Tripathi, Deepak.
Breeding Ground Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism. Washington,
D.C.: Potomac Books, 2011.
On September 11, 2001,
the narrative of the world’s history turned a page to a dark chapter as fear
struck a nation whose citizens believed to be impenetrable. The images of
civilian planes colliding into tangible symbols of American prosperity and
security forever altered the mindset of an entire generation that had never
before seen such a resounding attack on their nation, the greatest in the
world. As a new decade emerged, so did a new enemy, an enemy comprised of
strong-minded individuals who would give up their own lives to systematically
take away those of Judeo-Christian likeness in the name of their own faith
systems and ideologies. But how ‘new’ exactly was this enemy and how did the
world’s superpowers, including the United States, play a role in the indirect
formation of this enemy decades before the commencement of a “Global War on
Terror”? In Breeding Ground, former BBC journalist Deepak Tripathi
investigates the reasons for the ancient kingdom of Afghanistan turning into a
hotbed for the formation of violent militias that eventually developed into the
terror that is boundlessly battled today. Tripathi focuses heavily on the
Soviet-Afghan conflict and intellectually advocates for not only a shift away
from America’s militant approach to Middle Eastern issues, but a united effort
to promote development and adequate reconciliation to the war-torn region.
Tripathi’s main objectives are to explore the reasons the invasion of
Afghanistan by the United States came about as well as to determine to what
effect the Soviet-Afghan conflict had on to development of the dark phenomenon
of terrorism the world knows of today. He has gathered his information from
sources that allow him to thoroughly investigate these issues including
collections of documents from archives of the Cold War International History
Project which details the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, national security
archives from United State’s archives, and various articles, declassified
accounts and books on the subject matters at hand. The author is unforgiving in
his consistent use of documentation to not only support his thesis, but to
provide the reader with an objective history of his topics and the regions
studied. He critically analyzes the military, social, and economic history of
Afghanistan and brings each factor together in a fluid manner, for which the
material can be digested effectively enough to delve into heavy topics and
cause and effect theory. In my opinion Tripathi’s methodology of on backing up
virtually every detail of his ideas with concrete sources is critical for a
topic such as terrorism. Terrorism has always existed in some form, but as the
author would go on to state in this publication, the term has become such a
heavily loaded rhetorical weapon after such devastating close-to-home attacks
that caution must be applied to anyone surveying it especially only ten years
removed from the September 11th attacks as was the case when this
book was published.
Rather than classifying terrorism as a single action or ideology, Tripathi
explains what he calls the “problems with terrorism studies.” These problems
can be exemplified through the near-century long struggle of finding an
all-encompassing definition of the term itself. As the author references, the
United Nation’s General Assembly has been split between either labeling
terrorism as either a common crime that should face justice or advocating for
the distinction of freedom fighters from terror suspects. Tripathi takes
into account the historiographical narrative of terrorism throughout the
scholastic realm and adds complexity by including a few paramount implications
such as the topics of choice and rationality, physiological forces, and
structural factors. With these guidelines of thought, he has explored the
culture of terrorism from a dynamic standpoint and has added content to the
subject matter at hand in a way that opens up more possibilities for theories
and research topics for historians and students alike. For the topic of
rational choice, Tripathi cites Mark Harrison to explain that terrorists who go
as far as to commit suicide are willing volunteers who cannot simply be characterized
as crazy or brainwashed but are committing acts they have planned for, creating
decided roles for themselves. Political scientist Ted Gurr is also cited
in Tripathi’s argument as approaching terrorism from a psychological
standpoint. He argues that states of mass deprivation tends to lead individuals
towards committing violent acts as a response; in this case, responding to the
war-torn, economically deprived state of Afghanistan after Soviet and American
occupancy.
Tripathi’s argument and methodology is effective because he rationalize his
theories with historical accuracies going as far as to include appendixes
detailing timelines of important events in Afghan history as well as not only a
statement from Osama bin Laden taking account and explaining his purpose for
the perpetration of the 9/11 attacks but detailed listings of the hijacker’s
airline itineraries, ages and nationality. There are no protruding holes in Breeding
Ground’s narrative nor is there a door that Tripathi opens that he does not
satisfy with a closing explanation. He successfully backs up his theory
of United States influence, especially in the Soviet-Afghan conflict, creating
an atmosphere of hatred for Western establishment and occupancy as well as inadvertently
training and supplying soldiers who would later use those resources to wage war
on the States.
