No Good Men Among the Living
Anand Gopal
Jan 2015 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Assaf Cohen
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10 hr 51 min
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Told through the lives of three Afghans, the stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan—and then brought the Taliban back from the dead.
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a U. S.-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.
Though their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the U. S. invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist-yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A heartbreaking story of mistakes and misdeeds, No Good Man Among the Living challenges our usual perceptions of the Afghan conflict, its victims, and its supposed winners.
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a U. S.-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.
Though their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the U. S. invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist-yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A heartbreaking story of mistakes and misdeeds, No Good Man Among the Living challenges our usual perceptions of the Afghan conflict, its victims, and its supposed winners.
Told through the lives of three Afghans, the stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan—and then brought the Taliban back from the dead.
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in Ame...
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About the author
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travals of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and the 2015 Helen Bernstein Award. It was awarded the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for demonstrating "why the United States' emphasis on counterterrorism at the expense of nation-building and reconciliation inadvertently led to the Taliban's resurgence after 2001. Gopal is notable for his reporting in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He is believed to be one of the few Western journalists to have embedded with the Taliban, an experience that forms part of the basis of No Good Men Among the Living. In 2012 Gopal reported for Harper's Magazine on the town of Taftanaz in Syria, which suffered a massacre at the hands of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2014 he reported for Harper's on a murderous U.S.-backed police chief in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He has reported for the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and Harpers and other outlets.
Assaf Cohen is an Audie Award-nominated and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. His voice can also be heard in video games and dubbed international titles. On camera, he's guest starred and had recurring roles on over fifty TV shows, and appeared in numerous films, including two Academy Award-winning pictures.
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travals of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and th...
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