Excellant book, well written, excellant references, one of the best I've read on the topic

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 133 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good background info, fascinating reading

For many, Afghanistan seems to exist solely in the context of 9/11. This book reminds us that the West owes the people of Afghanistan, big time, for bleeding the Soviet bear into submission. Many people are so caught up in the War on Terror hysteria that they believe the CIA made a Faustian pact in supporting the Afghanis and got the short end of the straw. That's silly. The USSR, with its vast army, nukes and gulags, was always much more of a threat than Mr. Bin Laden and his delusional cohorts will ever be. Losing Afghanistan was probably a large factor in the USSR's collapse and helping the Afghanis expel their very oppressive occupiers was the moral thing to do.

The book shows that the outcome could have been much better, for the US and for Afghanistan. Rather than running its own spies and weapon distribution network on the ground, the CIA was lazy and over-reliant on technology and dubious allies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Once the USSR was out, the US very quickly lost all interest in Afghanistan and allowed Pakistan to promote the fundamentalists. Islamic fundamentalists in turn are shown to be less an inherent Afghan tendency than a Saudi import.

It also clearly states that Bin Laden was never supplied by the CIA, which seems to be a persistent urban legend.

Another interesting aspect is the dissection of the, well-meaning, domestic legal constraints on CIA assassinations and their effect on plans to target Bin Laden. While the intent is good and noble, you can't help but wonder why it is OK to kill enemy soldiers, but not OK to lethally target "civilian" enemies. Even though political assassinations can be a veritable Pandora's box, causing rather than solving problems and generally dishonoring the country carrying them out. And despite the fact that the extra-legal shortcuts endorsed by the Bush administration have been a huge and lasting blow to the US reputation throughout the world.

To be clear: I do not condone torture, renditions, Guantanamo and all the other Bushian abominations. But, reading this, you can't help but think that the world would have been better off if Osama's days on it had been shortened in 1998.

Also mentioned is how the US anti-terrorist analysts were just getting flooded with warnings, starting around 97-98. For all the bureaucratic incompetence involved, the failure to act on the 9/11 advance warnings also needs to be looked at in the context of large volumes of repeated false alarms.

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Excellent Book - A Real Page-Turner

I won't bother with a lot of comments. Put it this way, if you want to read one book that explains how we ended up where we are with Islamic extremism, this would be the one. It is real thick and has small type, but you will tear through it. It is excellent.

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very good

This book is extremely interesting and intriguing. I have to keep reminding myself that its nonfiction, because it reads like fiction. very, very good!

Excellant book, well written, excellant references, one of the best I've read on the topic

Excellant book, well written, excellant references, one of the best I've read on the topic

Highly informative and engaging

Exceptional read. In hindsight, one can only imagine what would be if we had taken the left instead of the right (no politics) or not chose certain countries to be part of the end game.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

To what extent did America?s best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize?winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both foreign and American, Coll details the secret history of the CIA?s role in Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the failed efforts by U.S. forces to find and assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

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