Bob C.'s review of GHOST WARS: THE ... by Steve Coll

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	• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September ... Steve Coll Penguin (Non-Classics), 2004 - 738 pages average customer review:based on 139 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Well researched and thorough

Whatever your political view this is a good read and in great detail of our CIA's involvement in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the 80s and 90s. It provides much of the complex story leading up to 911. I believe it to be an objective work with no agenda other than getting the facts out.

The Way It Started

No one reads history. If they did we wouldn't be in the mess we are in Iraq. This is the book everyone should read.

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Bob C.'s review of GHOST WARS: THE ... by Steve Coll

I can see why Mr. Coll won the Pulitzer for this work. The presentation is clear and well paced - not unduly scholary or polemic in tone. The movement through a complex cast of characters and events is always forward looking and seldom repetitive. I found the Cast of Characters section particularly useful and referred to it often. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject.

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Exhaustive and Comprehensive

This is one of those books that you'll read, and take away a lot from afterwards. Steve Coll writes with authority and confidence about a number of aspects of the United States' involvement in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion til 9/11. He covers many aspects of the war, from the war in Afghanistan, the subsequent civil war, and negotiations with and between such actors as the CIA, US Defense and State Department, various Afghan groups, and the Pakistani army and government. From spies with suitcases of cash meeting their contacts in the Pakistani countryside to cruise missiles hitting Osama's compound, the book covers every aspect of the conflict itself. From the CIA and the Air Force arguing over who should control and pay for the Predator drones that were used to look for Osama, to Pakistan's various coups and the Taliban's indifference to outside opinion, Coll also pays considerable attention to the political events behind the actual conflicts.

This is a long, involved book that has a huge amount of information in it. It's detailed, carefully written, and very comprehensive. The tone of the book, while somewhat serious and scholarly, isn't really biased in any particular direction. The author, for instance, pays a great deal of attention to Ahmed Shah Massoud, but he doesn't sugarcoat his portrait of Massoud, making clear that he was partially responsible for the Mujaheddin Government's fall in the mid-90s, and also noting that he financed his movement with heroin sales to Russia and Europe. He examines each of these issues dispassionately and carefully, looking at every angle he can think of.

If I have a criticism of the book it's the lack of conclusion. The author appears to want to let history speak for itself, and avoids judgments. This is in some ways good: we're probably not going to be able to make this sort of judgment about the Clinton or Bush administration for years, not objectively anyway. But the book starts in the Carter administration, and even there he presents a narrative of what happened without comment. He also often tells you both sides of the story, recounting first the State department's view of the CIA's reluctance to do something, then giving you the CIA's version of events, so that you're unsure which side he's on, let alone which side the facts are. It's a bit unsettling, though perhaps that's because the events themselves are unsettled, too.

I enjoyed this book, learned a great deal from it, and apart from its length would recommend it. It's relatively well-written and very informative.

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An important history lesson

I use this book in my Master's class. The student who choses it always groans over the size of the book, the amount of difficult names, and the complexity of the details. However, when they give their report to the class, they are enthused by the book, recommend the book for all to read, and the class comes away with a much clear knowledge that the world is a much more complex place than they realized. It is very difficult to teach young people that most of the world is different than the United States. Cultures, religions, core values, political systems, geographic makeup and so forth is not the same. Cell phones don't exist. And if they did, they wouldn't work. This book does a wonderful job making it not only real but chilling real.

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