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Questions & Answers
Should the USA be more sensitive to the drug culture of Afghanistan?
This quote is from the AP:
"Villagers say the U.S. does not understand how complex alliances, violence and even drugs play out in their culture. The eyes of elderly Malik Bakhtiar well with tears as he recalls his brother's arrest by U.S. troops for apparently running a drug laboratory in his home. In certain regions of Afghanistan, people grow opium for their livelihood.
"They don't understand us," Bakhtiar says. "Every house has a gun. Every house has opium."
Should the USA, therefore, have more sensitivity to a culture that does not view drugs the same way we do?
Yes, it's silly to try and enforce 'your' values on societies with a totally different history/ culture. It's also silly to antagonise people who can be of help to you finding and capturing terrorists, lose their help , you're wasting your time !
What is a good book about the general history and culture of Afghanistan?
My husband is deploying soon and I want to learn more about where he is going. I don't really want a "textbook" like book. Just something informative and interesting. Thanks!
Don't start with those CIA/ Military books.
These books will build for you a general (non-hollywood/ Fox News) image of the Afghan people and society:
'The Kite Runner',
'The Bookseller of Kabul',
'A Thousand Splendid Suns',
'Valley of the Giant Buddhas',
'A History of Modern Afghanistan'
For a more thorough analysis of what has been going on on 'other' fronts, I recommend the two books by Ahmad Rashid:
'Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia'
and
'Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'
Can anyone recommend a good book about the general history and culture of Afghanistan?
My husband is deploying soon and I want to learn more about where he is going. I don't really want a "textbook" like book. Just something informative and interesting. Thanks!
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a novel but gives a pretty accurate depiction of Afghanistan
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