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
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Avg. Customer Rating:  136 reviews
Sales Rank: 1762
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 738
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 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
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: Read 131 more reviews...
 na June 23, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
i ordered this book about 2 weeks ago and have not yet received it. PlEASE EXPLAIN.
 Coll collects the pieces of the puzzle that helped create the picture of terrorism from 9/11 June 22, 2008
The subtitle of this book says it all. If you take nothing else away from this review recognize that. Anything I have to say after that is pretty meaningless by comparison.
The Third World War goes on today. It's not a war in the traditional sense like WWI or II. During World War I and World War II our enemies were unable to cross the Atlantic or Pacific and strike mainland America. Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 indicated that we were at war we just didn't know it yet. That war began before September 11, 2001 but that was the first major strike of the war. The Third World War isn't about ideology but about unfinished business in countries where the Soviets and the United States had interests, slights against other countries and religion.
Steve Coll's excellent, well documented book GHOST WARS examines the events leading up to 9/11, how our policy enabled these horrible events to occur, the inability by U.S. analyst to see (or to have people in power listen to them)and miscalculations/lack of involvement in Afghanistan after the Soviet's pulled out allowed the Taliban to take power and isolate those that might have been our allies. In the process, bin Laden rose to power creating his the insidious network of suicide bombers all in pursuit of his jihad.
Colon does an exceptional job of documenting how all this occurred. The research that Coll and Griff Witt did as the background to this fascinating but also terrifying story provides exhaustive detail on how policy makers could bungle the latest threat that the United States and the rest of the world face today.
Coll begins his book going as far back as 1976 during the Carter administration and the seige on the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan and traces the roots of discontent that would bear deadly fruitation in 2001. He connects the dots showing how all of these steps from that seige to the bumbling invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. support (and abandonment) of anti-Soviet guerrilla commanders in that country when brewed together with foreigners such as bin Laden creating the toxic soup of terrorist activity seen before and since that fateful date in 2001.
Coll's book won the Pultizer Prize and is highly recommended for an exhaustive and fascinating glimpse into the pieces of the puzzle that, when put together, gave us a picture of the murder of innocents, destruction and evil. If politics is war by a different means, than so is terrorism.
Factually Incorrect June 22, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
The only way this book would score more than one star is if people buy it as a work of fiction. It is riddled with factual holes and just plain wrong information, I don't know if this was by design to create an element of fiction, or just terrible research. Please avoid this turkey unless you're into fictional analysis.
- I have 4 years of in-depth, on ground research in the area he describes. I didn't need an iota of that experience to dismiss this hogwash, the factual inaccuracies are so profuse that most people from the region are able to dismiss this without any formal background in technical political analysis.
Highly informative and engaging June 14, 2008
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.
Excellent Book - A Real Page-Turner June 8, 2008
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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