War Comes to Garmser

War in Afghanistan will never be understood without getting to grips with the small places--the provinces, districts, and villages--where most of the fighting occurred. It is in those places that we can truly find answers to the question that lay at the heart of the war: Why did people support the Taliban? Did intervention bring peace? Was a better outcome ever possible? Garmser is a small place that has seen much violence, and its 150,000 people inhabit a fertile yet narrow strip along the Helmand River. Carter Malkasian served in Garmser district as a political officer for the US State Department, and in War Comes to Garmser, he tells the history of thirty years of war, from 1979 to 2012. He explains the origins of the Taliban, which was defeated in 2001 but returned, stronger than ever, in 2006, and tells how Afghans, British, and Americans fought against them afterward. Above all, he describes the lives of Afghans who endured and tried to build some kind of order out of war. While Americans and British came and went, they carried on, year after year, inhabitants of a small place. -- Back cover.