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The misery in war-torn Afghanistan is reminiscent of images from the Thirty Years' War.

The American war-writing tradition is a proud one and booming in this era of the Global War on Terror - at least in the nonfiction realm. Hundreds of memoirs and press accounts from Iraq and Afghanistan have been published since 9/11.

You know what I had a problem with? The war - the war in Afghanistan.

The central thesis of the American failure in Afghanistan - the one you'll hear from politicians and pundits and even scholars - was succinctly propounded by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: 'The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan before things were under control'.

I jokingly say if there was one great thing about, you know, the Lebanese Civil War was that it forced me to read.

Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

I was trying in 'The Power of the Dog' to write a brutally accurate in-your-face, if you will, description of 30 years in the war on drugs. And the effect that that had on people.

I have a slightly bad back, which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.

The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance.