This was a hard read, both in the content that it covers and the rage that reading it left me with.

There are trigger warnings galore for this book, including: marital rape, domestic violence, violence and war, terrorism.

Rasmussen wrote this book based on extensive interviews with eye-witnesses, as well as his own reporting on the events for news sources. This inside look gave me more knowledge of the people involved beyond the facts of the conflict that I already knew from the news.

Following 6 different points of view, Rasmussen does a great job of illustrating the diverse opinions found within Afghanistan that have made the conflict with the Taliban so internally fraught.

This is not a book that you enjoy, but it is a book that needs to be read. It needs to exist to bear witness to the suffering of the Afghan people and to serve as a reminder of the consequences of failed intervention by the United States.

Oh, gosh, reading this cost me lots of nerves. This is not easy to review simply because there are a lot of things in this book twisted around. The narrative is anti-American and anti-Wetern. Every page is focused on bashing Americans and everything they have ever done. It`s very unfair and very biased. There are also inconsistencies and contradictions. If I had to go into details I would have to write a book about the book.

When I started Sune Engel Rasmussen's Twenty Years, I knew this would be a challenging read for me. For anyone who reads my reviews regularly, they know I am not shy about pointing out I am a U.S. Army Veteran and spent a tour in Iraq as a tank platoon leader. Rasmussen makes no qualms about what Twenty Years is about. It is about the failure of the Taliban, the U.S., and quite frankly the world when it comes to giving the Afghan people the lives they deserve. This is especially true for the people who stood up to the Taliban and tried to create a new nation under foreign direction and guidance (or occupation if you want to see it that way).

The challenge for me comes in the fact that Rasmussen is not complimentary in any way to these groups. This is not a criticism and my rating of the book is not colored by this. In fact, I appreciated Rasmussen's willingness to point out when mistakes were well meaning but became disasters. Rasmussen's summary of U.S. actions can be mostly described as benevolent incompetence with some episodes of malice. He does balance this out quite a bit because he won't give the Taliban the same courtesy. They are good administrators, but only because they kill people on a whim and horribly oppress all women. In essence, Rasmussen acts like the writers of South Park. Everyone is fair game for censure.

The problem for me is that is it very difficult to be unbiased in my reading of this. One of the book's subjects, Omari, is a Taliban operative who openly brags about killing American soldiers. To put it lightly, I don't like Omari and I have a visceral reaction to him. It made me think for a few minutes that I can't possibly give this book a good rating because it gave this person the time of day. Then, Rasmussen kept writing about Omari. I won't say too much, but Omari may not be the true believer he thought he was. His views may differ quite a bit from the people he thought he was fighting with and for.

Thanks for making it this far in my therapy session! I owe you a review and here it is. Rasmussen has written an extremely engaging narrative with some fascinating people. Zahra alone is worth a biography of her own and I would read the hell out of it. Her battle with an abusive husband with almost no support is heartbreaking. Parasto is a close second as a woman who is constantly fighting to make her country better. Their lives are rich with detail and insight into the real Afghanistan and the fallout from everything post-9/11. And while Omari is not someone I enjoyed reading about, his story is vital in understanding a certain point of view. That point of view is currently ruining women's lives, but it exists and shouldn't be ignored because it is a major component of the current political climate.

My criticism of the book would be the number of characters. The ones I already mentioned provided enough fodder for the reader to understand the stakes. Other characters, such as Fahim, come and go with little added to the overall narrative. Other characters only show up towards the very end of the book. They don't destroy the flow, but I think it all could have been streamlined.

I would recommend this with a bit of caution to the reader. I have friends who served in Afghanistan and would wholeheartedly endorse everything in this book. They are enraged at how the people of Afghanistan who fought along side them were left to rot. I have other fellow vets who would consider this a hit job which completely ignores any positive aspects of U.S. military intervention. I have sympathy (and some convictions) with both outlooks.

My review is therefore based solely on how well the book is written and how well it makes the point that Rasmussen wanted to make. I believe he succeeds in making this an eye-opening look at the War in Afghanistan.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.)

I was an Embedded Trainer in the Afghan National Army back in Enduring Freedom IIi/IV. My experience at War was with the Afghans and through that I was introduced to the richness of their culture and traditions.. There has been only one other book before this that I would recommend to people to read about to get to know Afghanistan that I was able to know, Kabul in Winter. I now have two that can help share about the complexities of who the people are and what has happened in Afghanistan.
My review:
One of my struggles as someone who has served in the military and gotten to live and be around Afghan people is to be able to describe the rich culture that is there. The ways that they have struggles according to ethnicity, gender, and where they are in the birth order of their family. Twenty Years, Hope, War and the Betrayal of an Afghan Generation by Sune Engel Rasmussen conveys exactly these ideas. What is it like to grow up as a refugee and then return home? What are the options available for work and education in Afghanistan during this time? How different sides are being drawn up by the economic realities of the lives they are living. The effects of nepotism, corruption, and wealth in a war-torn country. In reading this book we can see how the goodwill of the Afghan people who had initial hope in what the West had to offer for their education and rights was betrayed.
I wanted to read this book specifically because of my experience as an Embedded Trainer in the Afghan Army. I had opportunities to sit down with Afghans for chai, negotiate for supplies with merchants in Kabul and Gardez for our Afghan Soldiers and as we moved to new places, what was needed to bring that garrison location online. I have often felt that the perspective of the people I had met is not being portrayed in the news or accounts that I have read about Afghanistan. This book contributes to correcting that deficiency.
Living in another culture can give a perspective that does not come from reading or watching media about it. It opens up conversations and shows the complexity that emerges from lived experiences. Afghanistan is a rich tapestry of contradictions and experiences that can be hard to explain to anyone who has not been there. In “Twenty Years” the author has been able to paint for us a detailed picture of the different interests and lives that have been the backdrop for the military actions that were ongoing in Afghanistan. For those who want to know more about his reporting and the sources that were used a chapter is dedicated to that topic at the end of the book
Sune has reported on Afghanistan since 2014 and was based in Kabul for three years for The Guardian and then continued to travel there and into the provinces for his stories. He has been a writer for The Wall Street Journal since 2018 which gives the reader credibility for his work as a journalist and storyteller. He is telling us real stories about real people, this is a work of nonfiction. He developed trust and rapport across genders and ethnicities in Afghanistan so that he could learn the “thoughts, or dreams of a person”. Making this a powerful tale is that they are all real conversations, none of his dialogue is fabricated or a composite of several people or their experiences.
At the heart of the book are “two characters whose conflicting experiences starkly indicate the broader divisions running through Afghanistan since 2001, Zahra (working for change as a woman and ethnic Hazara) and Omari (Hostile to U.S intervention and a member of the Taliban since he was 14.).There are four other main characters we get to know as the Twenty Years unfolds. Omari moves from being a jihadist to questioning those who sent him to war. Zahra whose parents return from Iran grows up, is married at 13, and we see how she is mistreated and her journey to be free from her abusive husband and find work to support her and her children. Fahim who grew up, became a translator for several European Military present and then moved on to become a contractor providing supplies, departing his country as the US presence pulled out. Parasto, whose parents let her know they would rather she had been a son, grows up against the grain of her society's expectations for girls and women, is educated works for the Afghan government, and then works to keep making education available for girls after the fall. Intertwined with each of these are what they believe is needed to be a good son, daughter, parent, and Muslim and the contradictions they will navigate as life happens.
The book is well written and readable without needing previous knowledge of the history and events that have happened in the region over the past 30 years. As the book works through its major movements of Ground Zero, Promises, The Undoing, and Exit Wounds we are introduced to men and women who are living what would be ordinary lives for Afghans during the turbulence of war. It provides us with in-depth descriptions of what their lives were like, the challenges they were facing, and the thoughts, dreams, and goals they had.