To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue

Rating:
Summary: stop reading my review and buy this
Review: it's a great book. i was expecting more of an answer to my "why?" question but no one can really answer that ... rall knows this and didn't even really bother trying to find 'the truth.' instead he offers a personal look into the lives and going-ons over in afghanistan around novemeber 2001. this book got me interested in central asian politics and history. i've read a few other boosk since. this is a great beginning...

Rating:
Summary: You Should Read Ted Rall
Review: Ted Rall is full of opinions --- smart, clever, funny and off-beat. He's at his best in this book, which combines his talent for essay with his hard-hitting political cartoons. Ted has a large following of loyalists and critics. And both, of course, are testament to the clarity of his thinking and his voice. You don't have to agree with Ted, but you should read what he has to say - he'll make you think hard about topics from a new perspective.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Is Poor
Review: This book is poor. It is claimed that the intent of this book is to bring us the truth about the war in Afghanistan, but instead it is just sensationalistic and self-aggrandizing.

How many times does Ted repeat, self-importantly, that only he knows that the best way into Afghanistan is through the North, not Pakistan in the South? Only a few weeks into the war Ted was ready to declare it a total failure of US foreign policy. And, while Ted was more than happy to point out the flaws in the our strategy for dealing with Bin Laden and his terrorist friends, he never offers any viable alternatives. Criticizing is easy. Solving real problems is hard.

The final insult comes toward the end of the book when Ted pines away about the racial and cultural harmony they have in Afganistan. He wonders why things can't be more like that here in the United States. So, now Afghanistan is a model the US should try to emulate? No thanks, Ted. I'll take our race relation problems over 30 years of nonstop war (much of it civil war).

After reading this book I felt embarassed for the author.