THE CARPET WARS

Australian journalist Kremmer (Stalking the Elephant Kings, not reviewed) rambles around Afghanistan and its recent history.

The author’s reporting skills transfer poorly to book-writing; a myriad of unconnected incidents cause fatigue, and excessive length sinks the entire enterprise. Kremmer begins in Kabul with the Soviet withdrawal of 1989. Mohammed Najibullah, head of Afghanistan's communist regime, tried to persuade Muslim rebels to remain loyal to him, but his security guard failed, and he sought refuge at the United Nations compound. The Taliban gradually filled the power vacuum. In 1998, Sunni Muslim militia headed by Pashtun sympathizers led the Taliban forces in their attack Toyotas into Mazar-e Sharif. Shia Muslims and Iranians who had helped the Northern militias were quickly executed. Taliban rule eliminated local militias, which benefited trade in the North by smoothing smugglers’ trips from Iran and Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan. The Taliban’s religious police reintroduced harsh Islamic Shari'a punishments. Friday executions drew large crowds with Thursday radio publicity. Kremmer's driver fled to avoid punishment for his clean-shaven face. In the Koran, Mohammed placed a curse on men who created images of man or animals, so chess is banned, and in 2001, Mullah Mohammed Omar blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas, massive stone figures dating from a.d. 400. Traveling to Iraq, Bremmer finds rapid repairs from the Gulf War and meets Abdul al-Sahdi, a member of World Championship Wrestling in the West (his nickname was “The Sheikh with One Million Camels”), who has been unable to return to England for seven years. While carpet vendors are indeed omnipresent, the rug trade fails as a useful metaphor or sustaining narrative device. More appropriate is Buzkashi, a game where men on horseback score “goals” with a calf’s headless corpse, players betray their teams, and the final, individual goal is to grab the largest portion of the deteriorating carcass.

Tiresome. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)