued regarding these policies. In sum, I highly recommend this book to all those interested in a timely, in depth analysis of one of the most repressive regimes in the world and the complex politics of the great powers that make Central Asia the next hot spot of the world.
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Summary: Comprehensive background to recent events
Review: Anyone who wades through the detail-laden and sometimes turgid prose that comprises *Taliban* will end up far more knowledgeable about Afghanistan and southern Asian politics generally than could possibly result from mere exposure to the usual, highly filtered news sources upon which we usually depend. What's most interesting about *Taliban* is that it is written from a non-Western, and especially non-American point of view. Consequently, the author makes apparent that although the United States has blundered in its policies toward southern Asia, most of the principal causes of the problems in the region have to do with autonomous dynamics and conflicts with lengthy histories that have little or nothing to do with U.S. actions. Rashid first covers the history and trajectory of the Taliban movement up through 1999 or so, and then circles back to discuss various particular themes related to the rise and reign of this peculiar and in many ways frightening religious movement. These include their draconian and inhumanly strict social agenda (particularly their horrendous treatment of women), the role of the drug trade and smuggling generally in Afghani (and Pakistani) society, the roles of various religious and ethnic factions within the conflicts afflicting the region, the wider set of geopolitical conflicts involving Afghanistan's neighboring nations plus the larger powers such as Russia and the U.S., and the important (and in the context of the post-September 11 war, suspicious) role of oil and gas-related intrigue in the dynamics of the region. All of these topics are treated carefully and analytically by Rashid, who offers thoughtful criticism of just about all parties involved in the current mess. Being Pakastini himself, he has perhaps the harshest words for his own government(s), who clearly were responsible for the rise of the Taliban beginning in 1994. Rashid places Pakistani support for the Taliban within a broader campaign to increase Pakistan's influence in the region. Unfortunately, as the author points out, the Taliban has ultimately exerted more influence and control over Pakistan's domestic situation than the Pakistanis have been able to exert over Mullah Omar and the rest of the Taliban. The United States certainly is shown to share in the blame for the current problems afflicting Afghanistan. It is well-known that the anti-Soviet war that began in 1979 was largely supported by the U.S. in proxy fashion through the Pakistani ISI intelligence agency. After the Soviets left in 1989, however, the Americans simply lost interest in the Afghani situation and when civil war and chaos emerged the Americans did virtually nothing to help ameliorate Afghanistan's woes. When the Taliban emerged in 1994 as a "stabilizing influence" for a war-torn nation, the Americans first considered supporting them, partly because it was believed the Taliban might be amenable to overtures by Unocal to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. Only when the Taliban clearly showed its misogynist, barbaric character did the Clinton administration finally begin to condemn them. By that time these "religious students" were already harboring Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda henchmen, thus setting the stage for the events of September 11 and since. Overall, *Taliban* is a fascinating but certainly depressing tale
of international and interethnic politics at its real-life worst. What emerges is a picture in which every nation, every religious denomination, every economic faction, and every ethnic group apparently acts purely out of short-term self-interest, with virtually no one exhibiting a willingness to respect the bigger, longer term picture or the "greater good." The American bombing campaign to drive the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan may seem heavy-handed and brutal, but within the context of the broader historical picture as portrayed by Rashid, it's apparently merely the latest version of "business as usual" in south Asian politics.
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Summary: A Guide for the Perplexed
Review: As the Taliban's string of lives runs out in Kandahar and Konduz, Rashid's book remains a useful guide to the players and the issues, which will be with us long after Mullah Omar and his band of bumpkins are gone. Rashid has covered Afghanistan for more than 20 years and has put a tremendous amount of information and analysis at the reader's disposal. Apart from the most complete story of the rise of the Taliban--and the special conditions in Afghanistan that facilitated its rise--Rashid includes useful chapters on bin Laden, oil politics in Central Asia (the heart of what will remain the book's main value in the post-Taliban era), the status of women in Afghanistan, and a host of sensible observations about Afghanistan as a landlocked Central Asian state. Rashid's coinage--the "New Great Game"--which harks back to the "tournament of shadows" in which Russia and England sought to outduel the other in Central Asia, seems more than a little justified in light of the Caspian oil and gas finds that lie undeveloped in the ground and under the sea. This book also will continue to be useful as providing a dollop of background information on "all those names" you've been seeing in the press--Gulbuddin Hekymatyr, Ismail Khan, Abdulrashid Dostam, Burhanuddin Rabbani, etc.--the whole pack of which hasn't changed since the war against the Soviets and is unlikely to change any time soon (with the exception of Ahmed Shah Masood, "the Lion of the Panshir," who was assassinated, probably by bin Laden's "Arab-Afghans," in September 2001). Coming from a scholarly house--Yale University Press--with a full bibliography and footnotes, the book nevertheless suffers from production flaws that tempted me to subtract a star from my rating. The index is infuriatingly incomplete--the main material on an entry is often located on pages not indicated in the index. It's almost as though the indexer, hitting a name or a place for the third or fourth time, decided, "hey, this looks like it might be pretty important," and started compiling entries at that point. A few spelling glitches and at least two howling typos in dating specific events seemed simply puzzling--how could Yale's editors have permitted this? On balance, however, such shortcomings do little to distract from the considerable pleasures of discovery and understanding Rashid's excellent work affords.
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Summary: Excellent
Review: I read this book well before 9/11 and it's amazing that in the US section and in the conclusions he predicted that the biggest threat to the world was from Afghanistan and Bin Laden and that's indeed what happened. It's also interesting to see how Oil induced American foreign policy was, devoid of the impact to the areas focused upon. People think now that Oil being part of the agenda is a stretch. Read this book which was written well before Bush and 9/11 to understand what forces are really at play in that volatile region and how America shaped it. To extrapolate, does the Bush administration have a foreign policy around oil or is just the war on terror? You tell me....
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Summary: Still the best history of the Taliban available
Review: I recently had the opportunity to interview a number of Afghans who had fought throughout the mujahadeen and Taliban eras. Without Ahmed Rashid's wonderfully well designed book, I would have been totally lost. Using it as my primary reference always kept within immediate reach, I managed to muddle through quite well, and made some level of sense of the complicated ebb and flow of power in Afghanistan since 1979. If you are going to Afghanistan for professional humanitarian or military reasons you cannot afford not to have a copy of this outstanding work.
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Summary: The first book to turn to
Review: If you want to learn about the Taliban, turn here first. Rashid gives you a clear picture of what the Taliban is, how it came to be, and why it came to be. It's a journalistic book, full of dates and names, but it's also a very engrossing tale of tragedy upon tragedy, and includes some interesting chapters on oil interests in Afghanistan.
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Summary: A tragic story of failed leadership
Review: Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a new field of study, which jokingly could be called "Talibanology" has arisen. The events of 9/11 evidently made many wonder as to the nature of the individuals behind such incredibly evil acts. From the sales figures, books on Islamic history and the Koran apparently skyrocketed after 9/11, due to the need for such understanding. This book however was published before 9/11 (in 2000 to be exact), and therefore gives a perspective on the Taliban that omits the hyperbolae that frequently accompanies more recent studies. There are many surprises in the book for those readers, such as this reviewer, who are not acquainted with the history and beliefs of the Taliban, and who need a study that is unfiltered by the biases of the Western press.
As the author explains, the word "talib" stands for "student of Islam", with "taliban" being the plural. A talib is one who is seeking knowledge, and is to be distinguished from a "mullah" who is a teacher. Apparently the Taliban chose to call themselves by that name in order to separate themselves from the Mujaheddin, and who wanted to "cleanse society" instead of engaging in a power struggle. Their ideal society was to be modeled after that of the Prophet Mohammed, and this was to be done using strict adherence to Islamic guidelines as put forth in the Koran. One can't help but ponder the fate of the Taliban if they would have relaxed their standards and attempted to have some intersection with other belief systems. Perhaps such pragmatism would have won them greater respect from the international community and prevented their antagonism with the United States.
The reader learns of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia being the principal suppliers of funding, weapons, and fuel to the Taliban in the 1990's. Considering they are now American "allies", this is interesting, and it shows just how fast governments can turn on each other. One also learns that the Taliban were Sunni Muslims, instead of Shia Muslims, the latter identification being incorrectly reported by the Western press. The Sunni Muslims despise the Shias, and vice versa, but it seems that the objects of hatred by the Taliban went beyond factional differences in the Islamic religion, for the Taliban, as one also learns in the book, forced Hindus residing in Afghanistan to wear yellow badges for purposes of identification.
The suffering of the people of Afghanistan in the last twenty-five years was not due solely to the Soviet invasion but also to other foreign meddling in its affairs. It was the demand by the international community to end the cultivation of poppy that exacerbated the economic crisis during the civil wars in Afghanistan. The opium trade apparently is going on full steam currently though, annoying many in the American government but apparently encouraged by the CIA in the early years of the Taliban government.
Western and non-Western interest in Afghanistan did not just happen after 9/11 however. As the author documents with crystal clarity, energy interests were the primary motivation for so many countries having their eyes fixated on Afghanistan for so many years. The author discusses the competition between Unocal, an American energy conglomerate, and Bridas, an oil company based in Argentina, to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan. He is very candid in his discussion of how economic interests were behind most of the major conflicts in this region, which is refreshing considering that such interests are usually masked under the guise of some moral or higher purpose. This is especially true for the current war in Iraq waged by the United States and Great Britain, and to a lesser extent Italy and Australia, which is being sold as part of a general "war on terror".
The story of the Taliban is of course a tragic one, since in retrospect they could have been more constructive in their dealings with the international community. They were certainly a tenacious group though, and the reader learns from the author that the Taliban leadership, due to the many conflicts they engaged in, were the "most disabled" in the world. With justification, one can easily blame religion for their demise, as it has caused more suffering throughout human history than any other system of beliefs. Hopefully the Afghan people, with their new government, however illegitimate it might be, will see the errors of the Taliban and approach life with a more reasoned and healthy attitude; one that is free of religious dogmatism and open to alternative ideas and viewpoints.
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Summary: Chronicles on the Taliban before September 11, 2001
Review: Taliban by Ahmed Rashid needs to be recognized as one of the most outstanding achievement in journalism. It is obvious from the reading of this book, the amount of thoroughness in research and interviews that was done in order to write this book. I consider it one of the best piece of historical and political accounts on the history of the Taliban. Mr. Rashid does a wonderful job in writing the book in a way that seems like you are looking through these historical events via movie screen. I gained a tremendous amount of historical knowledge on the Persian regions, political events and "The New Great Game"- a chapter dedicated to the great oil barons of the region and their struggle to control it. In addition, Mr. Rashid goes on in explaining issues on the heroin trade in the region that are alarming and at the same time eye-awakening. All these issues makes it more clearer why the Taliban is controlling Afghanistan and who is supporting them and why. Last but not least, I left the preface and acknowledgements to the end, to surprisingly find out that the book has been 21 years in the writing. No wonder it is a beautiful piece of historical events put in such a way that you cannot put the book down. I commend Mr. Rashid for the wonderful opportunity that he has giving me, in opening a door to a distant place that otherwise I would only have known through what is said in the current news. I believe that this knowledge should be better publicized thus allowing everyone that reads it become more enlightened on the current situation and the events that have lead to the current political strata. The famous saying by J. Rockfeller of " Knowing Your Opponent Better Than You Know Your Self" continues to be part of being victorious even today.
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