Descent Into Chaos, by Ahmed Rashid

Chronicles of a chaotic state When journalists flocked to Afghanistan in 2001, many of us were clutching Ahmed Rashid's book on the Taliban: an invaluable insight into the regime which at the time had little outside exposure, and was now about to be toppled. Another book much in demand among the hacks was George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman, not only a rollicking tale but also one that gave a pretty good account of the First Afghan War in the early 19th century. Seven years into the "war on terror" as Britain fights its fourth war in Afghanistan, Rashid, a distinguished and brave journalist, gives us his analysis of how and why the West, as he believes, is losing to the forces of militant Islam in this conflict. Some of his thesis on the Afghan debacle is pretty well-known and widely accepted: that the US and Britain... [read full story]