The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994-1997

I found this book in a used book store for just a few dollars and thought it would be worth that just get gather a better understanding of this part of the world pre 9-11. It turned out that the book is worth about what I paid for it. The book gives the reader an interesting and adequate review of the Taliban take over of Afghanistan. The book gives the reader a brief, but well thought out history of Afghanistan before the 90's. The author then covers the Taliban incubation and eventual take over of the country. What I found so interesting was the almost haphazard way that Mullah Omar created the movement and lead it. You got the impression from the book that he was as absent from the day to day command of the troops and government functions as would say the Secretary of Defense be involved in a German Base janitorial staff vacation scheduling. When the book covered the military of all parties involved in the country it almost sounded like a historical overview of USSR equipment from World War 2 to about 1990. You got to give the Afghani's credit for keeping World War 2 tanks battle ready. If there is ever any evidence needed to support the argument that all it takes to cause a military issue is a few guys with automatic weapons, the Taliban movement is it. As far as the great military victory in 2001 of the Northern Alliance, this book might shed some light on the Afgan military strategy. It looked to me like basically all you need to do to be successful in Afghanistan is to fire a few rounds into the air and start handing out bribes. The author described the whole country as nothing more then small groups of bandits that will fight for who ever hands out the largest payments. One other interesting point is that Osama Bin Laden in mentioned a few times in the book, but is basically viewed as an anti Saudi rich guy hanging out. It was not so much that the book was not complete, I just think any more and the book would have fallen into a serious study of Afghanistan history that would appeal to a small hand full of people. On the other hand it did not seam to give more then a brief overview of any one particular topic. Overall I enjoyed the book and found it interesting, but only because of recent history. It does spend a good amount of time talking about the politics in the region around Afghanistan, which is a good primer for the current international environment and the war on terror. If you are interested in the topic it is a good general book, if you want an in depth study then this book is probably not for you.