The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan
Book by Elliot Ackerman
DETAILS
Publisher : Penguin Press (August 9, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 288 pages ISBN-10 : 0593492048 ISBN-13 : 978-0593492048 Item Weight : 1.05 pounds Dimensions : 6.2 x 1 x 9.28 inches Best Sellers Rank: #39,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #27 in Afghan War Biographies #34 in Afghan War Military History #1,218 in Memoirs (Books) , “The American betrayal of Afghanistan took twenty years. Elliot Ackerman, a participant and witness, tells the story with unsparing honesty in this intensely personal chronicle.” —George Packer A powerful and revelatory eyewitness account of the American collapse in Afghanistan, its desperate endgame, and the war’s echoing legacy Elliot Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and later as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities for years now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families. The official US government evacuation effort was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. With former colleagues and friends protecting the airport in Kabul, Ackerman joined an impromptu effort by a group of journalists and other veterans to arrange flights and negotiate with both Taliban and American forces to secure the safe evacuation of hundreds. These were desperate measures taken during a desperate end to America's longest war. For Ackerman, it also became a chance to reconcile his past with his present. The Fifth Act is an astonishing human document that brings the weight of twenty years of war to bear on a single week, the week the war ended. Using the dramatic rescue efforts in Kabul as his lattice, Ackerman weaves a personal history of the war's long progression, beginning with the initial invasion in the months after 9/11. It is a play in five acts, the fifth act being the story’s tragic denouement, a prelude to Afghanistan's dark future. Any reader who wants to understand what went wrong with the war’s trajectory will find a trenchant account here. But The Fifth Act also brings readers into close contact with a remarkable group of characters, American and Afghan, who fought the war with courage and dedication, and at great personal cost. Ackerman's story is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic. Read more
REVIEW
The fifth act is, in Shakespearean style (modern plays end in three), the denouement, where everything comes together and all is explained, in joy or in tragedy. There is no need to guess what it is in Ackerman’s Fifth Act. This is a book by a former CIA paramilitary trooper who watched in astonishment as the American military presence disappeared from Afghanistan even more quickly then when it first appeared 20 years before. This book is a lamentation for and on behalf of the men on the ground, in the field, and in the desert. It chronicles the work of the US military and its often conflicting objectives with the top brass. It comes, therefore, as no surprise that Ackerman should highlight the 4 minute 45 second video posted by a battalion commander, LTC Stuart Scheller, ranting (if that is the correct word) against the top: ‘People are upset because their senior leaders let them down, and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying “We messed up”’. Scheller was almost immediately sacked and lost his job and pension. Ackerman describes Scheller’s conduct as an act of ‘self-immolation’, and hints that such acts are necessary to bring attention to where it should fall. He draws two other examples of self-immolations – Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller, and Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese monk – both of these men self-immolated by fire which lasted – 4 minutes 45 seconds each. Ackerman also points to the irony that the release of the Pentagon Papers helped produce a groundswell of public anti-war activities which the release of the Afghanistan Papers did not. This book should be a reminder to the public that they should keep an eye on their elected politicians whenever they beat the drums of war. The drummers don’t die. Other people do.
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