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By John Lane
This attractive paintings tells of Afghanistan sooner than the Taliban - a land of majestic mountains and arid plains, terrain infected through the lethal remnants of warfare; landmines and unexploded ordnance, silent killers able to kill and maim the blameless and unsuspecting. A old and undying land of fearless warriors and not ending-conflict. a rustic the place there were many losers in years passed by - and the place there'll be many extra ... A no-man's land the place no-one wins.
This is the genuine tale of civil struggle and the damaged lives of daily electorate stuck within the crossfire of occasions in Afghanistan, a story of braveness and stoicism, domesticity and demise within the turbulent instances that the Soviet withdrawal of 1989, and which observed the increase of Taliban keep an eye on and the harmful succession of occasions when you consider that that point, all of which units the context for the present clash. it's a tale of the perilous endeavour of the disposal of the particles of warfare, bringing tragedy in its wake, interwoven with the sooner transitory triumphs and debacles of the British Empire, sweeping from the heights of the northern Hindu Kush in the course of the gauntlet of the Kabul Gorge roadblocks of murdering warlords and thieving bandits, around the opium-producing poppy fields past Jalalabad to the Khyber go and onwards to the intrigues of Peshawar, in what was once then the North-West Frontier Province and is now known as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa - land of the Pashtun.
Here is a glimpse of a wild, alien and inaccessible nation, delivering a revealing point of view and perception to the current day continuance of the violent repetitiveness of Afghanistan's lengthy and stressed heritage. fowl highway is an soaking up and evocative booklet for all these knowing extra approximately Afghanistan, its contemporary prior and the way that pertains to present-day occasions. it's a tribute to these hazardously engaged in humanitarian mine motion. And once more, it serves as a salutary reminder that during Afghanistan not anyone wins. while you are to learn only one booklet at the historical past of Afghanistan then make it poultry road.
REVIEWS
"John Lane has an ear for discussion and irony and one eye on element and heritage. He casts mild on our current grim drawback by way of explaining what got here earlier than it. If simply our legislators had shared his knowing of the heritage of Britain's 3 Afghan wars, set out within the back-light of those pages, they may not have opted for our fourth." resource: Martin Bell, Journalist and previous MP
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Extra resources for Chicken Street: Afghanistan before the Taliban: Clearing the Deadly Remnants of War
Example text
I’d already done that. To Kabul. A perfectly normal behavioural pattern. Nothing complex, such as a mid-life crisis. Just the belief that as we are here only once – or so it seems – it’s best to make the most of it, keep right on to the end of the road and keep the circus turning. All in all, quite inexplicable. Isabel was waiting, watching. ‘Oh, I’m just helping out,’ I replied, casually. ’ No point in tying myself in knots with involved explanations about things which I thought I didn’t need to understand.
The firing pin in a detonator, for example … {The detectors are designed to respond to less than half a gram of metal content – one sixteenth of a five pence piece. Ultra-sensitivity – a reassurance for the operators – inevitably results in a host of false alarms, in spite of increasing sophistication giving an improved capability to sift clutter. The operating principle behind hand-held monitors (similarly used by enthusiasts seeking medieval treasure) is unchanged from World War II – as originally conceived by Lieutenant Josef Stanislaw Kosacki of the Polish army whilst stationed in exile in Great Britain in defence of the Fife coastline against possible invasion: two induction coils in the head of the device producing a local magnetic field.
And whilst the luxury of a sigh was beyond his reach, the Colonel’s eyes clouded and flickered as his mind went to past glories, distinguished soldier that he was. ‘Of course, on-site liaison with the donors is imperative,’ he continued, almost seamlessly. ‘No funding, no de-mining operations. It won’t leave as much time as you would like for visiting our teams in the field, but that can’t be helped and anyway we have that side well covered. It’s in Kabul that we urgently need someone. Landlocked, but that can’t be helped either.