715 pages – Soft cover – 14 x 21,5 cm – ISBN 9788899401061 – It includes 33 full page pictures, 32 by the author, 1 licensed by Robert Nickelsberg (cover picture)
Synopsis

A conflict that lasted longer than World War II, a multinational mission which cost billions of dollars and thousand of lives, a landlocked country thousand of miles away from the capitals of the world, remote areas frozen in a time which appears medieval to westerners. Notwithstanding these factors, Afghanistan has been the crossroad of commercial routes which extend throughout Asia, and it is a land that has been conquered by every Empire ever seen on this planet in the last three millennia, from Alexander the Great to the USSR. Afghanistan has been branded the “graveyard of empires” because no foreigner has ever been able to defeat its local tribes.

Afghanistan is a country presently run by a local elite that was put into power by westerners. This elite is mostly connected to former warlords, and the western world has turned these warlords into millionaires through bribes and a deluge of foreign help. This is a country where the highest tolls have been paid by the local population; they are the ones who have suffered civilian casualties and a harsh life without basic services and infrastructure.

At this moment, when western countries are running new international military missions, it is our duty to remember and understand what really happened in Afghanistan. We need to better understand this country whose extraordinary history and archeological treasure trove is not merely one of goats and bombs, as it has too often been depicted.

“Afghanistan Mission Unaccomplished 2001-2015” was written by Nico Piro, a special correspondent for Rai, the Italian National Broadcasting System.
This is a book you can read in a day, as it is at the crossroads between essay, non-fiction narrative, memoir and travel literature.

The main topics surrounding Afghanistan are told through big and small episodes, history-making events, and personal stories of ordinary people. This book explores the mistakes, lies, and changes of route and strategies in the last fifteen years. It is a journey through numbers, statistics, data and facts, but it is recounted with the pace of a literary account. It is a raw narration, full of details, and it takes the reader across one of the deadliest and most culturally and socially complex places in the world.

This book is divided into three main sections: the first one is devoted to the  military aspects of the war (as seen from the frontlines, or from inside a bullet-proof vehicle); the second is about the country and the civilian population (the war as seen by the locals); the third section is devoted to the new “democratic” elite who run the country, its corruption and its mismanagement of the so-called “reconstruction” of  the country.

This “uncomfortable book” has been published thanks to a crowdfunding campaign which ended up in the hall of fame of the ulule.it platform as it greatly surpassed its goal (+174%). This was a big success considering that crowdfunding is a very new movement at its early stages in Italy.

The book has been distributed to crowdfunders in June 2016, from July 2016 is available in the main Italiana on line eBook stores. Hard copies will be available in Italian bookstores in September 2016.