Chris Johnson - Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace

Praise for the first edition

A vivid, intelligent journey through post 9/11 Afghanistan and the wider region. Thoughtful, astute and deeply moving this account of the post-war crisis in Afghanistan addresses all the major issues of our disturbed world today. The clarity and intellectual forthrightness of this book will help us to understand the violent and confused world we all live in now. This is a deeply sincere book in which the voices of ordinary Afghans describe their past and their future. The most powerful book on post 9/11 Afghanistan that you will be likely to read. Ahmed Rashid, author

This book provides a devastating critique of US and UN post-conflict policies in Afghanistan. Writing out of more than fifteen years experience in the country and a deep empathy for the Afghan people, the authors dissect the flawed assumptions, misunderstanding, errors and in some cases lack of good faith than have stalled progress in rebuilding this shattered country. It should be required reading for all those interested in why post-conflict peace operations can fail despite good intentions. Andrew Mack, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver

Amidst a burgeoning literature on Afghanistan, two seasoned observers treat readers to a trenchant review of decades of international toying with the Afghan people and state. Their outrage is palpable

and contagious. Larry Minear, former director, Humanitarianism and War Project, Tufts University

This is a refreshing new look at the layers of complexity that characterize assistance to Afghanistan. The style is blessedly free of academic jargon and bureaucratic rhetoric and enlivened by occasional wry asides. The often blunt analyses of realities on the ground gain credibility from the many years Johnson and Leslie worked within the aid delivery system, heightened by their sustained engagement with Afghans in cities and villages. The difficulties the international community and government have in trying to understand one another are interwoven with unusual insights into the nuances of attitudes rooted in social customs. The recommended operational changes will benefit all who care about the well-being of Afghanistan. Nancy Hatch Dupree, The Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University

Johnson and Leslie have brought together a wealth of first-hand understanding of Afghan society and its changing conditions to produce a very rich and moving book. It is informative, thoughtful and unsettling. It makes for very valuable reading. Amin Saikal, Professor of Political Science, the Australian National University

About this book

Considered upon first publication by many to be too pessimistic, Johnson and Leslies analysis of the situation in Afghanistan has proved to be tragically accurate. This updated edition adds a new chapter to the 2004 original, exploring how claims of success have often proved to be hollow, as Afghanistan is increasingly portrayed as replacing Iraq as the bad war. Afghanistan looks at a country now widely recognized to be in deep crisis, examining the corrosive effect of international military forces and the corruption and muddle that jeopardize efforts at state-building. As before, the analysis is rooted in the experience of ordinary Afghans and their relationship to their complex history.

Now, more than ever, it is important to understand Afghanistan and examine the recent experience of international engagement, and the myths and half-truths that abound. Politically marginal after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, it regained strategic importance after September 2001, as the first of a new generation of international interventions. Now, increasingly detached from the people it is meant to serve, the administration in Kabul struggles to govern even the diminishing areas of the country over which it has some sway. Whatever political progress that has been possible now takes place against a backdrop of mounting casualties among Afghan civilians and NATO troops. Many Afghans feel themselves to be trapped, hostage between two forces, both of which claim to be their liberators.

Drawing on long experience of living and working in Afghanistan, Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie examine what the changes of recent years have meant in terms of Afghans sense of their own identity and hopes for the future. They argue that the so-called war on terror cannot be won in Afghanistan but requires even-handed political responses to the problems that strip people of the wider region of hope and foster extremism.

About the authors

Chris Johnson lived in Afghanistan from 1996 to April 2004. She worked first for Oxfam, then set up a joint UN/donors/NGO research unit, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, where she worked until early 2002. She then undertook a wide range of consultancy work for different organizations concerned with the transition. She now works for the UN Mission in Sudan.

Jolyon Leslie is an architect who managed UN rehabilitation programmes in Afghanistan betweeen 1989 and 1995. Between 1997 and 2000, he was the UN regional coordinator in Kabul, and returned to the country in early 2002. He currently manages an urban rehabilitation and conservation programme in the old quarters of Kabul and Herat.