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| Author: | Matthew Cole |
|---|
March 10, 2008
Excerpt:
On a recent bitterly cold winter day, I sat huddled on a red Persian carpet in an unheated Kabul office, waiting for a visitor who, I was told by a trusted friend, would help me understand why America is not winning its war in Afghanistan.
A stocky, bearded figure in a gray vest, a faded brown shalwar kameez and a cream-colored Pashtun shawl appeared at the door. He removed his shoes and walked on cracked, callused feet over the carpet to sit cross-legged beside me. Our meeting was conducted in secrecy. My guest was, until early 2007, a Taliban commander of 50 fighters in North Waziristan, Pakistan, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) near the Afghan border where both al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents operate. Ever since he left the Taliban, he has been living in fear of assassination for treason. I thanked him in English for his willingness to meet, and he answered me in Pashto, the chief language of southern and eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan's Tribal Areas, without a trace of emotion.
"If you had tried to interview me this time last year," he said, "I would have killed you." Then he reached past my feet and poured himself a glass of sugary green tea.
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America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
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