How We Won and Lost the War in Afghanistan: Two Years in the Pashtun Homeland

Description

In June 2011, the hallways of the district government center in rural Dand District, Afghanistan hummed with activity, with scores of local village elders visiting offices to appeal for assistance and handouts. Outside, insurgents had been pushed out of the district and were confined to sporadic attacks along its fringes. Farmers sold their produce, thousands of children attended school and people voted in district elections. At the very heart of the Taliban insurgency, the government had won the war. However, the district faced a crisis that threatened its future. Resources were shrinking and the new government had concerns about remaining relevant to the people once America left. Within 12 months, Americans pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving the Afghan government to fail, undermining the achievements of thousands of soldiers and civilians. How We Won and Lost the War in Afghanistan: Two Years in the Pashtun Homeland by Douglas Grindle tells the never-been-told, first person account of how the war in Afghanistan was won, and how the newly created peace started to slip away when vital resources failed to materialize and the American military headed home. By placing the reader at the heart of the American counter-insurgency effort, Grindle reveals little-known incidents that include the failure of expensive aid programs to target local needs, the slow throttling of local government as official funds failed to reach the districts, and our inexplicable failure to empower the Afghan local officials even after they succeeded in bringing the people onto their side. How We Won and Lost the War in Afghanistan presents the side of the hard-working, competent Afghans who won the war and what they really thought of the U.S. military and their decisions. Written by a former field officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, this book tells of how America's desire to leave the Middle East ultimately overwhelmed our need to sustain victory.

Douglas Grindle is an analyst and former freelance journalist whose work has appeared in scores of media outlets, including CSPAN, Fox News Radio, and numerous television stations across the country. He spent six years as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq, two years as a field researcher for the Department of Defense in Afghanistan, two years as a district advisor with USAID, and, most recently, five months in Kabul as a civilian researcher for the U.S. Army.

This is an incredible account of how, after winning the Afghan war, the Americans abandoned the territory and watched as aid intended to ameliorate the lives of Afghan citizens was wasted or failed to be given to the people who needed it. * Books Monthly * All in all, this is a good book, painting a warts-and-all picture of the trials and tribulations of someone who did his best to help the Afghan people for two long years. * Army Rumour Service *