First published in 1985, this is a book written at the height of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Based on five clandestine trips into Afghanistan with the resistance, the book examines why the Soviets invaded in 1979 and what they were seeking to defend. The author analyses their deliberate policy of migratory genocide through a combination of aerial bombardments, political repression and economic blockades.
The book is written by the journalist Ed Girardet, one of the world's leading authorities on the conflict, whose particular strength is his dispassionate reporting style and his firsthand proximity to the conflict. He interviewed many of the leaders of the Afghan resistance, both inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps and he explains in depth the nature of the Afghan Islamic anti-communist struggle for independence.
This is a book in the finest tradition of war reporting on the front line and the reissue is essential reading for all those interested in the history of the conflict in Afghanistan.
In light of the scarcity of reliable information up to now, this informed appraisal of the war in Afghanistan is most welcome. Girardet, a correspondent for the MacNeil-Lehrer Report and formerly the Christian Science Monitor's correspondent in Afghanistan, addresses Soviet motives and ultimate objectives, the degree of U.S. involvement and the likely outcome. Based on information gathered in several trips and many interviews, the book reveals the pitiless application of Soviet anti-insurgency techniques against a primarily peasant resistance movement which, after six years, is still holding its own. The war costs the Kremlin between three and four billion dollars a year, with perhaps 40,000 Soviet soldiers already killed, and no end in sight. Girardet observes a similarity between this situation and American involvement in Vietnam. In cool, careful prose, he depicts the nightmare of aerial bombardment, armored ground assaults, brutal reprisals and gas attacks against villages. The book is in the highest tradition of war reporting, conveying not only the unique quality of the fighting itself but the social and political implications as well. January
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
