The Taliban Shuffe
Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A true-life Catch-22 set in the war-torn countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents.
Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent — she is candid, self-deprecating, and funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about the ability of US might to win hearts and minds in the region. As she does the ‘Taliban shuffle’ between conflict zones, Barker offers a close-up account of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban.
When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the US and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping.
Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdity and tragedy of our modern wars.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barker, a journalist for ProPublica, offers a candid and darkly comic account of her eight years as an international correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Afghanistan and Pakistan, beginning shortly after September 11. With self-deprecation and a keen eye for the absurd, Barker describes her evolution from a green, fill-in correspondent to an adrenaline junkie who gets hit on by Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani prime minister, and becomes adept in "how to find money in a war zone, how to flatter a warlord, how to cover a suicide bombing, how to jump-start a car using a cord and a metal ladder." Barker reveals how profoundly the U.S. continues to get Afghanistan wrong that American personnel in the country live in a bubble, rarely dealing with Afghans, that they trample on local customs by getting routinely and "staggeringly" drunk despite Islam's prohibition of alcohol, and throw offensive costume parties at the Department for International Development (DFID). In equal measure, Barker elucidates the deep political ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S.'s role in today's "whiplash between secularism and extremism," and blasts Pakistan's leaders for destroying their nation through endless coups and power jockeying.
