Summary

The Prologue of this book introduces a major theme of the entire text; the author states that American officials viewed the war in Afghanistan, and the larger War on Terror, in terms of categories: terrorists and non-terrorists, or fundamentalists and democrats. Gopal argues that most Afghans do not fit neatly into these categories. As a result, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, which had originally seemed successful, would become a failure. Further, Afghans saw both sides of the conflict as far from perfect, as reflected in an Afghan proverb, “there are no good men among the living, and no bad ones among the dead.”

Chapter One begins in the Afghan village of Gayawa on the morning of September 11, 2001. A young boy arriving in the village finds it nearly deserted, with the exception of a small group of people hiding inside the local...