Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net

Afghanistan Journal is Joshua Foust's riveting and thoughtful account of the U.S. military's engagement in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. It contains a number of his photos from his time in Afghanistan.

In early 2009, Foust, a long-time Afghan-affairs afficianado and respected blogger, got his first chance to go to the country he had been fascinated with for so long. He brought to the trip not just a wealth of knowledge about the country, but also an intelligence and sensitivity that informed all his writings during and after the trip.

Afghanistan Journal is Foust's first book. It's a collection of his writings-- mainly those he blogged at Registan.net-- that starts from the observations he blogged during the visit he made to Afghanistan, January-March 2009. It then looks in more detail at the situation within some of Afghanistan's key provinces, including Helmand, Nuristan, Kunar, and Kapisa. In the final part of the book, he looks at some of the broader policy issues involved-- and at the ways Americans discuss (and on many occasions, mis-discuss) them.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann has written, "Afghanistan Journal provides a civilian, ground level corrective to much that is written on Afghanistan. It should be read particularly by those with operational level responsibilities for the war since it points how in how many ways we could do better if we take the time to learn the multilevel reality of his observation that it is 'policies, not presence, which drive sentiment.'"