A Multi-dimensional Reality Game A traveller unravels puzzles and mazes as he leaps space and time. It is a game and a journey that has its roots in prehistoric India and China, although the Traveller, Krishna, follows one family through 900 years from the invasion of England in 1066 to Afghanistan. Krishna is a Pied Piper; his iconic flute opens gateways into the bloody slaughter of the Battle of Hastings, where the progenitor of the Quartermaine family fights for his life and fortune. Another gate opens into the chaos of the British Raj during the Mutiny. You will freeze during the long retreat of the Army of Cabool in 1842, break codes at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing, and find yourself standing, shocked, in the smoking rubble of a bombed pub in Belfast. Helmand, and Kandahar figure in the tale, until our protagonist arrives, finally, at Gandamak. The Quartermaine family struggles to survive, sometimes only with Krishna's help. His Homeric interventions allow him to reflect on human ideas of responsibility, courage and duty. Krishna is fascinated by humanity's quest for meaning in even the worst circumstances. He looks into the I Ching, Buddhism, computer science, and how "thinking machines" manipulate games and their rules. Krishna's discussions with The Shaman, the beautiful woman who bridges a gap between realities, restrain his digressions and explain his more esoteric ramblings. How is the game played? You must first follow the Traveller's music through the gateway to find out.

Two young officers, one from the eighteenth century and one from the twenty-first century, meet on a cold January day near a small village. The eighteenth-century soldier, having survived the brutal British retreat from Kabul, finds himself among the fifty survivors planning to make a last stand on a small hilltop near the village of Gandamak. The twenty-first-century soldier and his soldiers have survived the crash of their transport helicopter and suddenly find themselves in the midst of an eighteenth-century conflict. How these two young leaders and their soldiers from two different centuries struggle to survive the brutal Afghan winter and combat the relentless attacks by Afghan tribesmen illustrates the warrior spirit all soldiers possess, regardless of the time and years between them.

Covering wars and conflicts of Afghanistan from the modern founding of the country in the 1700s to the contemporary struggle with the Taliban, this single-volume reference analyzes the causes and results of Afghanistan's wars and examines leading political and military figures, weapons, and tactics. Afghanistan has been embroiled in war and conflict throughout the latter part of the 20th century as well as the current millennium, but due to its location at the crossroads of Central Asia, Afghanistan has also endured repeated conquests throughout its turbulent earlier times. Examining Afghanistan's long military history through this book will enable readers to grasp the wider sociopolitical history of the country; appreciate the impact of these wars on Southwest Asia and superpowers such as Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States; and understand why Afghanistan remains a controversial battleground today. The alphabetically organized entries examine the major wars and conflicts of Afghanistan from the modern founding of the country during the Durrani Dynasty in the 1700s through the contemporary struggle with the Taliban. The book spotlights the role of key individuals in starting, pursuing, or ending conflicts, as well as their broader contributions to—or negative impact on—Afghanistan and the international arena. The work also presents essays that examine key subtopics such as weapons, tactics, ethnic groups, religion, and foreign relations. This allows the reader—whether a student, scholar, or member of a nonacademic audience—to examine a topic in depth and see how the event, figure, or movement fits into the broader history of Afghanistan.

From Kabul to Baghdad and Back provides insight into the key strategic decisions of the Afghan and Iraq campaigns as the United States attempted to wage both simultaneously against al-Qaeda and its supporting affiliates. It also evaluates the strategic execution of those military campaigns to identify how well the two operations were conducted in light of their political objectives. The book identifies the elements that made the 2001 military operation to oust the Taliban successful, then with combat operations in Iraq as a standard of comparison, the authors analyze the remainder of the Afghan campaign and the essential problems that plagued that effort, from the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2002, through the ill-fated transition to NATO lead in Afghanistan in 2006, the dismissal of Generals McKiernan and McChrystal, the eventual decision by President Obama to make the Afghan campaign the main effort in the war on extremism, and the final development of drawdown plans following the end of the war in Iraq. No other book successfully compares and contrasts the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan from a national strategic perspective, analyzing the impact of fighting the Iraq War on the success of the United States campaign in Afghanistan. It is also the first book to specifically question several key operational decisions in Afghanistan including: the decision to give NATO the lead in Afghanistan, the decisions to fire Generals McKiernan and McChrystal and the decision to conduct an Iraq War-style surge in Afghanistan. It also compares the Afghan campaigns fought by the Soviet Union and the United States, the counterinsurgency campaigns styles in Iraq and Afghanistan and the leadership of senior American officials in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In the final chapter, the key lessons of the two campaigns are outlined, including the importance of effective strategic decision-making, the utility of population focused counterinsurgency practices, the challenges of building partner capacity during combat, and the mindset required to prosecute modern war.

This book offers an in indictment of the nation's drug enforcement approach focusing on the short-sighted policies that often deny patients suffering from chronic pain the medications they need. Pain Control and Drug Policy: A Time for Change focuses on America's national crisis in pain management caused by the widening divergence between the enormous contributions of opioids ("narcotics") to pain management in the clinical setting and the mistaken belief that they are dangerous, highly addictive drugs. After dissecting the strategy and tactics of the War on Drugs from medical, historical, legal, socioeconomic, and geopolitical perspectives, Guy Faguet MD indicts the 40-year-long War on Drugs for having failed to stem the supply of illicit drugs in America despite expenditures of half a trillion dollars, despite violating the basic human right to pain relief of tens of millions of American chronic pain sufferers, and despite fomenting organized crime, government corruption, racial injustice, and social disruption in both the United States and the producer countries. He concludes with a clarion call for the abandonment of the War on Drugs, disbanding the Drug Enforcement Administration, and encouraging Congress to repeal the Controlled Substances Act. As a clinical and research oncologist responsible for the chronic pain management of thousands of cancer patients over the course of his 30-year career, Dr. Faguet knows that the most effective and safest way to manage most cases of chronic pain is with opioids. All modern pain-management textbooks advocate "titration to effect" in cases where opioids help: that is, gradually increasing the dosage until either the pain is acceptably controlled or the side effects begin to outweigh the pain-relief benefits. Yet the vast majority of doctors don't practice what the medical textbooks teach and instead prescribe opioids very reluctantly and conservatively. As a result, only half of all chronic pain sufferers-and fewer than half of all cancer patients-get adequate pain relief from their doctors. Why do physicians radically undertreat pain that is susceptible to opioid analgesics? They fear that if they prescribe Schedule II opioids in accordance with the professional standards of pain management set by such medical bodies as the American Pain Society, they will be investigated by the DEA, stigmatized, prosecuted as criminals, stripped of their licenses, and sent to jail. Visit Guy B. Faguet, MD's website here: www.faguet.net.

“Two Kings and a Leader is a book about the phenomenal story of the First Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Sardar Mahmud Tarzi, his family, and his relationship with the two notorious kings in the 1900s- Amir Habibullah Khan and King Aman Ullah. It is a vibrant depiction of Mahmud Tarzi’s struggles and efforts for the independence of Afghanistan. More elucidating is the fact that these stories are told by Mahmud Tarzi’s great-grandson Ömer Tarzi. An important segment of the book is dedicated to Afghanistan’s struggle with two of the great powers of the time (Britain and Russia) and the vital achievements of Afghanistan’s First Foreign Minister, Sardar Mahmud Tarzi, in international political affairs. “Of course, at the fore there was always a king, but the leader standing behind was very important.”