Understanding Afghanistan in Story
The morass that is Afghanistan seems beyond understanding—certainly to a western observer. This artificial collection of fierce tribes has swamped and destroyed armies down through the centuries: those of Genghiz Khan, the British, the Russians, and now Allied forces led by America. Will there be any honourable exit that leaves the country better off than it has been? Unlikely.
Leckie plunges us into a heroic story describing an attempt to forge an Afghan alliance in the dying days of the Soviet withdrawal. David Lassiter, war correspondent, after stints in Viet Nam and Cambodia that has left him on the brink of a nervous breakdown swears he will never again get involved in a country’s struggles. Then the Globalcom News Syndicate asks him to get an interview with a mercenary in Afghanistan who is none other than his brother Jesse whom he hasn’t seen for twenty years.
Haunted by memories of his berother’s kidnapping as a child from the very room where he slept he accepts. The book describes his trek through tribal territory to his brother’s haunt where he finds him addicted, married to a hauntingly beautiful Afghan woman, and guiding the Mujahadin in wreaking vengeance on the retreating Russians.
Globalcom’s head urges him to stay and head an elite multi-media team to record the dramatic events. David reluctantly stays and becomes emeshed in trying to save his brother from addiction and recording the skirmishes with Russians and their Afghan lackies. He becomes increasingly captured by the fierce allure of the land and its people and by his brother’s wife.
Leckie went to the places of which he writes and did impressive research on the languages, tribes and their customs. The book, in a setting only slightly diverse from today’s Afghan conflict, paints a vivid picture of the tribes and their endless conflicts as his brother Jesse seeks to weld them into a unified whole to avenge themselves on the Russians and govern a new Afghanistan.
The book is well written with a strong plot and vivid characters but perhaps one of its greatest strengths is in throwing light on the media’s fickleness, the intractibility of Afghanistan’s tribal conflicts, and very questionable manipulation by America through the use of arms.
Leckie plunges us into a heroic story describing an attempt to forge an Afghan alliance in the dying days of the Soviet withdrawal. David Lassiter, war correspondent, after stints in Viet Nam and Cambodia that has left him on the brink of a nervous breakdown swears he will never again get involved in a country’s struggles. Then the Globalcom News Syndicate asks him to get an interview with a mercenary in Afghanistan who is none other than his brother Jesse whom he hasn’t seen for twenty years.
Haunted by memories of his berother’s kidnapping as a child from the very room where he slept he accepts. The book describes his trek through tribal territory to his brother’s haunt where he finds him addicted, married to a hauntingly beautiful Afghan woman, and guiding the Mujahadin in wreaking vengeance on the retreating Russians.
Globalcom’s head urges him to stay and head an elite multi-media team to record the dramatic events. David reluctantly stays and becomes emeshed in trying to save his brother from addiction and recording the skirmishes with Russians and their Afghan lackies. He becomes increasingly captured by the fierce allure of the land and its people and by his brother’s wife.
Leckie went to the places of which he writes and did impressive research on the languages, tribes and their customs. The book, in a setting only slightly diverse from today’s Afghan conflict, paints a vivid picture of the tribes and their endless conflicts as his brother Jesse seeks to weld them into a unified whole to avenge themselves on the Russians and govern a new Afghanistan.
The book is well written with a strong plot and vivid characters but perhaps one of its greatest strengths is in throwing light on the media’s fickleness, the intractibility of Afghanistan’s tribal conflicts, and very questionable manipulation by America through the use of arms.
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