Shared values vs Shared interests. US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the rise of Radical Islamic Terrorism

books:


	• 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 136 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Well Researched

Coll's book is so well researched. I believe that although "Charlie Wilson's War" is more sensational, it is also worth a look. Also, if this material interests you, Cooley's "Unholy Wars" is also valuable, as it was written in the pre-9/11 era, yet sets the stage for those with eyes to see and ears to hear...

Understand America's history in the Middle East

If you want to understand the background of U.S. involvement in the Middle East and South Asia, get a copy of Ghost Wars. Scholarly writing backed up by heaps of footnotes and sources, Coll is exceptionally readable and the material is gripping. Don't listen to current media and admininstration rhetoric without understanding the past.

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Shared values vs Shared interests. US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the rise of Radical Islamic Terrorism

One of the best books written about the emergence of religion based terrorism directed against several causes and several societies.

Steve Coll provides a balanced dispassionate analysis and profound insight into the new menace that is powerful enough to challenge peace everywhere.

United States has two kinds of friendships in world politics:
(a) Friendships founded on shared values
(b) Friendships founded on shared interests

Friendships founded on shared values (such as those with UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and Japan) last forever. The friendship does not leave a trail of destruction behind.

Friendships founded on shared interests (such as those with Iran under the Shah, Philippines under Marcos, Pakistan under Zia, Saudi Arabia above oil) last short periods of time but leave a trail of destruction somewhere.

US friendship with two such shared interests has created a monster that is likely to be a greater challenge to peace and security everywhere than anything humanity has seen so far.

Saudi Arabia has been funding radical Islamic groups around the world to appease its domestic constituency of religious right. Saudi donations helped create radical Islamic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan to attract, train and equip youth who are willing to kill and willing to die.

Pakistan provided an intelligence service that could orchestrate insurgency against a conventional army; provided a limitless supply of youth willing to die for holy causes; and an efficient supply chain of high tech arms.

The Reagan Administration joined hands with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to contain Soviet expansionism. The mission was successful.

But there were unfortunate side effects. US lost interest in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union. CIA station heads in Islamabad began to dictate US policy in the region instead of the Administration.

The Jihadists, assembled against Soviet Union, did not go home to become investment bankers and stock brokers. They stayed and sought new causes. Fight for Palestine. Fight against America. Fight against the House of Saud. Fight for Islamic rule in Afghanistan. Fight for liberation of Kashmir.

Pakistan had a field day. The ISI could use the jihadists for its favourite causes: Hekmatyar, Taliban, Kashmir. State sponsored terrorism was born. Funding was available from Saudi Arabia and from narcotics trade. State sponsored terrorism gave way to a multinational radical Islamic terrorism when Pakistan tainted every political objective with a religious colour (a lesson learnt from the jihad against Soviets).

It is now possible for a Mullah in a village in Pakistan to issue a fatwah by fax that could motivate a young British Muslim to enroll in an ISI sponsored terrorism training center in Pakistan and undertake a mission to destroy social fabric in a nation that is probably busy with a super bowl.

A foreign policy shaped by shared interests is probably not that good an idea.

This book provides a well researched insight into the rise of radical Islamic terrorism. The best on the subject. Easy to read. Disturbing to think about.

Shall look forward to the next book from Steve Coll.

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Superlative History of Today's 'Great Game' And How It Led to 9/11

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires played what Rudyard Kipling called the 'Great Game' in southwest Asia: an intriguing blend of two-faced Machiavellian diplomacy, manipulation of tribes north of the Indian subcontinent, and constant, savage warfare.

Steve Coll's richly detailed, superlative narrative history relates the modern version of the 'Great Game.' In this one, Afghanistan became, to its ruin, a surrogate battleground for U.S. - Soviet conflict, and thereafter an incubator for a toxic Islamic jihad that invaded the West and ultimately destroyed the World Trade center.

The parties and candidates have been blaming each other of late for the rise of bin Laden, but Coll's account shows that there is probably blame to go around. The complex, cash-filled, and often cynical and corrupt relationship between the CIA and the Pakistani ISI helped drive the brutal Soviet dictatorship out of Afghanistan after its 1979 invasion. The first Bush Administration's abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal helped that country become a failed state. The author's account of the CIA's and Clinton Administration's increasingly intense but sometimes blundering pursuit of bin Laden pains the reader. In the end, through what must have seemed at the time like politically responsible choices, Bill Clinton did not carry out attempts to assassinate or kidnap bin Laden because of the danger to civilians in bin Laden's Tarnak Farm camp.

An informative, compellingly written account of the secret history of how and why we became embroiled in that "unlucky country," Afghanistan, that should inform our political decisions.

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Desperate attempt by the ill-prepared ...

Ghost Wars is a very well researched account of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 2001. It illustrates how the attacks were the culmination of the worst failure by the US intelligence community since Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Here is a sobering description of how it was a failure at all phases of the intelligence cycle, from the setting of priorities and tasks, through the gamut of collection activities, to the analytical, assessment and dissemination processes. As the book illustrates, it encompassed not only the traditional national security and military intelligence agencies but also the myriad law enforcement and specialized agencies involved in counter-terrorist activities.

"The opportunities missed by the United States on the way to September 2001 extended well beyond the failure to exploit fully an alliance ...indifference, lassitude, blindness, paralysis, and commercial greed too often shaped American foreign policy in Afghanistan and South Asia during the 1990's." P 570

"Nor did the United States have a strategy for engagement, democratization, secular education, and economic development among the peaceful but demoralized majority populations of the Islamic world. ...In this way America unnecessarily made easier, to at least a small extent, the work of al Qaeda recruiters." P 571

In retrospect, there is much which could and should have been detected before September 11. This is a work that is well worth reading for a better understanding of how we can fix the intelligence and foreign policy issues.

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