Blindsided By The Taliban

Author : Carmen Gentile
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2018-03-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9781510729704

Get Book

Blindsided by the Taliban by Carmen Gentile Pdf

I turn to see a rocket-propelled grenade screaming toward me. The ordinance strikes me in the side of the head, instantly blinding me in one eye and crushing the right side of my face. On September 9, 2010, while embedded with an Army unit and talking with locals in a small village in eastern Afghanistan, journalist Carmen Gentile was struck in the face by a rocket propelled grenade. Inexplicably, the grenade did not explode and Gentile survived, albeit with the right side of his face shattered and blinded in one eye. Making matters worse, his engagement was on the ropes and his fiancée absent from his bedside. Blindsided by the Taliban chronicles the author’s numerous missteps and shortcomings while coming to terms with injury and a lost love. Inventive and unprecedented surgeries would ultimately save Gentile’s face and eyesight, but the depression and trauma that followed his physical and emotional injuries proved a much harder recovery. Ultimately, Gentile would find that returning to the front lines and continuing the work he loved was the only way to become whole again. As only he can, Gentile recounts the physical and mental recovery which included staring only at the ground for a month, a battle with opiate-induced constipation and a history of drug addiction, attacks by Taliban assassins born of post-traumatic stress, the Jedi-like powers of General David Petraeus, and finding normalcy under falling mortars in an Afghan valley. The result is an unapologetic, self-deprecating, occasionally cringe-worthy, and always candid account of loss and redemption in the face of the self-doubt common to us all. Blindsided by the Taliban also features the author’s photos from the field that depict the realities of life in Afghanistan for soldiers and civilians alike. #KissedbytheTaliban

Author : Deborah Ellis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 178 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2004-03-04
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0192752847

Get Book

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis Pdf

Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul, Afghanistan impose strict limitations on women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest.

Author : Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781849044448

Get Book

My Life with the Taliban by Abdul Salam Zaeef Pdf

This is the autobiography of Abdul Salam Zaeef, a senior former member of the Taliban. His memoirs, translated from Pashto, are more than just a personal account of his extraordinary life. My Life with the Taliban offers a counter-narrative to the standard accounts of Afghanistan since 1979. Zaeef describes growing up in rural poverty in Kandahar province. Both of his parents died at an early age, and the Russian invasion of 1979 forced him to flee to Pakistan. He started fighting the jihad in 1983, during which time he was associated with many major figures in the anti-Soviet resistance, including the current Taliban head Mullah Mohammad Omar. After the war Zaeef returned to a quiet life in a small village in Kandahar, but chaos soon overwhelmed Afghanistan as factional fighting erupted after the Russians pulled out. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the discussions that led to the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. Zaeef then details his Taliban career as civil servant and minister who negotiated with foreign oil companies as well as with Afghanistan's own resistance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Zaeef was ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and his account discusses the strange "phoney war" period before the US-led intervention toppled the Taliban. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Pakistan, notwithstanding his diplomatic status, and spent four and a half years in prison (including several years in Guantanamo) before being released without having been tried or charged with any offence. My Life with the Taliban offers a personal and privileged insight into the rural Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock. It helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.

Author : Amy Waldman
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2019-08-27
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780316451581

Get Book

A Door in the Earth by Amy Waldman Pdf

From the bestselling author of The Submission: A young Afghan-American woman is trapped between her ideals and the complicated truth in this "penetrating" (O, Oprah Magazine), "stealthily suspenseful," (Booklist, starred review), "breathtaking and achingly nuanced" (Kirkus, starred review) novel. Parveen Shams, a college senior in search of a calling, feels pulled between her charismatic and mercurial anthropology professor and the comfortable but predictable Afghan-American community in her Northern California hometown. When she discovers a bestselling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has become a bible for American engagement in the country, she is inspired. Galvanized by Crane's experience, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join the work of his charitable foundation. When she arrives, however, Crane's maternity clinic, while grandly equipped, is mostly unstaffed. The villagers do not exhibit the gratitude she expected to receive. And Crane's memoir appears to be littered with mistakes, or outright fabrications. As the reasons for Parveen's pilgrimage crumble beneath her, the U.S. military, also drawn by Crane's book, turns up to pave the solde road to the village, bringing the war in their wake. When a fatal ambush occurs, Parveen must decide whether her loyalties lie with the villagers or the soldiers -- and she must determine her own relationship to the truth. Amy Waldman, who reported from Afghanistan for the New York Times after 9/11, has created a taut, propulsive novel about power, perspective, and idealism, brushing aside the dust of America's longest-standing war to reveal the complicated truths beneath. A Door in the Earth is the rarest of books, one that helps us understand living history through poignant characters and unforgettable storytelling.

Author : Alan Gratz
Publisher : Scholastic Inc.
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2021-02-02
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781338245776

Get Book

Ground Zero by Alan Gratz Pdf

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller. In time for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, master storyteller Alan Gratz (Refugee) delivers a pulse-pounding and unforgettable take on history and hope, revenge and fear -- and the stunning links between the past and present. September 11, 2001, New York City: Brandon is visiting his dad at work, on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center. Out of nowhere, an airplane slams into the tower, creating a fiery nightmare of terror and confusion. And Brandon is in the middle of it all. Can he survive -- and escape? September 11, 2019, Afghanistan: Reshmina has grown up in the shadow of war, but she dreams of peace and progress. When a battle erupts in her village, Reshmina stumbles upon a wounded American soldier named Taz. Should she help Taz -- and put herself and her family in mortal danger? Two kids. One devastating day. Nothing will ever be the same.

Author : Wayne E. Lee,Anthony E. Carlson,David L. Preston,David Silbey
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190920647

Get Book

The Other Face of Battle by Wayne E. Lee,Anthony E. Carlson,David L. Preston,David Silbey Pdf

Taking its title from The Face of Battle, John Keegan's canonical book on the nature of warfare, The Other Face of Battle illuminates the American experience of fighting in "irregular" and "intercultural" wars over the centuries. Sometimes known as "forgotten" wars, in part because they lackedtriumphant clarity, they are the focus of the book. David Preston, David Silbey, and Anthony Carlson focus on, respectively, the Battle of Monongahela (1755), the Battle of Manila (1898), and the Battle of Makuan, Afghanistan (2020) - conflicts in which American soldiers were forced to engage in"irregular" warfare, confronting an enemy entirely alien to them. This enemy rejected the Western conventions of warfare and defined success and failure - victory and defeat - in entirely different ways. Symmetry of any kind is lost. Here was not ennobling engagement but atrocity, unanticipatedinsurgencies, and strategic stalemate.War is always hell. These wars, however, profoundly undermined any sense of purpose or proportion. Nightmarish and existentially bewildering, they nonetheless characterize how Americans have experienced combat and what its effects have been. They are therefore worth comparing for what they hold incommon as well as what they reveal about our attitude toward war itself. The Other Face of Battle reminds us that "irregular" or "asymmetrical" warfare is now not the exception but the rule. Understanding its roots seems more crucial than ever.

Author : Yasmina Khadra
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307429421

Get Book

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra Pdf

Set in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul, this extraordinary novel "puts a human face on the suffering inflicted by the Taliban" (San Francisco Chronicle), taking readers into the seemingly divergent lives of two couples—and depicting with compassion and exquisite details the mentality of Islamic fundamentalists and the complexities of the Muslim world. Mohsen comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair. Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies. Yasmina Khadra brings readers into the hot, dusty streets of Kabul and offers them an unflinching but compassionate insight into a society that violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.

Author : Nadeem Aslam
Publisher : Random House India
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2013-02-08
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9788184003918

Get Book

The Blind Man's Garden by Nadeem Aslam Pdf

‘Love is not consolation, it is light’ From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil comes a novel set in the months after 9/11, when Western armies invaded Afghanistan—a story of love, hope and grief, of uncorrupted faith and of what it means to be alive. Jeo and his foster-brother Mikal leave their home in Pakistan to help care for wounded Afghans. Within hours of entering the wide-horizoned Afghan landscape, Mikal and Jeo are separated and, emerging from the carnage, Mikal begins his search for Jeo. But his deepest wish is to return home—to the young woman he loves and who loves him, Jeo’s wife. The Blind Man’s Garden maps a place both phantasmally beautiful and chilling. Taking us on a journey from Al Qaeda’s hideouts in Waziristan and American-built military prisons to a family left behind—Mikal’s and Jeo’s blind, regretful father, Jeo’s resolute wife and her superstitious mother—it unflinchingly examines war and brotherhood, devastation, separation and remorse, while celebrating the redemptive power of nature, art and literature.

Author : David B. Edwards
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2002-04-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520926875

Get Book

Before Taliban by David B. Edwards Pdf

In this powerful book, David B. Edwards traces the lives of three recent Afghan leaders in Afghanistan's history--Nur Muhammad Taraki, Samiullah Safi, and Qazi Amin Waqad--to explain how the promise of progress and prosperity that animated Afghanistan in the 1960s crumbled and became the present tragedy of discord, destruction, and despair. Before Taliban builds on the foundation that Edwards laid in his previous book, Heroes of the Age, in which he examines the lives of three significant figures of the late nineteenth century--a tribal khan, a Muslim saint, and a prince who became king of the newly created state. In the mid twentieth century, Afghans believed their nation could be a model of economic and social development that would inspire the world. Instead, political conflict, foreign invasion, and civil war have left the country impoverished and politically dysfunctional. Each of the men Edwards profiles were engaged in the political struggles of the country's recent history. They hoped to see Afghanistan become a more just and democratic nation. But their visions for their country were radically different, and in the end, all three failed and were killed or exiled. Now, Afghanistan is associated with international terrorism, drug trafficking, and repression. Before Taliban tells these men's stories and provides a thorough analysis of why their dreams for a progressive nation lie in ruins while the Taliban has succeeded. In Edwards's able hands, this culturally informed biography provides a mesmerizing and revealing look into the social and cultural contexts of political change.

Author : Roberta Gately
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-11-09
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1439191441

Get Book

Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately Pdf

Roberta Gately’s lyrical and authentic debut novel—inspired by her own experiences as a nurse in third world war zones—is one woman’s moving story of offering help and finding hope in the last place she expected. Gripped by haunting magazine images of starving refugees, Elsa has dreamed of becoming a nurse since she was a teenager. Of leaving her humble working-class Boston neighborhood to help people whose lives are far more difficult than her own. No one in her family has ever escaped poverty, but Elsa has a secret weapon: a tube of lipstick she found in her older sister’s bureau. Wearing it never fails to raise her spirits and cement her determination. With lipstick on, she can do anything—even travel alone to war-torn Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. But violent nights as an ER nurse in South Boston could not prepare Elsa for the devastation she witnesses at the small medical clinic she runs in Bamiyan. As she struggles to prove herself to the Afghan doctors and local villagers, she begins a forbidden romance with her only confidant, a charming Special Forces soldier. Then, a tube of lipstick she finds in the aftermath of a tragic bus bombing leads her to another life-changing friendship. In her neighbor Parween, Elsa finds a kindred spirit, fiery and generous. Together, the two women risk their lives to save friends and family from the worst excesses of the Taliban. But when the war waging around them threatens their own survival, Elsa discovers her only hope is to unveil the warrior within. Roberta Gately’s raw, intimate novel is an unforgettable tribute to the power of friendship and a poignant reminder of the tragic cost of war.

Author : Brad Snyder,Tom Sileo
Publisher : Da Capo Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-06
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780306825156

Get Book

Fire in My Eyes by Brad Snyder,Tom Sileo Pdf

The inspiring story of Brad SnyderÕs journey from the Naval Academy to Afghanistan, from being blinded by an IED explosion to winning Paralympic gold Ê In Afghanistan, Lieutenant Brad Snyder had one of the worldÕs most dangerous jobs: to find and destroy enemy bombs, as an elite US Navy Special Operations warrior. On September 7, 2011, the former Naval Academy captain of the swim team stepped on an improvised explosive device while helping save the lives of his patrolÕs Afghan counterparts. The subsequent explosion left Snyder permanently blind. Through unrelenting pain, hard work, and dedication, Snyder qualified for the US Paralympic Team and on September 7, 2012Ñone year to the day after suffering his devastating injuryÑhe won a gold medal in menÕs swimming for Team USA in London. Brad SnyderÕs journey from darkness to light embodies the courage of AmericaÕs new ÒGreatest GenerationÓ and serves as an inspiration to all of us.

Author : Sarah Chayes
Publisher : Univ. of Queensland Press
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0702235881

Get Book

The Punishment of Virtue by Sarah Chayes Pdf

Author : Douglas Alan Cohn
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2016-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781493023738

Get Book

World War 4 by Douglas Alan Cohn Pdf

Thirty-five years ago, Sir John Hackett published The Third World War, which speculated how WW3 might start in the mid-eighties and how it would be fought. His scenario started with the death of Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia, followed by the break-up of that country and Russian and Warsaw Pact tanks rolling through the Fulda Gap from East Germany into West Germany. Since it is now fashionable to call WW3 either the Cold War or the war against Islamic extremism, the time is right to publish a new speculative book about how WW4 might start and how it most likely would be fought. Among the scenarios author Douglas Cohn includes in World War 4: Although Russia is now occupying parts of Ukraine, it's unlikely that will become a global war because the U.S. president is reluctant to do anything about it. But the Baltic states, which Russia is now eyeing, are different: they're members of NATO, and Article Five of the NATO Charter requires all NATO member states to go to war to defend any NATO member under attack. Putin is notoriously scornful of Obama, and he thinks Obama will do nothing about a "Ukraine lite" invasion of Latvia, Lithuania, and/or Estonia. All three have Russian populations left over from the Soviet era, and it's easy to imagine Putin invading "to protect the ethnic Russians," exactly the way he did in Ukraine. If the U.S. stands up for the Baltics, the other NATO nations will, too, leading to WW4. Another possible scenario is a rapidly militarizing China picking any number of excuses to fight the U.S. China believes her time has arrived, as U.S. wealth and power wane (as China sees it) and China’s waxes. For example, all China has to do is decide that the time is right to take back Taiwan, betting that reluctant-warrior President Obama will do nothing. If we or our far-eastern allies decide to fight, however, that would also lead to WW4. Similarly, Japan has decided that she can no longer count on the protection of the American nuclear umbrella, the guarantor of Pax Americana for the past 70 years. Japan is exploring constitutional changes that will allow her to build a military (and has also reignited the debate about whether or not to acquire atom bombs) that will no longer be defensive only. New military guidelines announced in 2010 direct the focus of the Japanese military away from Russia and towards China. Heightened territorial disputes and Chinese provocations against Japan in the East China Sea could easily result in a global conflict. Douglas Cohn presents these and other scenarios for exactly how, in our dangerous word, WW4 could start, and how it would be fought: the strategies, the tactics, the units and troops, the air wings, the naval fleets, and the weapons.

Author : Latifa,Chékéba Hachemi
Publisher : Virago Press
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1860499619

Get Book

My Forbidden Face by Latifa,Chékéba Hachemi Pdf

In a moving tale of oppression and courageous defiance, sixteen-year-old Latifa tells her story of growing up in war torn Afghanistan.

Author : Jere Van Dyk
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2010-06-22
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 142994997X

Get Book

Captive by Jere Van Dyk Pdf

An American reporter's chilling account of being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill. Captive is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody—not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death. Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.