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Cargando... Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontierpor Joel Hafvenstein
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. The book describes Joel's experiences in 2004/5 in Helmand. The struggle against its multiple problems, isolation, poverty, violence, tribalism, infested with arms, warlords, corrupt police, politicians and armies, and Opium undermining everything. Clearly the place could be incredibly beautiful, and has real possibilities. It needs long term, generous, input, and somehow to impose security for ordinary people, but seems perversely determined to resist all attempts to help. Best of luck to whichever Power tries to help now. ( ) Even though it is four years old, this book is still right on target for any American trying to follow what is happening in Afghanistan today.The way the author mixes travalogue, history, and character sketches is remarkable. He is truly a talented writer. One of my favorite sections is a dialogue in which the author, who is about to become engaged, fends off his Afghan companions questions about his love life and American courting customs with observations about the landscape through which they are passing. Wonder how the Taliban got started, how a contract company in the US works with a US agency, what is the real story about why training Afghan army and police is so far behind after 10 years ? It is here in short dispersed paragraphs. The Amazon reviews are excellent. One is even by another worker who was there when the author was. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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OPIUM SEASON is the story of a young American working on the brutal fault line where the war on terror meets the war on drugs. Joel Hafvenstein didn't know what he was getting into when he signed up for a year in Afghanistan's rugged Helmand province, the heart of the country's opium trade. He was running an American-funded aid program with two goals: to help tens of thousands of opium poppy farmers make a legal living, and to win hearts and minds away from the former Taliban government.The author and his friends were soon caught up in the deadly intrigues of Helmand'sdrug trafficking warlords. He found himself dodging Taliban in poppy-filled mountain ravines and arguing with murderous, AK-47 toting bandits in police uniform. He saw both the stark beauty and the terrible cruelty that Afghans live with every day. At the height of his team's success, the Taliban attacked, killing his colleagues and destroying their work. These ambushes heralded a Taliban resurgence across the country; they also showed the weaknesses in America's strategy that continue to undermine every American accomplishment in Afghanistan.This is a riveting story of intrigue, adventure, and tragedy at the far edge of the world. In the tradition of The Places In Between and The Kite Runner, OPIUM SEASON describes the odyssey of an American chasing a seemingly impossible goal in the midst of chaos. With an author s afterward considering developments in Afghanistan since the book s hardcover publication in 2007, it will draw national attention from the media and from book readers hungry to understand this shattered, beautiful country and its deeply divided people." No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)958.1047History and Geography Asia Central Asia AfghanistanClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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