Afghanistan War History

From one of America's preeminent national security journalists, an explosive, news-breaking account of Donald Trump's collision with the American national security establishment, and with the world It is a simple fact that no president in American history brought less foreign policy experience...

Every war has its "signature wounds", injuries inflicted by frightening new weapons and tactics the U.S. military has never faced before. Blistered flesh from mustard gas in World War I. Petroleum burns from oil and gas igniting on the surface of the Pacific in World War II. And now, lost legs, hands, and most devastating of all, genitals, as a result of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in today's war in Afghanistan.

In 1958, Richard Nixon described Afghanistan as "unconquerable." On August 15, 2021, he was proven right. After twenty years of intervention, US and NATO forces retreated, enabling the Taliban to return to power. Tens of thousands were killed in the long, unwinnable war, and millions more were displaced—leaving the future of Afghanistan hanging in the balance. Leading expert Amin Saikal traces the full story of America's intervention, from 9/11 to the present crisis.

This audiobook challenges several longstanding notions about the American way of war. It examines US military practice (strategic and operational) from the War of Independence to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to determine what patterns, if any, existed in the way Americans have used military force. Echevarria surveys all major US wars and most every small conflict in the country's military history.

Dieses Hörbuch wird die Erinnerung an den Krieg in Afghanistan für immer verändern. Die bahnbrechenden Enthüllungen des Washington Post-Reporters und dreimaligen Pulitzer-Preisfinalisten Craig Whitlock zeigen eindrücklich, wie drei aufeinanderfolgende Präsidenten – Bush, Obama, Trump – und ihre militärischen Befehlshaber die weltweite Öffentlichkeit konsequent über Amerikas längsten Kriegseinsatz belogen.

Joining the ranks of Unbroken, Band of Brothers, and Boys in the Boat, the little-known saga of young German Jews, dubbed The Ritchie Boys, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, came of age in America, and returned to Europe at enormous personal risk as members of the U.S. Army to play a key role...

In a remote enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them. The team was caught in a deadly ambush that threatened not only their lives but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them.

Kandahar. The ancient desert crossroads and, as of fall of 2001, ground zero for the Taliban and al-Qa'ida in southern Afghanistan. In the northern part of the country, the US-supported Northern Alliance has made progress on the battlefield, but in the south, the country is still under the Taliban's bloody hold and al-Qa'ida continues to operate there. With no "Southern Alliance" for the US to support, a new strategy is needed if victory is to be achieved. Veteran CIA officer Duane Evans is dispatched to Pakistan to "get something going in the South." Foxtrot in Kandahar is his story.

The US military began its 20-year incursion in Afghanistan, quite simply, because of the jihadist attacks on September 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed. There was never any doubt in official Washington about who was responsible. On the same day the attacks took place, President George W. Bush ordered his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to draw up plans to attack the jihad terror group al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where the 9/11 hijackers had trained for their mission.

"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work - and in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. Britain has invaded Afghanistan twice before in the nineteenth century. Both times tenacious Afghan fighters defended their country to humiliating British defeats. The Soviet Union also discovered what a tough enemy the Afghans are after...

Dead Men Risen, winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize for books, is the epic story of a beleaguered British battle group fighting desperately to prevent the Taliban from seizing Afghanistan's Helmand province just as the US Marines arrive to take over. Best-selling author Toby Harnden describes how men from the coal mining valleys and slate quarry villages of Wales found themselves in the most intense combat faced by British troops for a generation.

Join Air Force veteran Dr. W. Lee Warren as he chronicles his fascinating, heartbreaking, and enlightening experience as a neurosurgeon in an Iraq War combat hospital. Warren's life as a neurosurgeon in a trauma center began to unravel long before he shipped off to serve the U.S. Air Force in...

One of NPR's Best Books of 2019 “Lyrical . . . A thoughtful perspective on America’s role overseas.” —Washington Post From a decorated Marine war veteran and National Book Award finalist, an astonishing reckoning with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iraq...

Nur wenige Monate nachdem in Afghanistan eine über 25-jährige Kriegsgeschichte zu Ende ging, begleitet Roger Willemsen 2006 eine afghanische Freundin auf ihrem Weg in die Heimat: von Kabul nach Kunduz und durch die Steppe zum legendenumwobenen Oxus, dem Grenzfluss zu Tadschikistan – die abenteuerliche Reise durch ein erwachendes Land. Am Ende ist Roger Willemsens Buch weit mehr als der persönliche Bericht von einer faszinierenden Reise, sondern eine literarische Betrachtung der Grundlagen allen Reisens.

Following September 11, the United States successfully overthrew the Taliban regime. It established security throughout the country, and Afghanistan finally began to emerge from more than two decades of conflict. But Jones argues that, as early as 2001, planning for the Iraq War siphoned off resources and talented personnel, undermining the gains that had been made. After eight years, the United States had pushed al-Qaeda’s headquarters about one hundred miles across the border into Pakistan.

In 2014, H was back in Afghanistan, providing security for the Japanese Embassy in Kabul. In 2021, when the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital began, it was a tough call for the Japanese government to leave behind their significant investment in Afghanistan’s future. When H finally got the go-ahead to extract the embassy’s diplomats and staff, he was leading the only security team remaining in a city rapidly filling with Taliban fighters.

Captain Benjamin Tupper spent a year in Afghanistan in an Embedded Training Team, tasked with training, leading in combat, and mentoring the Afghan Army to victory against the brutal Taliban. Writing and recording from a remote outpost, Tupper's dispatches were posted on the blog The Sandbox and broadcast on NPR, bringing vivid snapshots of America's longest ongoing war to a wide audience back home.

Colonel Pat Proctor’s long overdue critique of the army’s preparation and outlook in the all-volunteer era focuses on a national security issue that continues to vex in the 21st century: Has the army lost its ability to win strategically by focusing on fighting conventional battles against peer enemies? Or can it adapt to deal with the greater complexity of counterinsurgent and information-age warfare?

A daring new novel, at once timely and timeless, set around an American family and the ever-shifting sands of history and memory and legacy that define them (“An expert juggling act.” —Stephen Markley, New York Times Book Review) Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the...