Taliban Narratives

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Taliban Narratives

Author : Thomas H. Johnson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 676 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2018-02-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780190911355

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Taliban Narratives by Thomas H. Johnson Pdf

Why has the Taliban been so much more effective in presenting messages that resonate with the Afghan population than the United States, the Afghan government and their allies? This book, based on years of field research and the assessment of hundreds of original source materials, examines the information operations and related narratives of Afghan insurgents, especially the Afghan Taliban, and investigates how the Taliban has won the information war. Taliban messaging, wrapped in the narrative of jihad, is both to the point and in tune with its target audiences. On the other hand, the United States and its Kabul allies committed a basic messaging blunder, failing to present narratives that spoke to or, often, were even understood by their target audiences. Thomas Johnson systematically explains why the United States lost this "battle of the story" in Afghanistan, and argues that this defeat may have cost the US the entire war, despite its conventional and technological superiority.

My Life with the Taliban

Author : Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher : Hurst & Company Limited
Page : 382 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2011-06-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781849041522

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My Life with the Taliban by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef Pdf

Abdul Zaeef describes growing up in poverty in rural Kandahar province, which he fled for Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979. Zaeef joined the jihad in 1983, was seriously wounded in several encounters and met many leading figures of the resistance, including the current Taliban head, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued after the Soviet withdrawal, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. He then details his Taliban career, including negotiations with Ahmed Shah Massoud and role as ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Islamabad and spent four and a half years in prison in Bagram and Guantanamo before being released without charge. My Life with the Taliban offers insights into the Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock and helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.

Love & War in Afghanistan

Author : Alex Klaits,Gulchin Gulmamadova-Klaits
Publisher : Seven Stories Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2011-01-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781583229750

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Love & War in Afghanistan by Alex Klaits,Gulchin Gulmamadova-Klaits Pdf

Love and War in Afghanistan presents true stories of fourteen ordinary men and women living in Northern Afghanistan. In a quarter-century of uninterrupted war, the people of Afghanistan have endured foreign invasions, ethnic strife, a fundamentalist Islamic totalitarian regime, and the unending crossfire of rival warlord factions. The country remains an object of fascination for journalists, academics, and filmmakers from around the world. In the midst of it all it is a startlingly powerful experience to discover, here, the voices of the Afghan people themselves. Young lovers who elope against the wishes of their kin; a mullah whose wit is his only defense against his armed captors; a defector from the Soviet army; a woman who is forced to stand up to gangsters in Tajikistan—their dramatic stories emerge in their own unforgettable words. Whether in the sudden awakening of mercy in a Taliban militiaman, the lingering contempt of a woman for her husband’s first wife, the pain and confusion of flight into exile, or the resourcefulness of a child who must provide for an entire family, the real focus of these narratives is the strength of solitary individuals faced daily with their own vulnerability. Men, women, orphans, widows, widowers, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Turkmens, schoolteachers, mullahs, former Taliban, mujahideen, big brothers, little sisters, captive wives, lovers in flight: Love and War in Afghanistan tells their stories, putting human faces onto a country torn by war.

The Taliban Reader

Author : Alex Strick van Linschoten,Felix Kuehn
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2018-07-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780190935054

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The Taliban Reader by Alex Strick van Linschoten,Felix Kuehn Pdf

Who are the Taliban? Are they a militant movement? Are they religious scholars? The fact that these and other questions are still raised with frequency is testimony to the way the movement has been studied, often at arm's length and with scant use of primary sources. The Taliban Reader forges a new path, bringing together an extensive range of largely unseen sources in a guide to the Afghan Islamist movement from a unique insider perspective. Ideal for students, journalists and scholars alike, this book is the result of an unprecedented, decade-long effort to encourage the emergence of participant-centered accounts of Afghan history. This ground-breaking collection, ranging from news articles and opinion pieces to online publications and poems transcribed by hand in the field, sets the stage for a recalibration of how we understand and study the Afghan Taliban. It challenges researchers to forge new norms in the documentation of conflict and provides insight into the future trajectory of political Islamism in South Asia and the Middle East.

The Taliban at War

Author : Antonio Giustozzi
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Afghanistan
ISBN : 9780190092399

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The Taliban at War by Antonio Giustozzi Pdf

Introduction --The collapse of the Emirate and the early regrouping, 2002-4 --The apogeum of the Quetta Shura, 2005-9 --The emergence of alternative centres of power to Quetta --The crisis of the Quetta Shura 2009-13 --The Taliban's tactical adaptation --Organisational adaptation --The troubled comeback of the Quetta Shura 2014 --Conclusion.The impossible centralisation of an anti-centralist movement --Epilogue.

Kids of Kabul

Author : Deborah Ellis
Publisher : Groundwood Books Ltd
Page : 146 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2012-05-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781554982035

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Kids of Kabul by Deborah Ellis Pdf

Since its publication in 2000, hundreds of thousands of children all over the world have read and loved The Breadwinner, the fictional story of eleven-year-old Parvana living in Kabul under the terror of the Taliban. But what happened to Afghanistan’s children after the fall of the Taliban in 2001? In 2011, Deborah Ellis went to Kabul to find out. The twenty-six boys and girls featured in this book range in age from ten to seventeen, and they speak candidly about their lives now. They are still living in a country at war. Violence and oppression exist all around them. The situation for girls has improved, but it is still difficult and dangerous. And many children — boys and girls — are still supporting their families by selling items like pencils and matches on the street. Yet these kids are weathering their lives with remarkable courage and hope, getting as much education and life experience and fun as they can. All royalties from the sale of Kids of Kabul will go to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (www.cw4wafghan.ca), which administers Parvana’s Fund, supporting schools, libraries and literacy programs for Afghan women and children. Key Text Features photographs maps glossary introduction historical context additional information Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6 Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.9 Compare and contrast one author's presentation of events with that of another (e.g., a memoir written by and a biography on the same person).

My Life with the Taliban

Author : Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2010-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781849044448

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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.

I Am Malala

Author : Malala Yousafzai
Publisher : Little, Brown
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2013-10-08
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780316322416

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I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai Pdf

A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE As seen on Netflix with David Letterman "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.

My Guantanamo Diary

Author : Mahvish Khan
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2008-01-11
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781586486617

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My Guantanamo Diary by Mahvish Khan Pdf

Mahvish Khan is the only Afghan-American to walk into Guantanamo of her own accord. This unique book is her story, and the story of the men she grew to know uniquely well inside the cages of Guantanamo. Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents. She was outraged that her country, the USA, seemed to have suspended its tradition of equality for all under the law with regard to those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and so she volunteered to translate for the lawyers - including British lawyer and founder of Reprieve Clive Stafford Smith - acting pro bono for the prisoners. Because she spoke their language, understood their customs and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home, they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away at home. Some at Guantanamo are terrorists who deserve to be convicted and sentenced as such. Some are paediatricians and school teachers. We cannot tell the difference until we see them as individuals with their own unique stories. They deserve that much. No other writer has had access to the detainees. This book is a testament to their captivity. It documents the voices of men who have been tortured and held in a black hole of indefinite detention without legal recourse for years. It shows who they are and also allows readers to see that these men are more similar to us than they are different.

Television and the Afghan Culture Wars

Author : Wazhmah Osman
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 388 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020-12-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780252052439

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Television and the Afghan Culture Wars by Wazhmah Osman Pdf

Portrayed in Western discourse as tribal and traditional, Afghans have in fact intensely debated women's rights, democracy, modernity, and Islam as part of their nation building in the post-9/11 era. Wazhmah Osman places television at the heart of these public and politically charged clashes while revealing how the medium also provides war-weary Afghans with a semblance of open discussion and healing. After four decades of gender and sectarian violence, she argues, the internationally funded media sector has the potential to bring about justice, national integration, and peace. Fieldwork from across Afghanistan allowed Osman to record the voices of many Afghan media producers and people. Afghans offer their own seldom-heard views on the country's cultural progress and belief systems, their understandings of themselves, and the role of international interventions. Osman analyzes the impact of transnational media and foreign funding while keeping the focus on local cultural contestations, productions, and social movements. As a result, she redirects the global dialogue about Afghanistan to Afghans and challenges top-down narratives of humanitarian development.

Strategic Narratives, Public Opinion and War

Author : Beatrice De Graaf,George Dimitriu,Jens Ringsmose
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2015-02-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781317673286

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Strategic Narratives, Public Opinion and War by Beatrice De Graaf,George Dimitriu,Jens Ringsmose Pdf

This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems. This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general.

The Taliban Don't Wave

Author : Robert Semrau
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2012-08-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781118261477

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The Taliban Don't Wave by Robert Semrau Pdf

Captain Robert Semrau’s military trial made international headlines—a Canadian soldier serving in Afghanistan arrested for allegedly killing a grievously wounded Taliban soldier in the field. The trial and its outcome are a matter of public record. What you are about to read about the tour of duty that inspired this book is not. What you are about to read is an emotionally draining and mind-snapping firsthand account of war on the ground in Afghanistan. It’s raw and explosive. Names have been changed to protect the brave and not so brave alike. What you are about to read is an account of soldiers who live, fight and die in a moonscape of a country where it’s sometimes hard to tell your friend from your enemy. It’s about trying to hold it together when a mortar attack is ripping your friends and allies apart, and your world unravels before your eyes. Rob Semrau wrote this book to tell us about the sheer hell that is the Stan, but also to recognize the incredible courage and compassion he witnessed in the heat of battle. The soldiers you are about to meet and the events that befall them will linger on in your mind long after you have closed these pages.

The Taliban

Author : Mark Silinsky
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014-04-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780313398988

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The Taliban by Mark Silinsky Pdf

Understand the complexities of the most lethal insurgent group of America's longest war—the Taliban. Battle hardened, tribally oriented, and deeply committed to its cause, the Taliban has proven itself resourceful, adaptable, and often successful. As such, the Taliban presents a counterinsurgency puzzle for which the United States has yet to identify effective military tactics, information operations, and Coalition developmental policies. Written by one of the Department of the Army's leading intelligence and military analysts on the Taliban, this book covers the group's complete history, including its formation, ideology, and political power, as well as the origins of its current conflict with the United States. The work carefully analyzes the agenda, capabilities, and support base of the Taliban; forecasts the group's likely course of action to retake Afghanistan; and details the Coalition forces' probable counterinsurgency responses. Author Mark Silinsky also reviews the successes and failures of the latest U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine to extrapolate the best strategies for future counterinsurgency campaigns.

The Afghanistan Papers

Author : Craig Whitlock,The Washington Post
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2022-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781982159016

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The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock,The Washington Post Pdf

A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 ​The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.

Guardians of God

Author : Mona Kanwal Sheikh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780199089802

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Guardians of God by Mona Kanwal Sheikh Pdf

This book is an account of the emergence and key events related to the origin and expansion of Pakistani Taliban since 2001, with a focus on the role of religion in their actions, policies and worldviews. The author brings to light rare insight into the ideological basis of Pakistani Taliban, drawing upon first-hand research comprising participant observation, interviews, content analysis of organizational literature and Talibani communications, such as recruitment videos, recorded speeches, leaflets and pamphlets, jihadi anthems and press releases to the local media. The book demonstrates how religion simultaneously appears as an object to be defended, as a threat, as the purpose of violence, as the source of rules and limitations on violent action and as the source of motivational imagery and myths. Going into an analysis of just what role religion plays in violent activities of this group and how does it do so, the author shows that Talibani narratives are both secular and religious at the same time, contradicting a clear-cut divide between religious and secular motivations for violence. The book advocates against extreme positions that accord religion either a primary or a negligent position in explaining the raison d’être of Pakistani Taliban. It makes a plea for more informed and empathetic approach instead of the purely militaristic stance towards extremism, which has only helped it grow in the past.