The Wrong Enemy

After nearly thirteen years, the war in Afghanistan is winding down for international troops, and retrospectives on the American adventure in the “graveyard of empires” are starting to appear. Some argue that the international community made a positive difference in the country, while others wonder if the fighting was even worth it. But to Carlotta Gall, a Pultizer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times, the question policymakers should be asking themselves is: were we even fighting the right people?

Gall was one of the first Western reporters on the ground in northern Afghanistan after 9/11, and she remained in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the next ten years, living through and reporting on the conflict for the Times. In her new book, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan 2001-2014, she provides a sweeping history of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the political and religious leaders who charted each country’s course. At the heart of that history is a powerful and incisive argument that in waging war in Afghanistan, the United States was fighting the wrong enemy – that it is in Pakistan where the training and funding of the Taliban and the support of al Qaeda has occurred.

The New America Foundation welcomed Gall for a discussion about her book, her thoughts on Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan, and what the impending withdrawal of foreign troops will mean for the country’s future.

 Participants:

Carlotta Gall
North Africa correspondent, New York Times
Author, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan 2001 – 2014
 
Peter Bergen
Director, National Security Program, New America Foundation