Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Understanding Pakistan And Its Neighbours

There is a valuable article about Musharraf's resignation as President of Pakistan in today's Daily Telegraph by the leading Pakistan journalist Ahmed Rashid (see photo). It is entitled "Masharraf leaves a fractured Pakistan". See here.

Ahmed Rashid is an expert on Central Asia and is well worth reading and listening to. The Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley have conducted two hour long interviews with him which are worth examining. The first took place on 26th March, 2002 and the latest on the 12th June this year. For the videos of these see here and here.

His latest telling book is currently on sale in major bookshops and is entitled "Descent Into Chaos ; How the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia" (Allen Lane, £25). See here.

His earlier books have all been well received. They are -

"The Resurgence of Central Asia : Islam or Nationalism" (1994) - here.

"Taliban : Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (2000) - here.

"Jihad : The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" (2002) - here.

At the moment I am half way way down this list - the videos are the clinchers.

2 comments:

Anand said...

Rashid is a good author and scholar. It is too bad that the world refused to fund the ANSF (Afghan Security Forces) until the end of 2006.

The ANSF needs about $60 billion over the next 10 years to win this fight. I hope they get it.

calgacus said...

I've read Rashid's 'Taliban' and i'm reading 'Descent into Chaos'. I find it amazing that the Blair government all read 'Taliban' without seeming to learn anything from it.