Good evening,
Most book on this subject, no matter how well-researched, have this issue. They pick one of the two general narratives about the war and stick to them.
The first is sort of a stab-in-the-back myth: essentially, the US military was heroic and effective, and eventually found the winning strategy, but they were betrayed by politicians – by diverting resources to Iraq, or by promising a withdrawal timeline, or because the civilian leadership is afraid of competent and ambitious military commanders, etc, etc.
The other common style is "America bad", a picture of militarized Keystone Cops. Americans went to Afghanistan for no reason or wrong reasons, leadership couldn't find the country on the map, soldiers preparing for deployment were taught Arabic, the coalition forces killed civilians, detained innocents, empowered cruel warlords, and everyone just cynically lied about everything to get promoted.
Is there a book that appreciates the complexity of the situation? Something that compares different narratives or applies different analysis frameworks, instead of omitting the events that don't support the author's view?
Thank you!
by Two_Corinthians