by David Loyn
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Gall, Sandy. War Against the Taliban: Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012.
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________. The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan. London: Orion Publishing, 2012.
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________. The Praetorians. New York: Penguin, 2016.
Loyn, David. Frontline: Reporting from the World’s Deadliest Places. London: Michael Joseph, 2005.
________. In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
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Mattis, Jim, and Bing West. Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. New York: Random House, 2019.
McChrystal, General Stanley. My Share of the Task: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2013.
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________. The Gamble: General Petraeus and the Untold Story of the American Surge in Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2009.
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________. Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2012.
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________. Obama’s Wars. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
________. Fear: Trump in the White House. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 McChrystal, Stanley; My Share of the Task—A Memoir [MYSOT]; Penguin Publishing Group; 2013; p351.
2 Author interview.
3 Landler, Mark; New York Times; January 1, 2017; https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/asia/obama-afghanistan-war.html.
4 Obama, Barack; A Promised Land; Penguin Books Ltd; 2020; pp564–565.
5 Midshipman is a navy (and marine) term for officer cadet.
6 Some five hundred people were raped and murdered in a Vietnamese village.
7 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138459/fred-kaplan/the-end-of-the-age-of-petraeus.
8 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2013–08–12/limits-counterinsurgency-doctrine-afghanistan.
9 Author interview with head of Moby Group and founder of TOLO TV, Saad Mohseni.
10 Rynning, Sten; NATO in Afghanistan—The Liberal Disconnect; Stanford University Press; 2012; p136.
11 Waltz, Michael G.; Warrior Diplomat; Potomac Books; 2014; p203.
12 Boudreau, Brett; We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us; NATO Stratcom Centre of Excellence; 2016.
13 Author interview with William Byrd, 2004.
14 Sedwill, Mark; former NATO senior civilian representative in Kabul; evidence to House of Lords Select Committee; October 14, 2020.
15 Tuchman, Barbara; The March of Folly; Knopf; 1984.
16 Johnson, Chris and Leslie, Jolyon; Afghanistan—The Mirage of Peace; Zed Books; 2013; Kindle loc 463.
CHAPTER 1: NOT BUILDING A NATION
1 McChrystal; MYSOT; p96.
2 Ibid.; p77.
3 Dao, James; New York Times; June 1, 2002; http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/01/world/new-us-commander-at-helm-in-afghanistan.html.
4 Wright, Donald P. with the Contemporary Operations Study Team; A Different Kind of War—The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001–September 2005; Combat Studies Institute Press; Fort Leavenworth; 2009.
5 Franks, Tommy; American Soldier; Harper Collins; 2009; p324.
6 Congressional Research Service; July 2009; https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf.
7 McChrystal; MYSOT; p76.
8 Author interview with McChrystal.
9 Ibid.
10 Franks; p315.
11 Author interview with General Sir Nick Carter.
12 Author interview.
13 McChrystal; MYSOT; p77.
14 Loyn, David; Frontline—Reporting from the World’s Deadliest Places; Michael Joseph; 2005; pp61–62.
15 Schroen, Gary C.; First In; Random House Publishing Group; 2005; p187.
16 Ibid.; p162.
17 Riedel, Bruce; Deadly Embrace Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad; Brookings Institution; 2012; Kindle loc 897.
18 Schroen; p173.
19 Woodward, Bob; Bush At War; Simon & Schuster; 2002; Kindle loc 2775.
20 Franks; p313.
21 Ibid.; p314.
22 Ibid.; p311.
23 Grenier, Robert; 88 Days to Kandahar; Simon & Schuster; 2015; p60.
24 Grenier; p166.
25 The details in this account come from Dam, Bette: A Man and a Motorcycle—How Hamid Karzai Came to Power; Ipso Facto; 2014.
26 Blehm, Eric; The Only Thing Worth Dying For; Harper Collins; 2010; p155.
27 Coll, Steve; Directorate S—The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016; Penguin; 2018; p99.
28 Grenier; p163.
29 Deposed by his cousin Daoud Khan in 1973.
30 Blehm; p273.
31 Pentagon press conference; December 6, 2001.
32 A Different Kind of War; p113.
33 Pomfret, John and Chandrasekaran, Rajiv; Washington Post; November 17, 2001; https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/11/17/report-taliban-set-to-pull-out-of-kandahar/aa2eae8a-091c-4b69-a3ca-c5b5cc8cce8c/.
34 Chayes, Sarah; Punishment of Virtue—Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban; Portobello; 2007; p57.
35 Ibid.; p77.
36 Dam; Kindle loc 2187.
37 Afghanistan—Post-Taliban Governance, Security and U.S. Policy; Congressional Research Service; https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf.
38 Author interview.
39 Dam; Kindle loc 402.
40 Author interview.
41 Dobbins, James F.; After the Taliban—Nation-Building in Afghanistan; Potomac Books; 2008; p108.
42 Ibid.; p103.
43 Ibid.; p109.
44 Washington Times; Monday April 7 2008; https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/7/bush-a-convert-to-nation-building.
45 Dobbins; After the Taliban; p13.
46 Dobbins, James F. and others; America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq; RAND; 2003.
47 U.S. manual on stability operations FM 3–07; https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3–07.pdf; 2008.
48 Dobbins; After the Taliban; p105.
49 Hanagan, Deborah Lynn; NATO and Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan 2001–2014; King’s College London; August 2017; https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal.
50 Dobbins; After the Taliban; p107.
51 Gall, Sandy; War Against the Taliban—Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan; Bloomsbury; 2012; p67.
52 Haass, Richard N.; Newsweek; July 18, 2010; https://www.newsweek.com/haass-time-draw-down-afghanistan-74467. This was the same size of force employed by the Soviet Union in the 1979 invasion, a far less permiss
ive environment than was faced after the Taliban.
53 A Different Kind of War; p114.
54 Berntsen, Gary; Jawbreaker—The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander; Crown; 2005; Kindle loc p14.
55 Tora Bora Revisited; Senate Foreign Relations Committee report; November 30, 2009.
56 Mattis, Jim, and West, Bing; Call Sign Chaos—Learning to Lead; Random House; 2019; p74.
57 Mattis and West; p74.
58 Tora Bora Revisited; Senate Foreign Relations Committee report; November 30, 2009.
59 A Different Kind of War; p112.
60 Berntsen; p307.
61 A Different Kind of War; p135.
62 The 1991 operation against Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait.
63 A Different Kind of War; p134.
64 Air Force Magazine; April 1, 2005; https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0405anaconda.
65 Stein, Janice, and Lang, Eugene; An Unexpected War—Canada in Kandahar; Viking Canada; 2007.
66 Interview with Alastair Leithead on BBC Newsnight; 2007.
