The Untold Battles of Afghanistan - Book Report/Review Example

Number] The Savage War: The Untold Battles of Afghanistan The book was written on the Afghan war that has been faced by the Canadian soldiers since years. There are about 33,000 troops under the NATO command in Afghanistan, and out of those 12,000 are Americans and 2500 are Canadian troops. The Canadian troops were deployed to southern Afghanistan. These forces were charged with the ending of the violent insurgency in Kandahar Province. The Canadian soldiers have had a lasting impact and involvement in the Afghan war. Many journalists and other professionals have taken part in promoting the efforts and the roles played by the soldiers. Out of the many published descriptions, The Savage War has been one of the finest. The Savage War offers its readers a framework of expressive work and thoughts of the descriptive efforts and events that took place during the years of the war in Afghanistan. The book gives a compelling look at the war and explains how the war has been conducted by the Canadian soldiers and their forces on the ground and on the highest echelons. The Canadian forces and their allies served as a body of troops fighting together against the one country. The war gave value to many of the journalists and reporters that were participating in all the events. These journalists may not have fought in the war, but they certainly had an experience in the war surroundings (Horn 357). One of those extremely talented and important journalists was Murray Brewster. The best thing about the book is that it tells a descriptive account of the war in the new perspective that Brewster has created and conveyed to the readers. He has been an influential writer and journalist for the coverage of the war, and his work has proved to be one of the best contributions for the readers and the many people concerned with it including politicians, news reporters and analysts. Brewster has provided his expertise through his unprecedented access to the events and the documents. He has enriched the book with his exceptional storytelling and his writing skills that have gained him the position of an award winning reporter (Horn 357). Brewster has a powerful new perspective for the war which allows him to be able to deliver his experience and the realistic approach towards the war for the people who are away from it yet involved. Brewster has been the only person amongst his peers who has spent the most time in the trenches and has written the book in first person explaining the ideas. The Savage War provides a straight forward approach to the principal figures and events of the war that were captured on the off screen camera moments. It conveys the gritty and endangered reality of the ordinary Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and the Afghans themselves. This book is the first most comprehensive account of the mission that the Canadian forces have set out to in Afghanistan. In the five significant years of the war that created the history, this book contains most of the key moments. Included in the many things that the author has mentioned in the book to provide a conceptual framework is the analysis of the tough mind of Brewster who has mentioned a critique view of the bureaucracy and the related revelations about the corruption. Brewster was sure that he had mentioned the commentaries of the inside ventures and the highly motioned controversies. Secondly, what made the book a memorable account of the war is that it included the stories of many eyewitnesses who had spoken for the war and the surroundings of the war describing all the soldiers and the Afghan forces. He included exclusive interviews subjected to the pre and post conditions of the war. He also made his access to the many classified documents that he had collected (Bourrie 350). The book also contains another great element making it exceptional for the readers and analysts. It contains a clear and unflinching analysis of the role of Canadian government and soldiers in the war. What makes this an important element for the book is the fact that Brewster sat in trenches with the soldiers experiencing and witnessing the conditions and the situations in which the soldiers were. On the other hand, he has also spent time with the prime minister in his living room, so this means he has been through all the experiences and himself interviewed the soldiers and the prime minister. This makes the book extremely authentic and valuable. Brewster has taken the readers beyond perfection. He has taken them on a ride to the experiences that are far from just the political spin of events. It has been called the first book to have so many elements that are properly written down for the readers. It has contributed in making the history and highlighting the events that have been unnoticed by media and cameras. There have been many questions about the pre events of the war, and people have been asking what went wrong, thanks to Brewster, their question has been clearly answered in The Savage War (Bourrie 350). The author has reached perfectionism because of his approach and motivation throughout his work and journey to Afghanistan. Brewster was the only journalist who had spent around 15 months in Afghanistan and had covered the period when Canadian soldiers were deployed in Kandahar, and when the rebellion was at the peak. Brewster tried his best to be available wherever he could to cover the war. When he was not in Afghanistan, he was in Ottawa where he stayed for his story and other places as well. The depth of his knowledge shows in the book which strengthens the book and moreover, the way Brewster has made sections in the book talking about the roles played by the Parliament and disconnect between Kandahar and Ottawa are factors that strengthen the discussion and the subject of the book. Brewster has nicely captured the conservative government’s improper and absurd rotations and message control. During his journey he faced a lot to make the book a perfect outcome. Many of the requests made to talk to the Canadian civilians about the aid work that they had were either delayed or rejected. Few of the interviews could happen without the need for approval from Ottawa in Afghanistan. Brewster writes in the book, “If you asked for lists of development projects so you could travel independently to view them, some of the development people would stare as though you’d spoken in a foreign, incomprehensible language”. The journalists were told to submit the requests for the information access that they gained. The Prime Minister also had the daring to complain about the Canadians not getting the real story of the war in Afghanistan and thus appreciated The Savage War. He emphasized the importance of the Canadians to know the real picture of the war. However, it is wrong to say that the book is about journalists only and about spin doctors. In fact, it is mostly about the war and the soldiers who were fighting in the war. The bulk part of the book is about the war in Kandahar and the Afghans who were lowered because of it. He has described the war as a series of failures. According to the author, the western forces were unavailable to stamp the insurgency out and win hearts and minds to build a nation. Brewster’s style of writing is colloquial. He often writes using similes as they being his favourites. For his characters in the story he has used many phrases that add to the metaphors in the book. Some of the smiles that he had used are for the sky that the sky is a “billowing menace that boils like witches brew.” Wind-blown sand “pricks your eyes like a thousand tiny knives.” (Brewster 198) His characters make up his story that has been described in a beautiful way. The western journalists in the war zones have to connect with fixers who are their local journalists who act as translators, guides and protectors. However, Brewster’s fixer was Abdul Raziq Khan with whom he created a strong bond. Brewster described Khan’s sobbing his cell phone when he was begging for help after his Afghan colleagues’ murder in his book. Brewster spent most of his time in Kandahar because he thought that while staying in Panjsir and Balkh, he could not have ever explained the war as it was in reality. He wanted to show the hopelessness of the war through his own experience and journey to the war zone. He wrote The Savage War highlighting the Canadian effort in the war and so he went to Kandahar since that was the place where the Canadian troops were based. The story told by Brewster is a focused story which does not talk about the country or any nation, not even about the entire war. In fact the book is focused on the struggle that Canada had in the insurgency. The book talks about the Canadian soldiers being wounded in the Afghan wars since the last decade. But even now the reasons of the joining of the war of the Canadians have been unclear. These points on the war have not been raised by any of the journalists, and since Brewster had seen the war from so close, he chose to bring these points out and to the Canadians who were still unaware of the truth. Many of the analysts about the book have noted that Brewster covers the history of Canadian forces in Kandahar and writes in his style about the initiative of the war. He talks about the agendas that were involved in the work and that actually led to the military involvement in Afghanistan. According to his writing, "Politically, we had the Martin government, which was searching for something to establish itself and differentiate itself in foreign policy from the Chrétien government," he explained to The Current host Anna Maria Tremonti in a recent interview. "But we also had General Rick Hillier who was very interested in seeing the Canadian forces restored as an iconic national institution." Despite the different agendas that were the reason of the involvement of the militants of Canada into Kandahar, they all had one thing in common which was that they all underestimated the Taliban. "But whats interesting is that there are little dribs and drabs coming out now about how the Canadian military, at least from an intelligence front, was warned by the Americans that there was going to be a resurgence of the Taliban," said Brewster. "My question would be how closely did we pay attention to those warnings?" (Brewster 14) Unfortunately, the domestic politics that surrounded the participation of the Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan were divisive. There was not any point where anybody was looking for a common ground; it was dominated by the politics of Kandahar which was totally domestic. But what seemed to be the political tool had severe consequences overseas for the Canadian soldiers as well as for the Afghan civilians who were being helped. According to Brewster, Canada made two major mistakes in handling Afghanistan. First was that there was not appreciation of the civilian causalities that were taking place at that time and that led to the Afghans to feel that the western military was creating problems rather than solving them. The second mistake was that the Canadian forces made promises to the Afghans and then ended up supporting the old tribal order which caused the Afghans a lot of frustration. There are certain lessons that can be learnt from this which are well explained by Brewster. He writes in his views that the next time we get involved in such conflicts we should be little more thoughtful by learning from the Afghan experience. The final verdict that Brewster has given for his hopes in Canada’s experience in Kandahar is sobering. He says, "I hope that Canadians recognize that when they put young people in harms way to shed their blood and the blood of others, that it is not just something on a laundry list of political things that needs to be done, but that it must be done with reflection and a certain degree of reluctance. I really believe that we stumbled into Kandahar and we were not prepared in many respects, and folks need to be reminded of that.” Work Cited Bourrie, Mark. Fighting Words: Canadas Best War Reporting. Dundurn, 2012. Print. Brewster, Murray. The Savage War: The Untold Battles of Afghanistan. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print. Horn, Bernd. From Cold War to New Millennium: The History of the Royal Canadian Regiment, 1953-2008. Canada: Dundurn, 2011. Print. Read More