Why we must never forget the war in Afghanistan

Christina Lamb's brave and exceptional account of her time reporting from Afghanistan highlights the failings of the West

Only a brave journalist would agree to be the guest of honour at a military charity dinner at which more than half of the other invitees are cocksure junior officers just returned from Helmand who think they’ve seen and done it all. Only an exceptional one would leave those same guests in no doubt as to who had actually seen and done more in Afghanistan. Christina Lamb is just such a journalist, and in Farewell Kabul she has produced a brave and exceptional book.

The “West’s” failure to grasp the problem of Pakistan is perhaps the dominant strategic theme of the book. Like Adam Curtis’s stylish if simplistic film Bitter Lake, the absurdity of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan while ostensibly allied with Pakistan comes across with cold clarity. The way in which the well-intentioned but underprepared and ill-equipped Nato allies were played by Afghans and Pakistanis alike (not to mention Saudi Arabia and Iran behind the scenes) would almost be funny if it wasn’t so deadly serious and cripplingly expensive, most of all for the Afghans themselves. There is black humour: the dodgy commercial flights into Kabul, the Energy Minister nicknamed “the Minister of Darkness” because there’s no power, the absurd interior décor choices of the dollar-enriched warlords. - Read More at Telegraph

Why we must never forget Afghanistan

Battle of the war films