"We had no idea what we were in for," writes political cartoonist and journalist Ted Rail about his 2001 entry into Afghanistan.

• Author: Cusac, Anne-Marie
• Position: Our Favorite Books of 2014 - Book review

"We had no idea what we were in for," writes political cartoonist and journalist Ted Rail about his 2001 entry into Afghanistan. "Which is why we came. To see things for ourselves."

That persistently independent vision makes Rail's After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan (Hill and Wang) invaluable. Rail tried, with two journeys into the country, to discover what Afghan people feel about the U.S. invasion and occupation. He witnessed, for instance, American carpet-bombing when the Los Angeles Times recorded only "dozens of civilians" dead among the Afghans. The numbers were much bigger. What Rail saw "was unspeakable: deafening explosions, great clouds of dust and smoke, flames higher than the buildings they replaced, bits and pieces of cloth and flesh in odd places, e.g., half a rib cage hanging from a tree branch."

Rail went home traumatized and galvanized. He told news outlets the war was a mistake. Few, he says, wanted to hear his story because Afghanistan was a "good war."

Nine years later, public opinion had shifted. And Rail went back, again independently, much of his travel funded with a Kickstarter campaign. He sought out portions of the country far from the...