The Punishment Of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After The Taliban (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Sarah Chayes offers an incisive, on-the-ground look at the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. She informs her observations with historical research, ongoing contact with many significant political players in the country and the experience of living in the country for many years, and comes up with a better understanding of the forces at play than I have seen anywhere else. Her story begins while she is working as a foreign correspondent for NPR, and living with an Afghani family in Kandahar. Most telling, perhaps, is her recollection of the reaction to her stories by NPR management. It comes as no surprise to those of us who have mourned the right-wing tilt of much of NPR since the Republicans took control of Washington in 2000. (See http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/ for daily updates) So many mornings in my home have been interrupted by screams of outrage. I cannot imagine how unspeakable it must have been for a reporter of Chayes’ depth to have to confront such daily ignorance back home. Sorry, we don’t want to confuse the American public with nuance or any story that does not toe the extant political line. Thankfully, Chayes was offered an opportunity, outside of NPR, to do some good in a country she had come to love. Taking a position as a representative for a non-governmental-organization, or NGO, Chayes sought to make a difference in this broken country. Chayes offers us further insight in to the workings of non-profits in Afghanistan, but most of all tells us about how the Afghans relate to each other and to the USA and where those relationships fall in a historical perspective. You will learn a lot and find answers to questions you never thought to pose. Structurally, Chayes offers contrasting pictures of two main characters. Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal was a police chief and ultimately a friend to Chayes, a bright, basically good guy who tried to do the right thing in the wrong place. Chayes attends his funeral in the opening chapter and pledges to find out who killed him. She offers us a history of his career, pointing out the influences that impacted his ability to function in this or that place and job. Gul Agha Shirzai is his shadow image, a warlord with considerable political savvy and very little by way of scruples. Following the trail of these two individuals offers considerable opportunity for explaining how things work in Afghanistan.It is a grim portrait Chayes paints. There was a time when Americans were indeed welcomed, and the Taliban reviled. But now, having seen how the USA drove out one band of psychopaths only to install another, patience with America has run out. Chayes goes into serious detail about how this works in the real world, why it is that the US selects this group or person to support while that or another group or person is ignored. One of the wonderful things about Chayes' book is that she offers several chapters on the history of Afghanistan. These help explain why some ethnic groups view each other with such suspicion and hostility, tradition.It was interesting to learn that the word “chain” refers not only to a set of overlapping metallic links, but also to having to pay off a chain of brigands in order to travel on major roads in the country. It was this chain that the Taliban was able to remove, but that the USA has inadvertently restored. She shows how the Taliban is pretty much a creation of Pakistan, designed to keep Afghanistan from becoming a functional nation. There is much reportage on specifics supporting the fact that without Pakistani support, the Taliban would never have become a major power in Afghanistan, and would not, now be resurgent there. Most alarming was the disappointment she felt with Karzai, the prime minister who seemed to have the charisma, intelligence and courage to lead the nation in a new direction. As it happens, not so much. And so, our hopes for the nation’s future are not reinforced. We get to see that there are many good people in Afghanistan. But the odds are against them.Chayes' story is one told from the living rooms of the powerful (she worked for one of Karzai’s relatives and had met with most of the important people in the nation) to the neighborhoods in which she lives, among the locals. Hers is a hands-on view, visceral, grounded, incisive, informative and compelling. The Punishment of Virtue is a clear must-read for anyone with an interest in goings on in that part of the world.P 74 [following the ouster of the Taliban from Kandahar in 2001:] it is no wonder many Kandaharis viewed the coming change with trepidation.“Now will be the era of robbers,” a young auto mechanic told me in late November 2001, after tribesmen had looted a warehouse for refugees just inside Afghanistan, in the last days of the U.S. bombing. I asked if he didn’t trust the tribal elders to maintain order after the Taliban departed.“No, I don’t.” He was emphatic. “They held power before, and they plundered the people and did bad things to them.” Other shopkeepers and small businessmen told of reverting to the defensive measures they had learned during the mujahideen nights: sleeping in different places each night, bringing all their wares home at the end of the day, and shuttering their empty stalls. P 101As Michael Barry analyzes it, leadership among Pashtuns is acquired by a pretender’s ability to extract wealth from a lowland power in one of those three familiar forms—plunder or tribute or subsidy—and distribute it among his men. Ahmed Shah’ ability in this regard was undeniable. P 101[Afghanistan:] is a state founded not on a set of thoughts held in common and articulated through texts and institutions, but rather a state founded on the strategic nature of its territory—the crux between empires. It is a state founded on a fluid and tenuous interaction between collective structures, structures of nation, of tribe, of family, and a highly developed sense of freedom, a violent aversion to submission.P 107[In Kandahar:] there was no hostility to the American presence. On the contrary, Kandaharis were looking to the Americans for help. They expected the Americans to help them gain their country back, help them rein in their own leaders’ well-remembered corruption, help them come up with a new version of qanum, of law and order, which would be a little less repressive than the Taliban’s rendition. Help them start making something of themselves. I told this to the young marine. I told him U.S. soldiers were in zero danger. They were seen as Kandahar’s ticket out of backwardness.“That’s really interesting,” the marine replied. “I had a feeling that’s how things were. See, they keep giving us these briefings about the situation here, and I’ve been wondering if they’re bullshitting us. They keep saying this is a combat mission. ‘Combat?’ I’m saying. ‘What combat?’ There’s nothing happening out here. I’m feeling pretty dumb in this hole in the ground. And I’m getting a little ticked off too. I think they’re taking advantage of us. I feel like we’re just a symbol—like a great big American flag stuck in the dirt out here. What’s the use of that? I’d like to do something real. I’d like to get out there and start building that road.I wanted to throw my arms around the kid. “And you know what?” I said. “If you built the road, it would do more for your security than another thousand guys out here in foxholes. The Afghans would protect you. If they saw you helping them, they would take care of you. I had this entire conversation down on tape. It was going in my story. Because, like the tale young Fayda had told me on the way to Kandahar a couple of weeks before, it seemed to hold the crux of what was already going wrong.But my editor nixed it. She said there was nothing new or interesting in this conversation. Soldiers are always disgruntled. This marine was just the same as every other grunt.
Great title, not a very informative book. Despite Sebastian Junger's line on the back ("Every American who wants to know why planes flew into buildings on Sept 11 must buy this book"), this book has nothing to do with that. Nor is Ahmed Rashid or Steve Coll right in their reviews. I work in Afghanistan (been here 7 months, will be here for 15+ more) and to be honest... by and large, the things she describes are just not all that significant. The murder of her friend (and subsequent investigation) were interesting, but the rest of it... not so much. She makes huge sweeping statements about minor things - she discusses how, when one foreigner working in Kandahar was killed, 'a line had been crossed.' Really? This country sees dozens of people die every week. The project she worked on (building a few houses) will not contribute substantially to the well-being of Afghanistan in the future. Her ideas ("How to fire a warlord in 8 easy steps" - really, she writes the full thing right in the book) are silly - she introduces this topic (how to fire warlords) with a bit of humor, but then later gets angry when her document isn't taken seriously by... anybody, be they US Ambassadors or Karzai. Her chapters go all over the place - during her personal narrative (the book reads more like one long diary entry than anything else) she bounces around to big topics like 'the coming of islam' and chronicles various past empires and their involvement here. Towards the end of the book, we're getting chapters summarizing one or two months - she clearly just flew back into town, checked up on things, and left. These chapters are also only a few pages long - literally, less than 5 in several cases. As for her conclusion, she writes the words 'this isn't much of a conclusion.' I totally agree - she wanted this book to be something taken seriously (clearly) but all in all, she didn't have a really unique experience that would let her do that. She knows a few people, but everyone (really) has met the people she writes about. She has a few ideas, but many people have better ideas. She has built a few houses - most people do far more than that while they're here. Many work on long-term, big-picture projects designed to give Afghanistan what it really needs (infrastructure and education) rather than cosmetic updates - a house painted here, a farm cooperative there. She had a few interesting lines on the impact of the Soviet invasion and what it did to Afghan 'courage'.Don't let this be the first book you read about Afghanistan.
What do You think about The Punishment Of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After The Taliban (2006)?
This is a weird little number. The author was a reporter for National Public Radio and went in with the U.S. invasion in 2001. She was charmed by both the people and the region she went to - Kandahar. So she left NPR, set up her own charity organization and settled in to do good. She is quickly disillusioned by the U.S. military and government's lack of understanding of the Afghan people and the continuing role Pakistan has been playing in keeping things stirred up. Also, she's a bit too self-important for my taste, but she did do some research on Afghanistan's history and that was interesting.
—Joyce
An excellent example of a former journalist becoming an NGO within Afghanistan before the US and the coalition of the willing invasion and during the first few months of that invasion. We look into the nightmarish life within the warzone with the perpetual improvised explosive ordinances claiming the lives of people known to Sarah Chayes in this tell all version of her experiences in Afghanistan. A candid look at the war against Terrorism from the village level and the daily routines of Sarah Chayes' host family. She reveals some of her unbiased political views which are highly subjective of course but very important as pre-deployment text to read for many US military and coalition of the willing to read and to mentally digest before deployment.
—Tim
I have (finally!) finished reading “The Punishment of Virtue; Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban,” by Sarah Chayes. It took as lot longer than I thought it would to finish it. I am both sorry and glad it is over.This is an intriguing and complex look at warlordism in Afghanistan. It is at times thrilling, a true page turner, made even more exciting by the fact that it is a true insider’s account of post 9-11 Afghanistan. Sarah Chayes certainly knows Afghanistan like no one else - she has lived and worked there, researched elusive primary sources and intimately mingled with leaders throughout the country. She does an amazing job of explaining warlordism, its roots and current implications, though sometimes the purely historical chapter can be a bit of a laborious read.That being said, I have a few complaints.Ms. Chayes’s background is in radio- it was as a reporter for NPR that she first went to Afghanistan. There are times in this book that it seems written for radio, rather than print. Not a lot, but enough to make you reread a sentence here and there to make sure you understand. There were many times, too, when the descriptions got overly multisyllabic - lots of million dollar words - enough to detract from the setting she was trying so hard to describe. Its been a long time since I needed a dictionary so often while reading a book in English. Her command of vocabulary is impressive- just sometimes a little disruptive.Beyond writing style, Ms. Chayes sets herself apart from other foreigners in country. She more than once looks down on aid workers, chastising them for their Thursday night parties and their lack of continuity (in this case not staying in country long enough). She also criticized aid organizations for “being played” by the Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans. That aid becomes political is to some degree inevitable in any country. She condemns them with an attitude of knowing better, when in fact in the end, she doesn’t.Its absolutely beguiling how she places herself right in the middle of reconstruction politics. She is certainly well connected, working personally with local governors, police chiefs, and the president’s brother. She also holds company with US ambassadorial and military higher ups, Afghan cabinet members and President Karzai himself. Its difficult to tell sometimes, however, whether she is a trusted consult or an opinionated pest. She certainly has strong and well founded opinions of what needed to happen, but it felt like she shared them in such patronizing ways. For example, a memo she drafted for President Karzai was entitled, “How to Fire a Warlord in 8 Easy Steps.” Having never met President Karzai, I guess I can’t judge, but it seems like offering him something akin to “Running Afghanistan for Dummies” is a bit pompous.All in all, it is a very good book. Ms. Chayes has left no stone unturned in this book. It makes me wish I had paid more attention to names and titles during the Afghan elections, and it certainly makes me more aware of the politics going on today. It is a must read for anyone interested in Afghan politics, development or history. You will learn a lot from this book. You will look at Afghanistan a little differently after reading it. It might take you a little longer than you might think (to get through the history chapters) but you’ll be glad you did.
—40brown
