Search Results for: Afghanistan

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War

Longreads Pick

Depending on the war, post-traumatic stress can have many expressions, but this war, because of its omnipresent suicide bombers and roadside explosives, seems to have disproportionately rendered its soldiers afraid of two things: driving and crowds. David Booth manages his driving anxieties by leaving his Long Island home every morning at 4:30 a.m., when there’s no risk of traffic (especially under bridges, which militants in Iraq are always blowing up), and avoiding the right lane (in Afghanistan and Iraq, one generally drives in the middle of the road to avoid setting off IEDs).

Published: Feb 7, 2011
Length: 19 minutes (4,800 words)

The Great Afghan Bank Heist

The Great Afghan Bank Heist

The Great Afghan Bank Heist

Longreads Pick

The troubles at Kabul Bank stand as a parable for the sometimes malign effect that the influx of billions of foreign dollars has had on this impoverished country since 2001. While the Western money spent has done a great deal to create a modern economy, much of it has been captured by a tiny minority of well-connected Afghan businessmen and politicians, and much of it illegitimately. The loss of seven hundred million dollars or more at Kabul Bank represents a significant percentage of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, which stands at only about twelve billion dollars.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jan 31, 2011
Length: 25 minutes (6,370 words)

From 2004: In Mubarak’s Egypt, Democracy Is an Idea Whose Time Has Not Yet Come

Longreads Pick

“Mubarak fears that if he widens the margins of democracy things will happen,” Essam al-Eryam, one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s most prominent middle-aged leaders, told me at the Brotherhood’s headquarters. “There will be democracy here, sooner or later. It requires patience, and we are more patient because we are, as an organization, seventy-six years old. You have already seen some countries—Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran—describe themselves as Islamic regimes. There’s a diversity of models, even among the Sunni and the Shia. Egypt can present a model that is more just and tolerant.”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Jul 12, 2004
Length: 31 minutes (7,786 words)

The Man Behind Bin Laden

Longreads Pick

Last March, a band of horsemen journeyed through the province of Paktika, in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. Predator drones were circling the skies and American troops were sweeping through the mountains. The war had begun six months earlier, and by now the fighting had narrowed down to the ragged eastern edge of the country. Regional warlords had been bought off, the borders supposedly sealed. For twelve days, American and coalition forces had been bombing the nearby Shah-e-Kot Valley and systematically destroying the cave complexes in the Al Qaeda stronghold. And yet the horsemen were riding unhindered toward Pakistan. #Sept11

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 16, 2002
Length: 87 minutes (21,897 words)

The Last Mission

Longreads Pick

From 2009: Richard Holbrooke’s plan to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam in Afghanistan. “…Holbrooke couldn’t stop invoking the war of his youth. From Kabul, he called the journalist Stanley Karnow, an old friend, and put him on the phone with General McChrystal to discuss the lessons of Vietnam. He mentioned Vietnam in staff meetings in Washington, and he brought it up in a speech to American Embassy personnel on my last day in Kabul: ‘Having been in similar circumstances earlier in my career, in another war—as they say, in a distant galaxy and another time—I know what it’s like to be out here in difficult conditions without your family.'”

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Sep 29, 2009
Length: 59 minutes (14,846 words)

A Year at War: Between Firefights, Jokes, Sweat and Tedium

Longreads Pick

They tell stories about girlfriends, wives, drinking and sex. They wrestle and play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. They share music on iPods and check football scores on BlackBerrys. They debate evolution and chase chickens. They argue over comic-book heroes and then tell more stories about sex. During a six-day mission in Afghanistan with Delta Company, First Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, both sides of frontline life were on display. Firefights, truck-flipping mine explosions and earth-shaking mortar exchanges. And the pauses in between, when life in their encampment felt like a guys-only slumber party.

Author: James Dao
Published: Nov 21, 2010
Length: 10 minutes (2,687 words)

The Last Patrol

Longreads Pick

The 82nd Airborne troops were getting ready to leave Afghanistan, but they had one more dangerous job to do

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Nov 1, 2010
Length: 33 minutes (8,435 words)

Traumatic brain injury leaves an often-invisible, life-altering wound

Longreads Pick

The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon’s table, doesn’t seem to mind. Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it’s Thursday, that it’s June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: “It’s 2010.”

Source: Washington Post
Published: Oct 3, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,134 words)