The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan

War correspondent Graeme Smith writes a little about his country's conflicted Afghanistan policy but mostly about what he and his interlocutors see on the ground. What's revealed is bleak, sometimes graphic, and often -devastating.--New York Magazine

[Smith's] book has the emotional candor of a memoir and the geopolitical acuity of an expert policy paper... His prose is clear and strong. --Christian Science Monitor

Eloquent and sometimes-hallucinatory...Smith is a master of the battlefield description, but he's even better at slyly noting the ironies and complexities of the war...Cheerless and even nightmarish, one of the best books yet about the war in Central Asia. --Kirkus, Starred Review

Here the author recounts his experiences as a journalist embedded with Canadian military troops and includes stories of villagers, soldiers, and Taliban insurgents in gripping and often gory detail....Most compelling are Smith's interviews with 30 prisoners tortured by Afghanistan security police and his exposing of the massive drug trade that enriched both government officials and Taliban insurgents....Recommended for readers of battlefield accounts and those seeking a better understanding of the Afghani people. --Library Journal

...gripping and disheartening testimonies to the hell of war and the resilience of foreign correspondents....a timely story of the perils of reporting from a region deeply inhospitable to Westerners....These obstacles make his stories about prisoner abuse, the Canadian role in the surge, and meetings with Taliban fighters all the more remarkable....he champions further investment in the region. --Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review

Lucid, angry, and grief-stricken...Smith's memoir, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, is the definitive...account of the Afghan war thus far. No one emerges from it unscathed, least of all its author. . . . The evolution of Smith's feelings about the war, as he slowly came to understand its moral grey zones and the true nature of the insurgency, is the central, harrowing narrative of this book. . . . This is the marvel of the book: Despite its very bleak tone, and its scathing assault on Western hubris, the author's empathy--for ordinary Afghans, and for ordinary...soldiers--shines through. --Michael Den Tandt, The Vancouver Sun

Graeme Smith . . . stayed longer than most, took extraordinary risks around Kandahar and in Quetta across the Pakistani border, interviewed the Taliban (despite criticism for giving a microphone to the enemy) and, more than anyone else, exposed the story of Afghan prisoner detainees turned over by Canadians and other NATO forces to local authorities, who tortured and abused them. . . . A wise, enthralling, detailed, realistic account of his time in Afghanistan. . . . Many are the lessons from Mr. Smith's book, but one emerges above all: that the presence of foreigners did not necessarily turn the tide against the Taliban. Indeed, the foreigners' military forays and strange (to the Pashtuns) ways may even have allowed the Taliban to survive and, ultimately, to grow. --Jeffrey Simpson, The Globe and Mail

Graeme Smith has long since demonstrated that he is one of the most resourceful and well-informed reporters covering Afghanistan. In his very well-written and entertaining new book he dissects the Western project in Afghanistan with deep reporting and analysis. It is a pleasure to read even if his conclusions are sobering. --Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad

This is a Dispatches for a new generation. Brilliant writing, unforgettable scenes, fascinating characters, a propulsive narrative and crucial insights into what went wrong in the blundering Western intervention in Afghanistan. Written by a man who embedded himself deeply and courageously in Afghan society. --Geoffrey York, author of The Dispossessed: Life and Death in Native Canada