Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia

Comments (5) on “Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia”

1. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid is a friend and supporter of Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai. Rashid warns that Afghanistan is facing state collapse, Pakistan is in meltdown, and the five Central Asian states are dictatorships. He claims that the most important thing in the world is to rebuild these nations.

   He shows that President Karzai’s regime depends on warlords and drug barons, who are backed by the CIA. Britain’s forces there are supposed to be helping to cut opium production, but their policy of paying farmers to destroy their opium crops has been `disastrous’. Opium production soared from 4,000 tons in 2005 to 8,200 in 2007. Half of this was grown in British-occupied Helmand, where the rest of Afghanistan’s opium was sold.

   The USA is allied to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which are al-Qaeda’s main sponsors. The USA has given more than $10 billion to Pakistan’s President Musharraf. Bush backed him even after he tore up the constitution, sacked the judges, imprisoned more than 12,000 people and muzzled the media. This `created immense hatred for the U.S. Army and America’.

   The USA’s torture of POWs has further increased this hatred. As Rashid writes, “By following America’s lead in promoting or condoning disappearances, torture, and secret jails, these countries found their path to democracy and their struggle against Islamic extremism set back by decades. Western-led nation building had little credibility if it denied justice to the very people it was supposed to help. It could well be argued that over time Islamic extremists were emboldened rather than subdued by the travesty of justice the United States perpetrated. The people learned to hate America. … The deterioration of human rights in each country became linked to that government’s proximity to the CIA.”

   So the USA’s wars have increased the al-Qaeda threat, particularly in Pakistan. Rashid also notes that US interventions have failed in Yugoslavia and East Timor and made a hell-hole of Iraq.

   And then – after all this – Rashid calls on the USA, not to get out of the region, but to get deeper in. More sanely, he also calls on the peoples of the region to take responsibility for moving their nations towards democracy.
   
   Rating: 1 / 5

2. While there is worthwhile information in this book,it is apparent the authors disdain for the west which has provided him with employment.It portrays Operation Enduring Freedom as a bungling affair at best.Another Monday morning quarterback with No solutions.
   Rating: 1 / 5

3. This book is a logged detail of all of the villages destroyed and destructive activities involved in the 1928 war. More details than I needed to know
   Rating: 2 / 5

4. service was quick and mailing was efficient. product came in excellent condition. was a gift for a family member and they seem to enjoy it.
   Rating: 5 / 5

5. A better title for this excellent book might be “Maintaining the Chaos”. The author is probably right in his assessment of US mismanagement of war, aid and influence in the Middle-East. How could it be otherwise though? The region is populated by hordes of people stuck in prehistoric, tribal mentality. Modern American leaders and policy makers stand about zero chance of knowing how to positively affect the outcome of events there. I doubt that we could dig up anyone in the West who could do much better than what has been done. Our history is not good, no matter who is in power.

   If, however, some boys and girls in Afghanistan, or other countries in the region, get the chance now to go to school where they might not have otherwise, the world has made a little progress.
   Rating: 4 / 5