Anand Gopal Discusses Time Spent Embedded with the Taliban; Provides Insight into Bergdahl Allegations

While the Department of
Defense reports that the initial
Bowe Bergdahl investigation was inconclusive, author Anand
Gopal suggests that there is more to the situation than what the
media has been reporting. Watch “What Afghans Think About
Bergdahl, the Taliban, and U.S. Intervention: Q&A with Author
Anand Gopal,” produced by Tracy Oppenhiemer. Original
release date was June 24, 2014. The original writeup is below.

“Given the current news of the prisoner swap with Bergdahl and
the five Taliban that have been released from Guantanamo, I think
it’s really important for us to come to terms with the fact that
the terms we use like ‘terrorist’ really don’t even make sense if
you look at it from the Afghan point of view,” says Anand Gopal,
author of the new book, No
Good Men Among the Living. “It’s a lot more complex, it’s
a lot more fluid, and there are local politics that you have to
take into account.”

In addition to talking about Bergdahl, Gopal sat down with
Reason TV’s Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss U.S. intervention in
Afghanistan, the current nation-building efforts (or lack thereof),
and how the locals have coped with regime change in recent
years.

“All sides have blood on their hands,” says Gopal. “For people
in the countryside, it’s really not about supporting one side or
another, it’s about finding a way to survive.”

About 6 minutes.

Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer. Camera by Josh Swain and Amanda
Winkler.

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