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Wall Street Journal
42 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘To Lose a War' Review: Back Again in Kabul
Afghanistan was an American national nightmare for two decades. It began with a war launched there in late 2001, after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, and ended in a Vietnam-like military withdrawal under President Biden in August 2021—an ignominious pullout that was set in motion by President Trump the year before. Some 2,500 U.S. troops were killed during those two decades, and the cost to the American taxpayer of this fundamentally honorable, frequently naive and always brutal entanglement has been put at $2.3 trillion—all spent 'To Lose a War,' as Jon Lee Anderson titles his book on Afghanistan. The book's subtitle, 'The Fall and Rise of the Taliban,' is depressingly apt. Shortly after the war began, the U.S. and its allies defeated the Taliban—a cadre of austere and radical Islamist warriors who had established a Shariah-state in Afghanistan in 1996—only to see the same benighted group return to power in 2021. They had waited 20 years for their own restoration. ('You have the watches, but we have the time,' goes an adage attributed to the Taliban.) Now ensconced in power, the Taliban is ripping out all the modernity—however superficial—that had been brought to Afghanistan in their absence. Mr. Anderson is a long-serving war correspondent and staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. He first reported on Afghanistan in the late 1980s when the occupying Soviets were driven out by the mujahideen, an alliance of Afghan nationalists, tribal warlords and Islamist guerrillas who enacted their own defiant chapter in a long tradition of hostility to outsiders. 'Afghanistan has always been more of a battleground of history than it has been a nation,' writes Mr. Anderson, and the Soviets were the latest in a long line of foreign armies sent packing by 'the hardy Afghans.' 'To Lose a War' is a compilation of Mr. Anderson's previously published essays on Afghanistan (with a sprinkling of unpublished material). This is his second such collection, his first being 'The Lion's Grave' (2002). The latter, a concise book, was 'a chronicle of the first year of the American presence in Afghanistan.' Mr. Anderson had returned to the country in the wake of 9/11 and wrote an insightful series of dispatches at a time when Americans were thirsting for knowledge of a cryptic foe in an unfamiliar land. The last of these pieces was an investigation into who killed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary mujahideen leader, on Sept. 9, 2001—two days before the al Qaeda attacks on U.S. soil. An admirable feat of reportage done at great personal risk, it was published in June 2002.
News24
an hour ago
- News24
Serbia's political crisis escalates into clashes
Rival groups clashed in Serbia amid anti-government protests, leaving dozens injured and resulting in police intervention. Demonstrations sparked by the Novi Sad tragedy and corruption concerns target President Vucic, demanding investigations and early elections. A military officer fired during protests; police detained nearly 50 people amidst accusations of repression and biased policing. Clashes between rival groups of protesters in Serbia left dozens injured overnight, police said on Thursday, as months of anti-government demonstrations boiled over into street violence for a second night. A wave of anti-corruption protests has gripped Serbia since November, when the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station roof killed 16 people, a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. Anti-graft protesters again gathered in several cities across Serbia late on Wednesday. That was mainly in response to a previous attack by ruling party supporters on demonstrators in the town of Vrbas, about 160 kilometres north of the capital Belgrade. For the second night running, large groups of pro-government supporters, most wearing masks, confronted protesters. The two groups hurled bottles, stones and fireworks at each other. Police arrested nearly 50 people across the country, and around 30 riot police were injured. READ | Kenya protests: 16 dead as government denounces 'terrorism disguised as dissent' The worst violence was reported in parts of Belgrade and Novi Sad, where the protest movement first began. One man, later identified as a military police officer, fired a pistol into the air as protesters approached the ruling party's offices in Novi Sad, causing panic. Footage also showed supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party launching fireworks at protesters gathered outside the party's headquarters. Police intervened with tear gas, and stun grenades could also be heard. 'Intensifying crackdown' Frustrated with government inaction, protesters have demanded an investigation into the Novi Sad tragedy and piled pressure on right-wing President Aleksandar Vucic to call early elections. Over the past nine months, thousands of mostly peaceful, student-led demonstrations have been held, some attracting hundreds of thousands. However, this week's violence marks a significant escalation and indicates the increasing strain on Vucic's populist government, which has been in power for 13 years. Since 28 June, when around 140 000 demonstrators gathered in Belgrade, the government has responded with an 'intensifying crackdown' on activists, according to a statement by UN human rights experts released earlier this month. Protesters and those linked to the movement have faced a 'troubling pattern of repression' including excessive police force, intimidation and arbitrary arrest, the experts said. Vucic has remained defiant, repeatedly rejecting calls for early elections and denouncing the demonstrations as part of a foreign plot to overthrow him. The gun incident Following the Novi Sad shooting incident, officials confirmed the man was a member of a special military police unit, usually tasked with protecting government ministers. He had fired his weapon while 'on a routine assignment when attacked by about 100 people', officials said. The officer, Vladimir Brkusanin, told journalists on Thursday: 'I used my firearm and fired a shot into the air in a safe direction. At that moment, the attackers scattered.' Footage widely shared online showed a man wearing a black T-shirt and no clear military insignia pointing a pistol into the air near protesters. He also appeared to be carrying a shield. Maxim Konankov/NurPhoto via Getty Images Military officials said that seven members of the same military police unit had also been injured while on duty to 'protect a specific person', but gave no further details. Student protesters accused the police of protecting pro-government supporters while doing little to stop the attacks on their own gatherings. The students wrote on their official Instagram page: The authorities tried to provoke a civil war last night. They announced further protests for Thursday night. Vucic, who visited pro-government encampments overnight, denied his supporters had started the violence. 'No one attacked them anywhere,' he said of the anti-government protesters, speaking at a late-night press conference. 'They went everywhere to attack those who think differently,' he added. While the protests have so far led to the resignation of the prime minister and the collapse of his Cabinet, Vucic remains at the helm of a reshuffled government.
Washington Post
2 hours ago
- Washington Post
‘Vulture' is a scorched-earth critique of war reporting
'Innocence is a kind of insanity,' Graham Greene wrote in 'The Quiet American,' his classic novel about 1950s Vietnam. The innocent in question is a young CIA agent, freshly baked in the halls of Harvard and ready to impose freedom on the Vietnamese at any cost. 'Innocence always calls mutely for protection,' Greene wrote, 'when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it.'
