The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson on Afghanistan: An American Catastrophe (Part Two)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Serenti. Today's episode is part two of our recent live discussion with the New Yorkers John Lee Anderson and Clarissa Ward. Live on stage at the Kiln Theatre, Anderson reflected on decades of reporting on the ground in Afghanistan, and particularly the American invasion there after 9-11. Together with Ward, he traces the missteps, missed opportunities, and political blind spots that shaped the conflict's trajectory.

If you haven't heard part one, you may want to jump back an episode to get up to speed. Let's rejoin their discussion now. You know, one of the things I find so interesting reading the book are the these moments where you kind of inject yourself into the narrative as well. And they're usually like these kind of like They're just these like small little incidents and you don't really elaborate on them, but they kind of open a conversation.

There's one where you end up shouting at a shopkeeper who has been cursing your translator after you've been having a conversation with a woman. There's another which I really love. for reasons I can't fully explain, where you're at some kind of a press event and they give you a cold Pepsi and you put it down and someone takes it and you make note of the fact that you swipe it back. And it has nothing to do on the surface with the scene that you're describing, but it also is very illustrative because it shows us that you, me, we are part we are players in this drama too.

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