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Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
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Product Description
Based on his experiences as a journalist covering the civil war in Afghanistan for twenty years, traveling and living with the Taliban, and interviewing most of the Taliban leaders since their emergence to power in 1994, Rashid offers unparalleled firsthand information. He explains how the growth of Taliban power has already created severe instability in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and five Central Asian republics. He describes the Taliban’s role as a major player in a new “Great Game”—a competition among Western countries and companies to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Western and Asian markets. The author also discusses the controversial changes in American attitudes toward the Taliban—from early support to recent bombings of Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway and other Taliban-protected terrorist bases—and how they have influenced the stability of the region.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #47542 in Books
- Published on: 2001-03-01
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 294 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This is the single best book available on the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Afghanistan responsible for harboring the terrorist Osama bin Laden. Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has spent most of his career reporting on the region--he has personally met and interviewed many of the Taliban's shadowy leaders. Taliban was written and published before the massacres of September 11, 2001, yet it is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the aftermath of that black day. It includes details on how and why the Taliban came to power, the government's oppression of ordinary citizens (especially women), the heroin trade, oil intrigue, and--in a vitally relevant chapter--bin Laden's sinister rise to power. These pages contain stories of mass slaughter, beheadings, and the Taliban's crushing war against freedom: under Mullah Omar, it has banned everything from kite flying to singing and dancing at weddings. Rashid is for the most part an objective reporter, though his rage sometimes (and understandably) comes to the surface: "The Taliban were right, their interpretation of Islam was right, and everything else was wrong and an expression of human weakness and a lack of piety," he notes with sarcasm. He has produced a compelling portrait of modern evil. --John Miller
From Library Journal
Afghanistan's position as a crossroads in Central Asia made it part of the 19th-century Great Game of imperialism and brings it to international strategic prominence once again. Rashid is a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review who has covered Afghanistan's changing fortunes since the 1978 Soviet invasion. In his second book, he covers the origin and rise of the Taliban, its concepts of Islam on questions of gender roles and drugs, and the importance of the country to the development of energy resources in the region. His account of the Taliban's origins among the Pashtun refugees in Pakistani camps and their minimal education in Koranic schools from poorly educated teachers explains their lack of knowledge of the history and culture of their own country and of what it means to govern. The failed state that is now Afghanistan threatens to destabilize its neighbors by exporting both drugs and extremist views. Unlike Peter Marsden's Taliban: War Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan (Oxford Univ., 1998), this new work emphasizes the international implications of the Taliban and its government. A lucid and thoroughly researched account, it is recommended for academic and most public libraries.
-Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times, Richard Bernstein
One learns ... a great deal from Mr. Rashid's book about the nature of local Central Asian politics and the consequences of interference by outside powers.... valuable and informative.
Customer Reviews
A half quack arm chair expert
This fellow is an arm chair quack. He grew up in Pakistan, but that's all about it. Now he makes his living saying cocophony about Pakistan and that region of the world on US TV networks. And with so many networks looking to fill up their airtime, he is having no trouble making this living. He has no clue of what the conditions are on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Says that Musharraf could have 'nipped the evil in the bud' if he had acted sooner in Swat. If Musharraf had done that, then Mr Rashid would have accused Musharraf of being trigger happy. So if you can see, Mr. Rashid is just a monday morning quarter back. All he is doing is second guessing whatever Musharraf does. And in a couple of months he'll be doing the same with the new govt. in Pakistan, because that's what the US TV networks want him to say.
Why would you pay to read baloney from such a quack?
Interesting, now read "Detained Differences"
This was a great novel, go buy Detained Differencesby J. Robert Rowe. It is about Detainee Operations inside Afghanistan.
All about religion and Mullah Omar fundamentalism ...
If you want to understand Afghanistan latest history, this is a great choice. The narrative is center on the Talibans of course, how this group was invented after the end of the cold war and after fighting against the Soviets in a united front known as the Mujaheddin. It is clear to all of us that the Taliban are Islamic Fundamentalist and that its presence on Afghanistan has rendered the country on a violent and unstable path.
Again we found here the endemic problem of some countries of the middle east and central Asia: several ethnics groups with different Islamic religion flavours, Sunni and Shi'ite, with external players trying to consumate the country to a sole religion, and I am referring to external players like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan representing the Sunni side and Iran defending shiism. This is the pitiful case of Afghanistan and in this book all these importants facts are depicted by the author so you become aware of the difficult geography of this country, the ethnics groups that inhabit it and the relation to neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and Iran.
In my opinion, a worthy person that had the character, education and leadership to run Afghanistan future was the Lion of the Panjshir, Masud, but he was also killed either by the pickup warriors or by Bin Laden terrorist, with the latter the most likely. Now president Karzai, has a very difficult task to deal with, to pacify the country and the spirits, finish the war against the Taliban, improve the economy and the relations with their neighbours and of course help the people of Afghanistan. Is my belief that in order to do that, external aid is absolutely needed for a long time, in particular from the UN which must include more countries apart from the current ones. It is important to improve education for all, so these people do not based its life only on religion and to stabilize the country so Central Asia Energy projects can successful be realized, using Afghanistan as a transit for the gas and oil to South East Asia. I hope Afghanistan finally choose Peace as its way of living and get accustom to it.
