Dimensions
135 x 203 x 24mm
Kevin Sites made his first trip to Afghanistan in October 2001 on assignment for NBC News, to cover the U.S. invasion and retribution for the terror attacks of 9/11. That trip lasted 100 days and in that time three of his colleagues were killed, another who was standing just a few feet away from him was hit by a mortar, he unknowingly slept next to an unexploded 500 pound bomb, and he bore witness to the inhumanity that coexists with war.
In June 2013, his 5th trip to the country, Sites retraced the path of his initial 2001 odyssey, pausing along the way to consider each of the significant events of his original trip and to explore what, if anything had changed in the twelve years since the U.S. intervention. He spoke with warlords, ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, women cops and dentists, farmers, drug addicts, international aid workers, diplomats and military personal.
In Swimming with Warlords, Sites looks at this nation through the prism of these two parallel journeys, a dozen years apart, exploring the past while speculating on the future of an Afghanistan left to its own devices after the withdrawal of international troops in 2014. By telling the stories of the people he met along the way and how their lives have been affected by this conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives, he will help to provide readers with different perspectives on Afghanistan and America's role there.
