{"id":426,"date":"2009-07-23T10:35:13","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T10:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html"},"modified":"2009-07-23T10:35:13","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T10:35:13","slug":"a-million-bullets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html","title":{"rendered":"A Million Bullets"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Read Islam, Conrad reviews<\/a> A Million Bullets: The Story of the British in Afghanistan<\/em> by James Fergusson. Here’s Conrad’s introduction:<\/p>\n

\n

\"million-bullets\"<\/a>\"\"This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written by a journalist and by large it doesn’t disappoint; providing an excellent description of Operation Herrick 4 that took place in 2006 and the first half of 2007. The title of the book itself is a tongue in cheek jab at John Reid who was Defence Secretary in 2006’s by now infamous quote that he would prefer it if the British army didn’t have to “fire a single bullet” in southern Afghanistan. This unfortunately was not the case and Fergusson reveals that the British army in Helmand did fire over 1 million bullets between October 2006 and March 2007; this figure excludes artillery ordnance and bombs dropped by Coalition air forces or munitions expended by ground attacks carried out by air support. As Fergusson wryly reports, the MoD soon stopped releasing figures on the munitions expended as it didn’t fit well with the “hearts and minds” campaign that was being propounded as approach to defeat the Taliban.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Read Islam, Conrad reviews A Million Bullets: The Story of the British in Afghanistan by James Fergusson. Here’s Conrad’s introduction: This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written by a journalist and by large it doesn’t disappoint; providing an excellent description of Operation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[156,50,25,26],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-read-this","tag-afghanistan","tag-books","tag-news","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nA Million Bullets - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Million Bullets - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At Read Islam, Conrad reviews A Million Bullets: The Story of the British in Afghanistan by James Fergusson. Here’s Conrad’s introduction: This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written by a journalist and by large it doesn’t disappoint; providing an excellent description of Operation…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-23T10:35:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/books.talkislam.info\/files\/2009\/07\/million-bullets.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Million Bullets - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Million Bullets - City of Brass","og_description":"At Read Islam, Conrad reviews A Million Bullets: The Story of the British in Afghanistan by James Fergusson. Here’s Conrad’s introduction: This is the first major account on the British operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to be written by a journalist and by large it doesn’t disappoint; providing an excellent description of Operation…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-07-23T10:35:13+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/books.talkislam.info\/files\/2009\/07\/million-bullets.jpg"}],"author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html","name":"A Million Bullets - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/books.talkislam.info\/files\/2009\/07\/million-bullets.jpg","datePublished":"2009-07-23T10:35:13+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-23T10:35:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/books.talkislam.info\/files\/2009\/07\/million-bullets.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/books.talkislam.info\/files\/2009\/07\/million-bullets.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/07\/a-million-bullets.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Million Bullets"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}