My Life With The Taliban is a subjective and naturally self-serving memoir of a Taliban fighter/commander/politician, Abdul Salam Zaeef. Zaeef was incarcerated and tortured by the United States in Guantanamo and elsewhere before being released in 2006.

The book is an important correction to the "western" history myth that sees the Taliban, Afghan religious scholars and students taking up arms, as a creation of the 1990s. Zaeef describes the Taliban as a distinct part of the mujaheddin fighting against the communist Afghan state and the Soviet occupiers. When the Soviets left, the Taliban laid down their arms and took them up again only when the warlord anarchy which followed the Soviet withdrawal became insufferable.

Zaeef's editors and translators Felix Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten will further document this next year in their upcoming History of the Taliban.

The book also documents the deep believes, cultural conservatism and the breath of the Afghan national resistance against the Soviets. It is the same national resistance that is now winning against allegedly superior "western" occupation forces.

During the next days and while reading the book I will continue to publish a few subjectively selected paragraphs from each chapter. I hope that some of you will enjoy them. They may even motivate you to buy the book.

With the U.S. continuing to escalate the War On "AfPak", those countries and the war on them will certainly be the focus of further posts here. Reading Zaeef will hopefully set some context for that.

Some links to recent stories on the campaign in Afghanistan:

U.S. troops battle to hand off a valley resistant to Afghan governance – WaPo/Greg Jaffe

"There is nothing strategically important about this terrain," said Ryan, 41, a blunt commander who has spent much of the past decade in combat. "We fight here because the enemy is here. The enemy fights here because we are here."
…
"I came in looking for a counterinsurgency victory," Ryan said. "But here, there is no such thing."

Taliban Challenge U.S. in Eastern Afghanistan – NYT

Obama’s Afghanistan Review: A Whitewash of a Disastrous Occupation – Alternet

A closer look at claims in Obama's Afghanistan strategy review – Landay/McClatchy

U.N. Maps Show Afghan Security Worsens – WSJ

NATO challenged over Kabul raid that killed two guards – McClatchy

After forcing the surviving guards to surrender, the NATO-led team scoured the area and came up with no explosives, no car bombs and no evidence that the company was involved in a plan to attack on the U.S. Embassy.

Sakhizada said the soldiers apologized after finding nothing and cautioned the company not to speak to reporters. But company officials refused to remain quiet.

“Saying sorry is not so easy,” said Mohammed Faird Wafah, a friend of Sakhizada family who came to visit the office on Sunday. “Afghan blood is not so cheap. When something like this happens in the center of Kabul, what do you think happens in the more remote provinces?”