A hopeless mission in a hostile land<br><br>This is an essential book for anyone interested in warfare in Afghanistan. The author, Henry Brooke was given a brigade to command in the field, but soon found himself cooped up behind the walls of Kandahar surrounded by hostile tribesmen within an equally hostile environment. In his writings Brooke makes it clear that he has little faith in his mission from the outset. Inevitably his misgivings are well founded as his force became beset by threats of fanatical attacks from within the city as well as from enemies without. True to the pattern of the British experience of the region a disaster threw a defeated army back to Kandahar and soon the noose was tightened so that the villages under its very walls became 'no go zones.' This is an account of the Second Afghan War that resonates with chilling parallels to the modern conflict.