Having read most of the combat literature that has been produced in recent times on the present day conflict in Afghanistan, including the authors earlier work A Million Bullets, I was looking forward to this “fully updated” version of James Fergusson’s Taliban.   And I have to say from the beginning that it does not disappoint.  Mr Fergusson is a free lance journalist who has huge experience covering Afghanistan. In 1997 he reported the fall of Mazar I Sharif in the north to the Taliban and in 1998 became the first western journalist to interview one of the key players in the region, the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.  You know therefore that he is the correct person to write this book.

The book takes us from the birth of the Taliban in 1994 to the situation in late 2010 with the author arguing, supported by interviews with a range of Afghans that the West’s strategy is not working.   It is worth saying at this point that the word Taliban has by now become one that is now used well beyond its original meaning to describe anyone or any organisation that is unreasonable in the extreme – often by the media about something that is, in the grand scheme of things,  merely one of life’s passing irritants.  The word originally comes from the Pashto (the language of the Pashtun people of southern Afghanistan) for the plural of Talib, the Arabic word for an Islamic Student.   And Talib’s have been part of Islam, in the scholarly sense, since the religion’s birth. 

The first part of the book describes the birth of the Taliban; a response by a very small part of Afghanistan (a single district!) to the depredations and chaos during the rule of the Warlords that followed the departure of the Soviet Army.   The first attack on a checkpoint operated by ex-mujahadein bandits snowballed into a phenomenon that ended up taking over the government of nearly the entire country.  Mr Fergusson then takes us on a fascinating journey showing how something that started out with such good intentions became demonized in the west as the epitome of evil fanaticism – perhaps the most well known symbols of this were the treatment of women, the banning of television and public executions in the Kabul football stadium.

What Mr Fergusson does very well is to show us what lies behind the cheap headlines and easy prejudices, without sugar coating the very real issues with the Taliban governance of Afghanistan and without becoming an apologist for the Taliban regime.  A very poor summary of part of his argument could be; yes they made mistakes but they never set out to rule a country, merely clear bandits from the local roads.

We then move on to what some might feel is the most sensitive and potentially explosive part of the book, the relationship between Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.  It is here that Mr Fergusson develops a theme that runs through the book (and that any student of history will be all too familiar with), the misunderstandings that happen between different peoples with different and unfamiliar cultures.  We may live in a fully wired world but the potential for us still not understanding what we say to each other are the same as a hundred or a thousand years ago.  For example one of the issues is the lack of understanding or appreciation of the guest culture so deeply imprinted in Pashtun society and also that the Taliban did not really understand that America was a giant who you underestimate at your peril (in a geo-military sense).  Indeed after 9/11 one the Taliban’s diplomats tried reminding his leaders, in a classic case of those who don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, of what the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour led to; Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

The rest of the book deals with the current ISAF and US involvement in Afghanistan and looks at how one might end the current conflict.  Mr Fergusson clearly feels that the war from a western point of view is not one that can be won militarily and that the only way forward for both sides is negotiation.  Of course this means “talking to terrorists”.  But through a series of interviews with numerous Afghans (including an active Taliban commander in an operational environment) the author points out that there is an increasing risk that a significant percentage of the Afghan population will turn against the Western forces and that US and NATO forces will find themselves not just fighting the Taliban, Al-Qaida and numerous foreign volunteers but a large percentage of the population.  Indeed he considers that already many Afghans are fighting not for the return of the Taliban Government but merely to be rid of the foreigners.  Negotiation might not be one option, but the only option.

This is an excellent read; I think it may be more challenging for some nationalities to read and accept Mr Fergusson’s arguments (perhaps easy for us in the UK – this will be our 5^th war in Afghanistan!)  However I think it is worth being challenged and the author writes in an easy to read way but remains authoritative and informative throughout.  This isn’t a blood and guts, all action read like Attack State Red, 3 PARA, or Task Force Helmand but it is essential reading if you want to understand the conflict in Afghanistan. 

Available now in paperback published by Corgi Books, priced £8.99 (ISBN 9780552162838).

Review written by: Paul Robinson, Staff Writer