title: Hopeless but Optimistic: Journeying through America's Endless War in Afghanistan
author:  Douglas A. Wissing 
description: This is not a book that directly engages the theories and conceptions of twenty-first-century US military intervention, in its full-spectrum approach from counterinsurgency to development, in numerous working papers, articles, and monographs. It does not invoke 'hard power,' 'soft power,' or 'smart power.' But in this case, that is an asset. Sometimes the most effective response to all the proposals of what could or should be is the observation of what is. (<i>H-Diplo</i>)<br /><br />On page after page, as Wissing travels around the country, we are told how U.S. operatives continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over, leaving a trail of unfinished/sabotaged projects that have no value to the people of Afghanistan. (<i>OpEd News</i>)<br /><br />Its that kind of book. It reminds us of Peter Van Burens We Meant Well book on Iraq. (<i>Diplopundit</i>)<br /><br />Wissing's moving and exceptionally well-written account makes sad reading . . . The book becomes a heart-breaking travelogue, accompanied by Wissings own photos. . . . [but] however corrupt and misguided the war, however much damage it has done, Wissing says, 'I met American after American determined to make the world a better place.' (<i>Bloom Magazine</i>)<br /><br />One of the states most intrepid combat reporters, Wissing went to Afghanistan for a third time in 2013, expecting to watch the war wind down. Instead, he found a place still rife with conflict. . . . [Wissing] gives readers a view of both the perils and the many examples of money being wasted in a country where even something as seemingly benign as digging wells has devastating consequences. (<i>Indianapolis Monthly</i>)<br /><br />A scathing dispatch from an embedded journalist in Afghanistan. . . . Pungent, embittered, eye-opening observations of a conflict involving lessons still unlearned. (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>)
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  ![Cover](images/fall2011.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Daniel Abraham
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Balfour and Meriwether in _The Vampire of Kabul_ by Daniel Abraham
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _As I have grown old, I have watched the world of my youth fade with me. The
  damage done by the Great War will never be calculated. And yet, even now, I
  hear from my friends in the circles of power - in truth, most are now the
  children of my friends - that a third war in Afghanistan is all but certain.
  Even more than the war on the continent just passed, I find myself in dread of
  this new conflict and the powers it may provoke._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _And yet, also I feel the nostalgia of old hunts, old games, old enemies now
  lost to history, and feel again not the rush of conflict but its echo. And
  recall the unparalleled eyes of a most singular woman I once knew…_
  
  
  
  
  
  —From the Last Notebooks of Mr. Meriwether, 1919
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER ONE