The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Barker, a journalist for ProPublica, offers a candid and darkly comic account of her eight years as an international correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Afghanistan and Pakistan, beginning shortly after September 11. With self-deprecation and a keen eye for the absurd, Barker describes her evolution from a green, fill-in correspondent to an adrenaline junkie who gets hit on by Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani prime minister, and becomes adept in "how to find money in a war zone, how to flatter a warlord, how to cover a suicide bombing, how to jump-start a car using a cord and a metal ladder." Barker reveals how profoundly the U.S. continues to get Afghanistan wrong—that American personnel in the country live in a bubble, rarely dealing with Afghans, that they trample on local customs by getting routinely and "staggeringly" drunk despite Islam's prohibition of alcohol, and throw offensive costume parties at the Department for International Development (DFID). In equal measure, Barker elucidates the deep political ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S.'s role in today's "whiplash between secularism and extremism," and blasts Pakistan's leaders for destroying their nation through endless coups and power jockeying. (Mar.)