Irony Upon Irony. "Our Woman in Kabul" by Irris Makler. [review]

Abstract

"Our Woman in Kabul" documents the US invasion of Afghanistan, the routing of the Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Makler’s story covers the circumstances of daily life as a female correspondent in a country where women are virtually invisible, the discomforts and challenges of being part of a media feeding frenzy in a place without the infrastructure to support it, and the larger drama of a civil war suddenly escalating into an international conflict. This is a book for the times, an extremely readable account that clarifies the circumstances of the Afghan war, reveals the dreadful price paid by ordinary people and leaves Mahood convinced that we truly live in a global culture where the displacement and suffering of apparently forgotten people is something for which we must all take responsibility, whether reluctantly or willingly.