Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 |  | Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
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Seller: Easter Seals Goodwill Books
Rating:  178 reviews
Sales Rank: 4012
Media: Paperback
Pages: 738
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0143034669
Dewey Decimal Number: 958.1045
EAN: 9780143034667
ASIN: 0143034669
Publication Date: December 28, 2004
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Amazon.com Review
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 offers revealing details of the CIA's involvement in the evolution of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the years before the September 11 attacks. From the beginning, Coll shows how the CIA's on-again, off-again engagement with Afghanistan after the end of the Soviet war left officials at Langley with inadequate resources and intelligence to appreciate the emerging power of the Taliban. He also demonstrates how Afghanistan became a deadly playing field for international politics where Soviet, Pakistani, and U.S. agents armed and trained a succession of warring factions. At the same time, the book, though opinionated, is not solely a critique of the agency. Coll balances accounts of CIA failures with the success stories, like the capture of Mir Amal Kasi. Coll, managing editor for the Washington Post, covered Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992. He demonstrates unprecedented access to records of White House meetings and to formerly classified material, and his command of Saudi, Pakistani, and Afghani politics is impressive. He also provides a seeming insider's perspective on personalities like George Tenet, William Casey, and anti-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke ("who seemed to wield enormous power precisely because hardly anyone knew who he was or what exactly he did for a living"). Coll manages to weave his research into a narrative that sometimes has the feel of a Tom Clancy novel yet never crosses into excess. While comprehensive, Coll's book may be hard going for those looking for a direct account of the events leading to the 9-11 attacks. The CIA's 1998 engagement with bin Laden as a target for capture begins a full two-thirds of the way into Ghost Wars, only after a lengthy march through developments during the Carter, Reagan, and early Clinton Presidencies. But this is not a critique of Coll's efforts; just a warning that some stamina is required to keep up. Ghost Wars is a complex study of intelligence operations and an invaluable resource for those seeking a nuanced understanding of how a small band of extremists rose to inflict incalculable damage on American soil. --Patrick O'Kelley
Product Description
To what extent did Americas 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 Prizewinning 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 CIAs 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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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 178
 great work, but reads like a textbook July 23, 2010
as a 2 time Afghanistan veteran (and leaving for my 3rd very soon) this book had my vested interest. its a rather shocking, absolutley true, story of how America itself gave rise to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
if you are looking for light reading, this is not for you. it is massive and in depth. in many spots it reads like a textbook. it is a endurance test to finish the drier portions.
reccomended.
 Ghost wars review May 20, 2010
T. Woods
An extremely well written book detailing the Cia's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to September 2001. Well researched and intense.
 Deep in Research, Shallow in Thinking April 21, 2010
Jiang Xueqin (Toronto, Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001" uses exhaustive research to analyze how Afghanistan could have been saved, bin Laden killed, and 9/11 prevented. This is a narrative threaded together loosely mainly from hearsay and speculation, so many "what ifs". In the end, I learned very little from this book, and I recommend Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower" instead.
This ponderous 588-page book (which because there's so much information and research packed into each page feels more like a 1,000 page book) begins with CIA director William Casey's crusade to destroy the Soviet empire in Afghanistan by first romanticizing and then arming some very nasty Afghan warlords. Reading the CIA's campaign to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, I couldn't help but think that America was by the time of Reagan much more ideological than the Soviet Union. Americans permitted their ideological obsessions to cloud their realpolitik thinking, arming an enemy of the enemy only to create a spectacularly unstable threat.
Did America really have to arm Afghan fanatics like the mentally unstable and psychotic Gulbuddin Hekmatyar? Why would it be in America's best interest to push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan? And even if it were did it really justify working with a sinister and ruthless organization like the Pakistani intelligence service, and propelling a tinpot third world dictatorship like Pakistan into a global player?
Steve Coll does not ask these questions, and for the last third of this book he painstakingly focuses on a pointless question: Why did America not seize the countless opportunities to kill bin Laden? Coll blames the Clinton administration's lack of will and resolve (they were a bunch of cowardly politicians), the infighting inside the CIA, and the tunnel vision that discounted the importance of Afghanistan after the Soviets left. He talks so much about missed opportunities, and is clearly frustrated by the bureaucratic incompetence (the CIA was ordered to capture bin Laden but to avoid trying to assassinate him and creating collateral damage) of it all that he misses the larger point: killing bin Laden may not have prevented 9/11, and would most probably not have prevented America's war on terror and military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden may be the public face of Islamic terrorism, but he is not the mastermind and the financier of international terrorism that Coll makes him out to be, and indeed Lawrence Wright points out that bin Laden is more of a marketing genius than he is an operations genius in "The Looming Tower."
Moreover, Coll refuses to contemplate the counterfactual. What if bin Laden had been killed? Because bin Laden lives there is a growing ignominy towards Islamic terrorism in the Muslim world, but if he had died then any and all attacks on American soil would have been justified.
Another reason to question Coll's analysis and presentation of the facts is that he's biased towards Prince Turki, the Saudi intelligence chief, and Ahmed Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader who was assassinated by Al-Qaeda operatives right before 9/11. Turki comes across as a cosmopolitan and sophisticated intelligence chief, and his role in helping the Pakistani intelligence service and the Taliban is marginalized (Turki must have been eternally grateful for this sympathetic treatment, and must have gone of his way to help Coll to write "The Bin Ladens"). In Coll's narrative, Massoud is simply a saint forced to be a cunning and savvy politician by his circumstances. Coll had great hope for Massoud's role in Afghanistan, but if Massoud could not even defeat the Taliban (who, if the journalist Ahmed Rashid is to believed, would have issues tying shoelaces) then how could he possibly govern Afghanistan? It's expedient to turn a marytr into a saint, but if Massoud had lived then chances are the world would have been very disappointed in him.
Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars" is a disappointing and misleading read.
Great book for a great price... March 22, 2010
ldhw
The book arrived very fast and was packaged with great care. The book was in good condition precisely as described on Amazon and included a politely written note about the age, condition and origin of the book followed by a brief description about the person selling the book and seller's hope for customer satisfaction. Overall, a great experience getting the book we wanted at a great price and condition.
Thorough researched, masterfully written March 13, 2010
Eggbeth (Atlanta, GA USA)
While it is a long and complex exploration of the subject, this book is the gold standard by which other books about US involvement in Afghanistan may be measured.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 178
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