Just Finished Reading: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – A Memoir by Kim Barker (FP: 2011) [300pp]

It was the opportunity of a lifetime plus, as her editor rightly said, she was expendable: no marriage and no children. But was it a step far too far? Sure, Kim was a reporter with the Chicago Tribune with years of journalistic experience under her belt but her experience as a foreign correspondent was zero. Actually she had barely been outside the US, spoke only English and knew almost nothing about Islam or Osama Bin Laden – so of course Afghanistan would be the place to cut her foreign debut teeth. After all, what could possibly go wrong? Apparently lots but if Kim was one thing she was a quick study. She only managed to offend her guide once when arguing with him about the substance of Islam after reading a book about it, she only annoyed the US military command once when she reported back exactly what the troops on the ground felt about the war and she very quickly learnt how to deal with Pakistani men who constantly tried to pinch her backside at every opportunity. Some skills came easier than others and some skills she wished she had never needed to acquire – like learning to concentrate exactly where you walked and where you put your hands after reporting on the aftermath of suicide and car bombs. But oddly, and even she found it practically inexplicable, not only did she adapt to an environment and situation completely outside her previous experience but she started to actually thrive in it and then become addicted to downtown Kabul and the day to day, hour to hour drama that was Afghanistan.

I picked this up some time ago because I’d seen trailers for the movie of the same name and because Tina Fey was on the cover. From seeing the trailer (I never saw the movie) I had assumed that this was going to be a light-hearted semi-sarcastic look at the war in Afghanistan told from the view of a reporter completely out of her depth and making mistake after mistake as she tried to get ‘good copy’ for her paper back home. There was certainly an element of this – especially early on – along with plenty of rye humour (which I always ‘heard’ in Tina Fey’s ‘voice’ throughout the book!) but there was some much more here. To say I was surprised by the quality of the writing says much more about me than the author. It was to be honest THE surprise hit of the year for me. Being largely inexperienced and not a little ignorant of foreign countries and cultures Kim managed to ‘see’ much of what was going on (and just as importantly not going on) in Afghanistan with an almost innocent eye and reported back her impressions without the sophisticated gloss we’re so used to. Reporting from ground level, both before and after the war expanded into Iraq, we see the lives of the local Afghans, political leaders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan (who’s influence in Afghanistan is far too often overlooked), how other journalists saw the conflict and the thoughts of the ‘boots on the ground’ which were all too often a mixture of ignorance, arrogance and mystification.

Author (Left) and Tina Fey (Right)

Like many people on the ground during those early years Kim saw a deep lack of understanding from the military of who exactly they were fighting and what exactly the overall mission was, she saw either unforgivable ignorance of or tacit complicity with the enormous levels of corruption at every level of the Afghan government, she saw the wasted opportunities occasioned by the sudden switch of resources to Iraq at just the wrong moment and she saw US troops confused at how exactly they were supposed to train their future Afghan replacements with inadequate resources and little support themselves. In total it was, Kim understood after her time there, a complete clusterfuck waiting to happen. She was right – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed. If you want an idea of what was happening in Afghanistan and why the project ultimately failed (as many people knew it would) this will definitely give you a good idea. One of the highlights of 2021 for me and most definitely, and very unexpectedly, highly recommended.