Anand Gopal

Anand Gopal
Occupation Journalist
Known for Coverage of the war in Afghanistan

Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes,[1][2][3] which describes the travails of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and the 2015 Helen Bernstein Award.[1][4] It was awarded the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for demonstrating "why the United States' emphasis on counterterrorism at the expense of nation-building and reconciliation inadvertently led to the Taliban's resurgence after 2001." [5]

Gopal is notable for his reporting in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He is believed to be one of the few Western journalists to have embedded with the Taliban, an experience that forms part of the basis of No Good Men Among the Living. In 2012 Gopal reported for Harper's Magazine on the town of Taftanaz in Syria, which suffered a massacre at the hands of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.[6] In 2014 he reported for Harper's on a murderous U.S.-backed police chief in Kandahar, Afghanistan.[7]

He has reported for the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and Harpers and other outlets. Gopal's views on the Taliban have been quoted in several books.[8][9][10] From 2012-2014 Gopal was a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.[11]

In January 2010 Gopal published a story about secret prisons in Afghanistan, run by JSOC Joint Special Operations Command.[12]

Gopal was one of the experts on Afghanistan chosen to appearing in the documentary Rethink Afghanistan.[13][14]

Gopal conducted a rare interview with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the reclusive leader of one of the Taliban's most important allies.[15]

Gopal was a resident of Manhattan when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 Meredith Turits (2014-09-17). "2014 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction Released, and Roz Chast Is an Awesome Pick". Bustle.com. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
  2. ↑ Kim Barker (2014-04-25). "Hostile Climate: 'No Good Men Among the Living,' by Anand Gopal". New York Times. p. BR18. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
  3. ↑ Laura King (2014-05-01). "Review: The war correspondents' view from Afghanistan". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
  4. 1 2 Joseph Richard Preville (2014-06-24). "No Good Men Among the Living : America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes (Book Q & A)". Islamicommentary. Retrieved 2015-03-08. Gopal, currently a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, covered the War in Afghanistan from 2008-2012 primarily for The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor. He was living in Manhattan on 9/11, and the shocking experience jolted him to investigate America’s response to the terrorist attack "on a strange and distant battlefield."
  5. ↑ "Ridenhour Book Prize 2015". The Ridenhour Prizes. 2015-03-23.
  6. ↑ Anand Gopal (April 2012). "Welcome to Free Syria: Meeting the rebel government of an embattled country". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 2015-03-08. Traveling with me from the Turkish border to Taftanaz was Wassim Omar, an acquaintance of Malek’s whom I would see several times during the week I spent in Syria.
  7. ↑ Anand Gopal (September 2014). "Kandahar's Mystery Executions: Are the Afghan police using torture to achieve peace?". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 2015-03-08.
  8. ↑ Amy Goodman; Denis Moynihan; Bill Moyers (2009). Breaking the Sound Barrier. Haymarket Books. p. 48. ISBN 9781931859998. Retrieved 2010-11-21. Anand Gopal, Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, described the situation on the ground: ‘A lot of Afghans that I speak to in these southern areas where the fighting has been happening say that to bring more troops, that's going to mean more civilian casualties. It'll mean more of these night raids, which have been deeply unpopula amongst Afghans... Whenever American soldiers go into a village and then leave, the Taliban comes and attacks the village.’
  9. ↑ Calvin F. Exoo (2009). The Pen and the Sword: Press, War, and Terror in the 21st Century. SAGE publishers. ISBN 9781412953603. Retrieved 2010-11-21. As is often true of conventional wisdoms, this one was more conventional than wise. Afghanistan-based Christian Science Monitor reporter Anand Gopal has recently pointed out that the Taliban is "far from monolithic," a coalition of convenience made up of "nationalists, Islamists and bandits." For most of them
    foreign fighters, especially al Qaeda, have little ideological influence ... al Qaeda's vision of global jihad doesn't resonate in the rugged highlands and windswept deserts of Afghanistan. Instead in a world of endless war, roving bandits and Hellfire missiles, support goes to those who can bring security.
  10. ↑ Susie Linfield (2010). The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. University of Chicago Press. p. 279. ISBN 9780226482507. Retrieved 2010-11-21. The Taliban have also executed children, as reported by Anand Gopal...
  11. ↑ "New America Announces 2013 Schwartz Fellows". New America Foundation. 2012-04-30. Retrieved 2012-05-23. As a Schwartz Fellow, Gopal will study the evolution of insurgencies and revolutionary movements in South Asia and the Middle East. He is working on a book about the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and also has reported regularly from throughout the Middle East, where he has covered the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Syria. From 2007-2010, he was an Afghanistan-based correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal. He is a graduate of New York University and did graduate work in Physics and Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.
  12. ↑ Anand Gopal (2009-04-07). "Audiocast: A Conversation with Anand Gopal on America's Secret Afghan Prisons". The Nation. Archived from the original on 2010-02-17.
  13. ↑ "Rethinking Afghanistan: Is Obama's Strategy a Dead End?". The Nation. 2009-04-07. Archived from the original on 2010-02-17.
  14. ↑ "Rethink Afghanistan". Archived from the original on 2010-02-17.
  15. ↑ Anand Gopal (2010-06-09). "Interview with Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: Can peace talks succeed?". Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 2010-11-21.
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