The Hardest Place
The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley
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4.8 • 16 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
COLBY AWARD WINNER • “One of the most important books to come out of the Afghanistan war.”—Foreign Policy
“A saga of courage and futility, of valor and error and heartbreak.”—Rick Atkinson, author of the Liberation Trilogy and The British Are Coming
Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war.
Drawing on reporting trips, hundreds of interviews, and documentary research, Wesley Morgan reveals the history of the war in this iconic region, captures the culture and reality of the conflict through both American and Afghan eyes, and reports on the snowballing missteps—some kept secret from even the troops fighting there—that doomed the American mission. The Hardest Place is the story of one of the twenty-first century’s most unforgiving battlefields and a portrait of the American military that fought there.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Morgan debuts with an exhaustive and deeply reported history of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan's Pech river valley and its tributary valleys, Korengal and Waygal. Since the start of the war against the Taliban in 2001, Morgan writes, resistance in this northeastern corner of the country has been relentless. American troops built bridges, roads, and networks of translators and informants, and navigated local rivalries over control of the logging and gemstone trades, but persistent "friendly fire" incidents and the mistreatment and even murder of detainees poisoned local relations. Morgan details the counterinsurgency theories driving U.S. strategy under top commanders such as Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, and reveals how frequent rotations and redeployments undermined the institutional knowledge of frontline troops. He chronicles firefights and drone strikes against Taliban insurgents and al-Qaeda operatives, tracks troop surges and withdrawals, profiles U.S. special forces soldiers who have deployed to the region multiple times, documents the emergence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, and describes the mixed reactions of Pech valley veterans who are now seeing American forces coordinate with the Taliban in their fight against ISIS. Morgan enriches his impressive research and insightful analysis with vivid writing and deft character sketches. The result is a definitive portrait of the epicenter of America's longest war.
