TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

If you haven’t read New York Times reporter David Rhode’s gripping tale of being kidnapped by the Taliban, do so.

I’ve been reading it in the print edition for the past few days every morning. It’s incredibly well-written, and his story is simply amazing.

Here’s one excerpt that is particularly relevant to the Obama administration’s internal policy debate on Afghanistan:

Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.