Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 Reviews

• Hard Copy Easier to Read, but Substance is Same: Superb

  
  By A1S8AJIUIO6M9K on 2005-04-19
  Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links including books since published.
  
  On balance this is a well researched book (albeit with a Langley-Saudi partiality that must be noted), and I give it high marks for substance, story, and notes. It should be read in tandem with several other books, including George Crile's Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times and the Milt Bearden/James Risen tome on The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB.
  
  The most important point in the book is not one the author intended to make. He inadvertently but most helpfully points to the fact that at no time did the U.S. government, in lacking a policy on Afghanistan across several Administrations, think about the strategic implications of "big money movements." I refer to Saudi Oil, Afghan Drugs, and CIA Cash.
  
  Early on the book shows that Afghanistan was not important to the incumbent Administration, and that the Directorate of Operations, which treats third-world countries as hunting grounds for Soviets rather than targets in their own right, had eliminated Afghanistan as a "collection objective" in the late 1980's through the early 1990's. It should be no surprise that the CIA consequently failed to predict the fall of Kabul (or in later years, the rise of the Taliban).
  
  Iran plays heavily in the book, and that is one of the book's strong points. From the 1979 riots against the U.S. Embassies in Iran and in Pakistan, to the end of the book, the hand of Iran is clearly perceived. As we reflect on Iran's enormous success in 2002-2004 in using Chalabi to deceive the Bush Administration into wiping out Saddam Hussein and opening Iraq for Iranian capture, at a cost to the US taxpayer of over $400 billion dollars, we can only compare Iran to the leadership of North Viet-Nam. Iran has a strategic culture, the US does not. The North Vietnamese beat the US for that reason. Absent the development of a strategic culture within the US, one that is not corrupted by ideological fantasy, Iran will ultimately beat the US and Israel in the Middle East.
  
  The greatest failure of the CIA comes across throughout early in the book: the CIA missed the radicalization of Islam and its implications for global destabilization. It did so for three reasons: 1) CIA obsession with hard targets to the detriment of global coverage; 2) CIA obsession with technical secrets rather than human overt and covert information; and 3) CIA laziness and political naiveté in relying on foreign liaison, and especially on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
  
  Both Admiral Stansfield Turner and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski come in for criticism here. Turner for gutting the CIA, Brzezinski for telling Pakistan it could go nuclear (page 51) in return for help against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
  
  Although the book does not focus on Bin Laden until he becomes a player in Afghanistan, it does provide much better discussion of Bin Laden's very close relations with Saudi intelligence, including the Chief of Staff of Saudi intelligence at the time, Bin Laden's former teacher and mentor. There appears to be no question, from this and other sources, including Yossef Bodansky's book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America and David Kaplan's US News & World Report on Saudi sponsorship of global terrorism, that Bin Laden has been the primary Saudi intelligence agent of influence for exporting terrorism and Islamic radicalism to South Asia, the Pacific Rim, Africa, Europe, Russia, and the US. CIA and the FBI failed to detect this global threat, and the USG failed to understand that World War III started in 1989. As with other evils, the US obsession about communism led it to sponsor new emerging threats that might not otherwise have become real. However, the book also provides the first documentation I have seen that Bin Laden was "noticed" by the CIA in 1985 (page 146), and that Bin Laden opened his US office in 1986. It was also about this time that the Russian "got it" on the radical Islamic threat, told the US, and got blown off. Bob Gates and George Shultz were wrong to doubt the Soviets when they laid out Soviet plans to leave Afghanistan and Soviet concern about both the future of Afghanistan and the emerging threat from Islamic terrorism.
  
  The middle of the book can be considered a case study in how Pakistani deception combined with American ignorance led us to make many errors of judgment. Some US experts did see the situation clearly--Ed McWilliams from State ("Evil Little Person" per Milt Bearden) comes out of this book looking very very smart.
  
  The final portions of the book are detailed and balanced. What comes across is both a failure of the US to think strategically, and the incredibly intelligent manner in which Bin Laden does think globally, strategically, and unconventionally. Bin Laden understands the new equation: low-cost terrorism equals very high cost economic dislocation.
  
  Side note: CIA provided the Islamic warriors in Afghanistan with enough explosives to blow up half of New York (page 135), and with over 2000 Stinger missiles, 600 of which appear to remain in the hands of anti-US forces today, possibly including a number shipped to Iran for re-purposing (ie London, Dallas, Houston)
  
  One final note: morality matters. I am greatly impressed with the author's judgment in focusing on the importance that Bin Laden places on the corruption of US and Saudi Arabian governments and corporations as the justification for his jihad. Will and Ariel Durant, in "The Lessons of History," make a special point of discussing the long-term strategic value of morality as a "force" that impacts on the destiny of nations and peoples. The US has lost that part of the battle, for now, and before we can beat Bin Laden, we must first clean our own house and demand that the Saudi's clean theirs or be abandoned as a US ally. Morality matters. Strategic culture matters. On these two counts, Bin Laden is winning for now.
  
  Other books that augment this one:
  The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
  Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
  Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
  First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan
  See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
  Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
  Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
  
  

• One of the Better Post 9-11 Histories

  
  By A1IL6W1NK05UW9 on 2004-03-14
  Coll provides a highly detailed, well written account of the history of the CIA and United States in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to 9/11. Without going into a lot of detail in this review-let me say that I would highly recommend this work for anyone who is interested in how we came to the point we are in Afghanistan post-9/11, and how we inadvertently provided Bin Laden fertile ground for a successful terrorist operation.

  Frankly, after reading this account, I became empathetic toward the CIA, Clinton and those in his administration, and the Pakistani and Saudi governments. Clearly their positions and actions lead to the rise of the Taliban. While lots of mistakes and maybe some shortsightedness existed among these players-they were all dealing with intricate and sensitive internal political issues that drove their decisions, or in the case of the United States, lack of action, in post-Soviet Afghanistan.

  While Bin Laden would likely have existed without the safe haven he found in Afghanistan, his ability to train and draw followers so freely and with impunity is partially "blowback" from actions take by the CIA, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia during the Soviet-Afghan war as money and weapons poured into the country.

  There is also a lot of information about Ahmed Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance. It's interesting to speculate how more assistance to Massoud might have thwarted or overthrown the Taliban and as a result push Bin Laden into less favorable circumstances. But given Massoud's failure as a political leader in his first opportunity, the brutality of his troops, and being an ethnic minority in his country, again one can empathize with why the United States was reluctant to pin their hopes on him.

  If you are trying to decide which of the very large number of books about Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Bin Laden are worth reading-this is one of them.
  
  

• An Immensely Detailed and Fascinating Book

  
  By A2F6N60Z96CAJI on 2004-04-03
  "Afghanistanism" used to be a derisive term in the newspaper world. It meant playing up news from obscure far-off places while neglecting what was going wrong on your own home turf.

  No longer. Very few countries worldwide have been more important to the U.S. over the past quarter century than this remote, primitive, landlocked and little-understood area tucked in between Iran, Pakistan and the former U.S.S.R. In this weighty and immensely detailed book, Steve Coll, who reported from Afghanistan for the Washington Post (where he is now managing editor) between 1989 and 1992, sorts out for the patient reader one of the most complex diplomatic and military involvements the U.S. has experienced in this century.

  The cast of characters is immense, rivaling for sheer size (and personal quirkiness) any novel by Dickens or Dostoyevsky. It ranges from four U.S. Presidents through a platoon of bemedaled generals from five or six countries and a regiment of scheming diplomats down to hard-pressed pilots, miserably ill-equipped guerilla fighters, steely-eyed assassins and suicide bombers. There are more political factions here than most readers will be able to keep track of --- not to mention the factions that spring up within factions. It is all quite dizzying, but also fascinating and important.

  Coll is a conscientious reporter. He does his best to keep the reader informed and to make his more important players come alive as human beings. His book is not easy reading, but it rewards well anyone who buckles down and stays with it to the end.

  A couple of general impressions: First, Coll demonstrates time and again how much of the really important things that government --- any government --- does in foreign relations is done in deep secrecy, far from the eyes and ears of the average consumer of "news." Secondly, he leaves the impression that disdain and hatred of non-Muslims is pretty much pervasive throughout the Muslim world, coloring the actions and judgments even of those Muslims whom westerners might not consider "extremists."

  Another leitmotiv in this almost Wagnerian epic drama is a pervasive lack of interest on the part of American policymakers in the developing crisis in Afghanistan, followed by paralyzing intra-agency squabbles and turf battles once the threat of terrorism became unavoidable. One is reminded of Dickens's satirical governmental invention, the "Circumlocution Office" in Little Dorrit with its famous motto: How Not To Do It.

  Coll covers in exhaustive detail the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet Union; the factional warfare that ensued; the rise of the Taliban from a small cadre of student zealots to a force that ruled most of the country; the emergence of Osama bin Laden; the clumsy and ineffective efforts of the U.S. government to get meaningful cooperation from Saudi Arabia and/or Pakistan in stabilizing and democratizing the region; and the ominous events that led up to --- but did not precisely signal -- the attacks of Sept. 11th. He is especially good on the lack of interest and decisive action by the U.S. after the Russian withdrawal and on the paralyzing rivalries between competing governmental spook shops that caused this breakdown. Action plans would be developed, only to be derailed by fruitless internal debates and objections. "How Not To Do It" indeed!

  An additional strength of the book is Coll's knack for thumbnail portraits of the participants. Most memorable are his word pictures of two CIA directors: the religiously driven cold warrior William Casey and the consummate organization man George Tenet. Also well done are his portraits of Afghan warriors like the unlucky Ahmed Shah Massoud (whose assassination closes the book) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Osama bin Laden himself, though dutifully described, remains necessarily an offstage influence rather than a full-bodied presence. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia come off in Coll's pages as unreliable allies, to the point of being deceitful in their dealings with the U.S.

  GHOST WARS is not beach reading by any means, but those who have the patience to get through it will emerge well informed indeed. Of course, everything changed on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Can a second volume be far behind?

  --- Reviewed by Robert Finn
  
  

• Complexity is the word

  
  By AHL35XZ3OND2Z on 2004-03-02
  Ghost wars is an excellent reporting job by Steve Coll. More direct quotes would have been welcomed, but overall, the research and the reporting is enough to project an elightening view on the massively complex Afghan situation America got into after the Russian invasion up to this very day.

  A number of things come to light not easily communicated to the American public by our media.

  1. A policy to trail and kill bin Laden and his associates was undertaken by the Clinton administration. The "wag the dog" BS of the republican zealots after the missile strike of 1998 did not encourage the administration to push using troops of any kind.

  2. Pakistan's position today is extrememly delicate. They did a massive amount to aid the Taliban over the Russian invasion and up to 9/11. There should be no surprise in the difficulty that remains in getting to get "full" support on destroying the jihadis crossing the Afghan/Pakistan border. Their intelligence service is about as troubled as our own.

  3. Reagan policy of arming Afgans to the teeth then abandoning them completely is one of the biggest mistakes in American foreign policy in history.

  4. Clinton policy on bin Laden was scattered and non productive. The C.I.A. did little to earn the full trust of the administration with spotty intel.

  5. "Does America Need the C.I.A. ?" Good question, if anybody has a good answer, tell Bush - he is still looking for Iraq's weapons.

  By the very nature of our country, the intelligence services are bureaucracies. Yet the trouble with trusing the C.I.A. goes way back. Kennedy doubted them, Nixon doubted them, Ford chaired the committee to question their existence.
  Real reform of the C.I.A. doesn't look rosy. If we spent $87 billion on trying to build friends in the arab world instead of bombing their back yard, maybe we'd get somewhere and wouldn't have to ask the impossible from the C.I.A. and blame them when it all goes wrong.
  
  

• Ponderous "inside the Beltway" yawn

  
  By on 2004-03-12
  I fancy myself something of a foreign policy maven, who's waded few quite a few ponderous tomes that few ordinary readers would stomach. Yet even I found it difficult to stick with this overweight, almost agonizingly dull "treatise" on the history of the Afghan rebels and Bin Laden's subsequent anti-US vendetta.

  Up front, the author doesn't bother to give many any sign posts about where he's headed; he just sort of launches into the story, expecting us to stay patiently along for the whole ride. He has lots of cute "inside the Beltway" details about which CIA station agent thought what about which mujehadin faction, but there are not a lot of revelations here, especially per pound. He's pretty kind to people like "Bill" Casey, former head of the CIA -- not spending much time on the fellow's "darker" side. He also doesn't provide much of a perspective on the broader strategic context, tunnelling right in from the start on Afghanistan, and largely leaving to one side the important "context" in countries like Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Without an editor, of course, that would have made it an even longer book. But perhaps because he IS an editor, Mr. Coll didn't need one. The book also adopts, in places, a kind of breezy idealization of certain Afghan rebels like Massoud, with barely disguised sneers at the bloody Soviet Army, evidently some of the "bad guys." These days, with the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan in a situation that bears some resemblance to that of the Soviets -- down to the attempted reform of Islamic values, the creation of new governments and a surrogate army -one wonders if a somewhat more balanced perspective might not be deserved. Finally, even the footnotes are a waste of time, many of them just referring to confidential interviews in general without even a time or a place.

  In short -- unless you are required to read this book for some reason, or need a doorstop, just skim it in the bookstore.
  
  

• Select CIA-Saudi Sources, Thus Slanted, but Essential
  By A1S8AJIUIO6M9K on 2004-06-10
  

  
  On balance this is a well researched book (albeit with a Langley-Saudi partiality that must be noted), and I give it high marks for substance, story, and notes. It should be read in tandem with several other books, including George Crile's "Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History" and the Milt Bearden/James Risen tome on "The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB."

  The most important point in the book is not one the author intended to make. He inadvertently but most helpfully points to the fact that at no time did the U.S. government, in lacking a policy on Afghanistan across several Administrations, think about the strategic implications of "big money movements." I refer to Saudi Oil, Afghan Drugs, and CIA Cash.

  Early on the book shows that Afghanistan was not important to the incumbent Administration, and that the Directorate of Operations, which treats third-world countries as hunting grounds for Soviets rather than targets in their own right, had eliminated Afghanistan as a "collection objective" in the late 1980's through the early 1990's. It should be no surprise that the CIA consequently failed to predict the fall of Kabul (or in later years, the rise of the Taliban).

  Iran plays heavily in the book, and that is one of the book's strong points. From the 1979 riots against the U.S. Embassies in Iran and in Pakistan, to the end of the book, the hand of Iran is clearly perceived. As we reflect on Iran's enormous success in 2002-2004 in using Chalabi to deceive the Bush Administration into wiping out Saddam Hussein and opening Iraq for Iranian capture, at a cost to the US taxpayer of over $400 billion dollars, we can only compare Iran to the leadership of North Viet-Nam. Iran has a strategic culture, the US does not. The North Vietnamese beat the US for that reason. Absent the development of a strategic culture within the US, one that is not corrupted by ideological fantasy, Iran will ultimately beat the US and Israel in the Middle East.

  The greatest failure of the CIA comes across throughout early in the book: the CIA missed the radicalization of Islam and its implications for global destabilization. It did so for three reasons: 1) CIA obsession with hard targets to the detriment of global coverage; 2) CIA obsession with technical secrets rather than human overt and covert information; and 3) CIA laziness and political naiveté in relying on foreign liaison, and especially on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

  Both Admiral Stansfield Turner and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski come in for criticism here. Turner for gutting the CIA, Brzezinski for telling Pakistan it could go nuclear (page 51) in return for help against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

  Although the book does not focus on Bin Laden until he becomes a player in Afghanistan, it does provide much better discussion of Bin Laden's very close relations with Saudi intelligence, including the Chief of Staff of Saudi intelligence at the time, Bin Laden's former teacher and mentor. There appears to be no question, from this and other sources, including Yossef Bodansky's book on Bin Laden and David Kaplan's US News & World Report on Saudi sponsorship of global terrorism, that Bin Laden has been the primary Saudi intelligence agent of influence for exporting terrorism and Islamic radicalism to South Asia, the Pacific Rim, Africa, Europe, Russia, and the US. CIA and the FBI failed to detect this global threat, and the USG failed to understand that World War III started in 1989. As with other evils, the US obsession about communism led it to sponsor new emerging threats that might not otherwise have become real. However, the book also provides the first documentation I have seen that Bin Laden was "noticed" by the CIA in 1985 (page 146), and that Bin Laden opened his US office in 1986. It was also about this time that the Russian "got it" on the radical Islamic threat, told the US, and got blown off. Bob Gates and George Shultz were wrong to doubt the Soviets when they laid out Soviet plans to leave Afghanistan and Soviet concern about both the future of Afghanistan and the emerging threat from Islamic terrorism.

  The middle of the book can be considered a case study in how Pakistani deception combined with American ignorance led us to make many errors of judgment. Some US experts did see the situation clearly--Ed McWilliams from State ("Evil Little Person" per Milt Bearden) comes out of this book looking very very smart.

  The final portions of the book are detailed and balanced. What comes across is both a failure of the US to think strategically, and the incredibly intelligent manner in which Bin Laden does think globally, strategically, and unconventionally. Bin Laden understands the new equation: low-cost terrorism equals very high cost economic dislocation.

  Side note: CIA provided the Islamic warriors in Afghanistan with enough explosives to blow up half of New York (page 135), and with over 2000 Stinger missiles, 600 of which appear to remain in the hands of anti-US forces today, possibly including a number shipped to Iran for re-purposing (ie London, Dallas, Houston)

  One final note: morality matters. I am greatly impressed with the author's judgment in focusing on the importance that Bin Laden places on the corruption of US and Saudi Arabian governments and corporations as the justification for his jihad. Will and Ariel Durant, in "The Lessons of History," make a special point of discussing the long-term strategic value of morality as a "force" that impacts on the destiny of nations and peoples. The US has lost that part of the battle, for now, and before we can beat Bin Laden, we must first clean our own house and demand that the Saudi's clean theirs or be abandoned as a US ally. Morality matters. Strategic culture matters. On these two counts, Bin Laden is winning for now.
  
  

• Who edits the managing editor ?
  By A6PGY3XAJSYH2 on 2004-03-03
  Despite favorable reviews, one might ask: who dared to edit this tome ? Seemingly no one. Coll is like a draftsman; heavy on detail, good red lines, straight right angles but weak on telling a good tale and moving the story along for the general reader. The reader does not need to know of all the feuds between the Afghan tribes and the CIA and the State Department. A David Halberstam would have knocked this book off in 350 pages, Coll takes another 125 weighty pages to tell the same story. The Washington set may call it the definitive history of the CIA's involvement in the Afghan War but it is questionable if the general reading public will wade through the book to the end.
  
  
• A good reason to read non fiction
  By AIOAKDK4AP7VZ on 2004-06-19
  Since it appears that the U.S. is inexorably involved in this part of the world - a CNN commentator and former general predicted recently that the current war on terror was unlikely to end in our lifetime - I have departed from my usual reading habit of serious fiction and forced myself into a brave new world of non fiction, consuming Ghost Wars (Coll), Against All Enemies (Clarke) and Plan of Attack (Woodward) over the past few weeks. Of the three, I found Coll's the most interesting, immersing myself in the detailed account of mid level CIA operatives, Washington bureaucrats and policy makers focused on the South Asia region, bracketed in time from the take over of the American embassy in Pakistan and the narrow avoidance of massive American casualties at the hands of Muslim extremists in 1979, up to but short of 9/11.

  Having no expertise in the region, it's difficult to evaluate the accuracy of Coll's account. However, his narrative appears remarkably free of partisan finger pointing as Coll faults Robin Raphel, Clinton's assistant secretary of state for South Asia, for her relative inexperience and naiveté as she serves as apologist for the Taliban while working to keep the U.S. neutral in the Afghan civil war, while highlighting Hillary Clinton's important role in defending women's rights and increasing awareness among the American people of the dangers posed by that regime. Bill Clinton, himself, is shown in both positive and negative aspects as he recognizes relatively early on the dangers that Muslim terrorism poses for the homeland, while at other times, notably in an early meeting in 1993 with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar and Saudi spy chief Prince Turki, he conducts a "typical Clinton session, more seminar than formal meeting," asking his guests' opinions of where US foreign policy should go, leaving the Saudi's confused, "He's asking us?"

  Overall, I came away from the book more convinced than ever that America's historic desire to disengage from the world will not be a successful strategy in a post 9/11 world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we walked away from Afghanistan, redirecting American aid to Africa, and for long stretches had no CIA personnel located in that country. Our counter terrorism efforts were largely administered through untrustworthy clients like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who diverted American resources to their own ends. When faced with overwhelming evidence that Osama bin Laden had planned and executed major terrorist attacks against Americans and our embassies late in Clinton's term of office, we had few military options because we had little ability to project American power into this remote area of the globe. In 1999, we had 60,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany facing a non existent Soviet threat,. but lacked the strength to take out a few terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

  Perhaps the most important contribution of this book is remind America citizens that the world is indeed a much smaller place than it once was, and ocean barriers provide significantly less security than they have in the past.
  
  

• The CIA had too much information, and so does this book.
  By on 2004-04-20
  This book is selling very nicely and obviously has prompted Congressional hearing questions. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same weakness that kept the US government from preventing the September 11 attacks: It has too much information of varying quality, badly organized and poorly analyzed. You might learn more and more easily about US actions in Afghanistan by reading the reviews of this book.

  Three years in South Asia clearly gave Steve Coll some personal acquaintance with people, places and events. He combined that with voluminous documentary evidence, and the result is War and Peace Goes To Afghanistan. A reader who slogs through this book will read a lot about the topic, but won't come out with a clear conclusion, and won't gain the most reliable understanding. When I find errors in the discussion of topics that I know about, I suspect that the same sort of errors exist in areas where I'm less knowledgeable.

  More understanding of the military, CIA and State Department would have avoided the errors that lard the book's first hundred pages. Throughout the book, Coll misstates the name of the Counterterrorism (not "-ist") Center at the CIA. The 1980 Teheran embassy rescue helicopter crash happened not because the helicopters were "sand-blown" (pg. 55) but because a pilot undertook an exceedingly difficult hover in the high wind and blowing sand at night. Is a British Enfield rifle more powerful than a Russian AK-47 rifle (pg. 58, and no, it isn't) or vice-versa (pg. 66), or did Coll misunderstand when his source told him what was being said to the Afghanis at different times? Who thinks the Secretary of State actually writes a routine briefing memorandum (pg. 62) for the President? The Salang Highway is west, not east of the Panjshir Valley (pg. 115, right above the map). The writing is florid (safehouses were unmarked, what's a fusillade if not gunfire?, and the 1979 Soviet invasion was "hegemonic violence.") Why write that the President "scrawled" his name on a presidential finding that covert action is in the national interest? Occasionally, the adjectives clank ("Soviet bomber-jets", "brass-polish outsiders" and "eye-tearing rivalry"). None of this is very serious except that it all suggests a superficial understanding and a lack of editorial care.

  It's clear that Coll interviewed lots of CIA officers, but he swallowed and uncritically repeats self-justifications, allowed extraneous detail to distract him from important concerns, and missed an opportunity to write real history; Instead, this book is journalism (and I intend that to be derogatory.) CIA officers' back-biting comments sold Coll on a dichotomy in CIA between the Eastern snob establishment tennis players and working-class Midwestern bowlers, ignoring the agency's many years of heavy recruiting in America's heartland and the absence of bowling alleys in suburban Washington. The real culture war inside CIA has long been between the cowboys and those who are more careful and disciplined. When Coll mentions "the mundane details of shipping and finance" (pg. 65), one should imagine the private satisfaction of a CIA officer who has just led the journalist right past some sensitive methods and truly covert operations.

  There's always a tension between writing an interesting story and reaching for sensation. Without evidence or even an attributable allegation that CIA officers contacted Osama bin Laden, and despite Coll's description of CIA officers' repeated denials and the absence of documentary evidence of such contact, Coll probably ought to apologize for having written that "If the CIA did have contact with bin Laden during the 1980s and subsequently covered it up, it has so far done an excellent job." If the question referred to wife-beating, an individual might get really angry at reading that he had denied doing it, there was no proof that he had ever started doing it, much less stopped, but he might have been covering up anyway.

  Many authors acknowledge the assistance of expert readers who have looked over a manuscript and helped by pointing out errors. This book would have benefitted from such help, as well as the services of a good literary and copy editor.

  In addition to books recommended by other reviewers here, I'd recommend Milt Bearden's novel, The Black Tulip.
  
  

• inside the tactical ops
  By A30RI0AJ4CQBU1 on 2004-04-14
  Coll has written an inside history of the CIA in Afghanistan that seems revealing on a nuts-and-bolts level, but fails to address the big picture. I am writing this review on the day that George Tenet is testifying before the 9/11 Commission, and Coll's work is directly relevant.
  
  What does GHOST WARS cover? It gives a brief overview of the massive CIA program to arm the Afghan mujahadin against the Soviets in the 1980s. There is a tantalizing brief mention of Usama Bin Laden's (UBL) role in this, but do you suspect that what we are told is a partial account? It ends the day before 9/11. So what it covers in some detail is the period between the Soviet withdrawal and 9/11, including the period of civil war among warlords, the rise of the Taliban, and UBL estblishing his base there, and the story is told mainly from the point of view of mid-level CIA officials who were responsible for tracking UBL and al Qaeda. These officers, some only referred to as "Mike" and "Rich" to protect their identities (Mike we now know is Mike Scheuer, who has written IMPERIAL HUBRIS), were clearly consumed by their task and did all in their power to succeed in the years between 1997 and 9/11. Tenet, Black and other higher-ups are also portrayed as being quite focused on the threat and doing what they could. Coll's book doesn't provide any startling evidence to suggest a radical change one way or another in the Clinton-Bush transition.
  
  The most interesting part of the book is in the details of surveillance and planned ops -- UBL is watched making a regular circuit with his convoy of SUVs in Afghanistan from his base in Kandahar looping around to the NW and back. The Pakistani military is monitored for beards -- Islamic fundamentalists are required not to cut their beards, and so this would be an indication of a fundamentalist takeover of the Pakistani military. A group of UAE sheikhs goes hunting with hawks in Afghanistan, and the CIA group monitoring UBL thinks he is there -- a missile strike is considered, but rejected.
  
  If you find this level of detail interesting, you will enjoy Coll's book. I found more interesting what was left out. There is little or no discussion of U.S. strategy in all the profusion of tactical details. What about oil? What about Unocal and pipelines to carry oil and natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan? What about our questionable alliances with the Saudis and Pakistan? Coll's reporting offers little by way of answers, and mainly raises more questions. Plus, frankly, I am suspicious even of what is revealed, given the likelihood that important pieces are still classified. Overall, perhaps a good read for those thinking on the level of "getting the bad guys," but of limited value for those of us wondering about what is creating the bad guys, including U.S. strategy, and how to change the conditions that continue to create them.
  
  
• Amazing insight into south asian policies for 20 years
  By A99K436881O2J on 2004-05-09
  Wow, I could not put this book down, It was so interesting and enthraling. If you want to know how our intelligence agencies opererate, from our spies on the ground to the budgetary procudures, this is all you need. Steve Coll is an amazing unbiased reporter that lets the reader draw his own conclusions, in many ways he just provides the facts. It starts with the soviet-afghan war, and our clear agenda to help the afgans bleed the soviets. But with the collapse of the soviet union, they United States simply did not seem to care much about afghanistan, nor did it want to get involved in its politics, much to the behest of many career mid to lower level intelligence and diplomatic professionals. IT simply did not seem as important as defining what the post cold war world would look like, Inter agency rivalries, oil contracts, reluctance to use covert ops, mistrust of the CIA outright by clinton, and legal issues regarding killing OBL all got in the way. To make things worse during the 1990's the corporate "silicon valley" cluture somehow managed to find its way to the CIA, infecting it with a deadly mix of political correctness in everything from its operations to hiring, this in turn drove many of the CIA's longtime operatives to go into early retirement. At one point, the CIA was adding little more than 1 new operative in a span of a few months.
  Coll spends the latter half of the book describing how the CIA and the CTSG tried in vain to kill Osama Bin Laden but were shot down by senior politicians and even the pentagon, who simply did not want to get involved. I overwhelmingly enjoyed this book, if you are remotely interested in the nuts and bolts of US foreign policy, this will provide a great look into its innner wheelings and dealings.
  There are a few items that Coll does leave out. The biggest issue is pakistans nuclear weapons, he never really discusses them, It would have been great to see what Coll could have dug up if he put his journalistic powers to work on this issue, did pakistani nuclear weapons scientists in conjunction with the Pakistani ISI who were in bed with OBL and the Taliban give nuclear material to them? Second, it is not always clear when CIA agents were directly involved in operations in afghanistan. It always appears murky, and one could go as far to say they were on the ground constantly secretly helping massoud, it would be great for this matter to be cleared up. Go out and buy this book right away...
  
  
• Masterful Depiction of CIA Nurturance Of MuslimTerrorism!
  By ALR35EFI69S5R on 2004-04-17
  This absorbing new book,"Ghost Wars", written by noted journalist Steve Coll, managing editor of the Washington Post, deftly describes and explains the origins, progress, and consequences of the CIA's ill-fated sponsorship of radical Muslim fundamentalists in a concerted effort to turn the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan in the late 1970s into a Russian version of Vietnam. The devil lies in the details, as they say, and Mr. Coll does a yeoman's job of explaining how the specific actions taken by the United States to influence the long term course of the Soviet aggression against the Afghan people wrought the absolutely catastrophic unintended consequences it did by way of the creation, training and sustenance of the fanatical Arab fringe group that eventually emerged in the early 1990s as Al Queda.

  Indeed, it is a tale full of unimaginable arrogance, thoughtless irresponsibility, and ultimate irony that many of the so-called masterminds of the various Arab groups loosely held together by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network were originally recruited, trained, and transported to Afghanistan by the CIA and its front organizations, and many of the most sophisticated of their members learned their tradecraft here in the United States in training courses offered and funded by the CIA. Operating with the cooperation of a number of other national security organizations such as the KGB, the Saudi General Intelligence Department, and the dreaded Pakistani ISI, the covert agents of the Central Intelligence Agency played a dangerous game in creating an effective and often deadly counterforce to the brunt instrument of the Soviet military machine, and by creating the guerilla forces to do so, gave radical Muslim fundamentalists an object lesson in how to fight quite effectively against superior military forces.

  In this fashion, the success enjoyed by the Arab terrorists in fighting against the Soviets encouraged them to think about how they could use their newfound capabilities to engage the forces that be within the orbit of the Middle East itself to effect change towards the creation of a theocratic fundamentalist Muslim state, or even a loose confederation, or Caliphate, of them, by employing such terrorist tactics against both the Western powers and (eventually) the Saudi royal family to accomplish their goals. It took us a while to recognize that the rag-tag confederation of Arab `freedom fighters baptized by combat in Afghanistan were now forming into a most formidable and extremely dangerous enemy, one that could hide at pleasure and strike when it suited them best.Moreover, one of the most interesting aspects to the book is the way in which the author threads the story of the growing and evolving threat of Al Queda into the history of what is also transpiring in Afghanistan over that quarter century of time.

  Had we not cut and run, for example, after helping to defeat the Soviets, had we stayed behind to aid them in rebuilding the shattered country the Soviets left in their wake, we might have been able to do much to disarm the radical Muslim movement from gaining traction in the first place. Instead, we abandoned them to their misery and incredible tribal hatreds and animosities, and by so doing provided a haven in which radical Muslim fundamentalists could come to power, and thus creating a perfect setting for all that Al Queda did afterward. In tracing the sordid history of how these so-called ghost wars led to what happened later, eventuating in the attacks of the late 1990s and the events of 911, Coll argues powerfully for a more informed, logical, and rational foreign policy, one informed by a keen understanding of the world and our place in it. Until such transformation takes place, our country and we will continue to be at great risk. Enjoy!
  
  

• Amazingly thorough and authoritative
  By A3617MUVB2ACOQ on 2005-03-31
  This book is THE book on "the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden." Coll was fair and thorough. I think it is important to note, as some other reviewers here have done, that if you are a right- or left-winger looking for blame, you will find it. That is, blame can be thrown at all. Reagan and GHW Bush started the problems (and in fairness, they did so because they were facing bigger problems). Clinton deserves credit for recognizing that Bin Laden was a problem, but did not commit to an aggressive enough strategy. GW Bush did not at all recognize the problem at the start of his administration: he was focused on China, Russia, Iraq, missile defense, and ABC (anything but Clinton). But when it became apparent that Bin Laden was a real threat, he seemed willing to aggressively address the situation. By that time though, time had run out.
  
  Now, recognizing that the fault of allowing 9/11 to happen is bipartisan, we also must accept that blame falls on all of our shoulders. The signs were there for all to see, and yet none of us were aggressively looking to solve it. No one could appreciate the problem until 9/11 happened.
  
  Coll wrote a precious book. I gave it four stars because it was just a little too thorough for my taste. A little tough to slog through, but important nonetheless.
  
  
  
• Astounding
  By on 2004-02-26
  A chilling tale that every American should know, but does not. Excellent in depth exploration of the subject in question. A must read for anyone interested in such affairs.
  
  
• Standard Leftist Drivel
  By A2Q6UIF58T8R6M on 2004-06-10
  This is a rather predictable book. It is rife with the basic anti-anticommunist canards with some Clintonian apologia added.

  Considering it was written by a Washington Post editor and Pulitzer Prize winner its credibility is questionable. Why anyone would want to read it other than the liberal conspiracy theory club is unknown.

  Then again maybe that is all who is reading it.
  
  

• Another narrative of shame
  By AYNX41F8AICLB on 2004-06-22
  This is yet another revealing book on a subject that has assumed foremost global importance since 11 September 2001: The outcome of the shameful methods employed by the USA to win the Cold War struggle with the late USSR. Books such as this present crucial, unpleasant evidence that can no longer be avoided, dismissed or compromised on whatsoever.
  The content of Steve Coll's book is built upon useful minutiae and his narrative is qualitatively better and more reasonable than that of other key books appearing on the subject so far.
  It is again evident from this book - as also from its other predecessors - that America's criminal marriage of convenience with fanatical barbarous murderous thugs and bigots, plus abetting them - to achieve her "righteous" 1991 victory is more vile than any silly old "gray" Communist dogma (that was decaying anyway) could ever be. From the material Coll has compiled in this book, it is apparent to any reasonable scholar of the subject that the kind of vile trickery and hypocritical facades, together with this vast undercover war that America employed to achieve world domination (not just the victory of "free enterprise" over communism) merits that America doesn't deserve a civilised enemy as Communism was, but that the sort of intangible nightmarish horror presented by militant/revivalist Islam is the right kind of nemesis for this greedy, arrogant world bully that supports (and revives) the Third World's feudal and tribal social status quo and enables massive elitist corruption in those countries, and treats the world as its playground like a spoilt child.
  As a dweller of the key Pakistani North Western border city of Peshawar (mentioned throughout this book), who suffered the effects of and witnessed first-hand more or less all the shameful goings on which Steve Coll has documented - happening in my close proximity, all I will say is this: Congratulations, America, you've won your Cold War but you've really earned yourself a nice fix, too, in the process ... You sure won't get out of this one fast, if ever at all ...
  
  
• gripping and informative-
  By A2HZB5EOCG4MH0 on 2007-02-08
  I recommend every American read this book. It most likely won't change your mind about what we should or shouldn't do, or who we should or shouldn't vote for. But it will educate you as to what already happened.
  
  It is an informative book. It should be mandatory reading for fans of stupid conspiracy theorists like the "Loose Change" idiots, or the "Israel/ Bush planned the whole thing" nutters.
  
  The book is also a good chronology of the failures of the CIA in Afghanistan. The same Afghanistan that was also the one of the CIA's greatest successes.
  
  The CIA after years of making mistakes and not seeing the threat did come around, and then it was politicians and the State Dept that foiled the CIA's efforts and failed the people of Afghanistan and the US.
  
  The Clinton white house engaged Bin Laden the same ineffectual non conscientious way they engaged North Korea. They also ineffectually engaged the genocide being committed by the Serbs in Bosnia, and then later by the Serbs in Kosovo. As well as ineffectually engaging Iraq.
  
  OBL declared war on the US and all US citizens in the 1990's. It wasn't a secret declaration of war. And it came as no surprise to US allies in Afghanistan who were enemies of the Afghan Arabs and the Taliban. They had been trying to tell us the same for years.
  
  The CIA told the white house that there was a war declared on us. The CIA was slow, but with each attack;
  The attack on the USS Cole.
  The attack on the Embassies in Africa.
  The attack on the Air Force Barracks in Saudi Arabia.
  Various attacks on CIA personnel in Yemen and Afghanistan.
  
  With each attack the lower levels of the CIA became more outspoken. After the embassy bombings, one CIA employee tearfully told Tenet that the blood was on his hands. Guys at the CIA knew an attack on American soil was coming. By the late 90's even the reluctant CIA director had come around (though he never endorsed any of his people's plans against Osama or the Taliban). Tenet did warn his buddy democratic congressman to avoid air travel and to not congregate in public at the end of 1999 because of the imminent Al Qaeda threat. They were a big enough threat to warn a congressman that his life might be in danger around large amounts of US citizens that might be victims. But Al Qaeda was apparently not big enough a threat to warrant helping their opposition the Northern Alliance. Not big enough a threat to OK a strike against them.
  
  Well one of the CIA's many suggestions was taken. A cruise missile attack was launched on the day that the FBI came back with the DNA evidence on Monica Lewinsky's dress. Unfortunately the Pakistanis were told about the upcoming cruise missile attack and they in turn told the Taliban, who informed their main benefactor OBL.
  
  When the Bush administration came into office, they had in mind to unscrew many of the many many many mistakes of the previous administration (and perhaps some of the mistakes of the administration of the elder Bush).
  
  As everyone knows, they did not act swiftly enough. And as I read the book that thought loomed over my head. And truthfully, even though Clinton probably understood the CIA when they told him that an attack were coming, there was not much he could do with an uncooperative military, and a congress that did not trust him on either side of the isle.
  
  Clinton knew the CIA was right when customs had the good luck of interdicting a car bomb destined and capable of destroying a third of LAX. The FBI and other agencies were able to thwart attacks of the new millennium. And Clinton understood when the various agencies told him that it was luck alone that had enabled them to stop that Millennium attacks, and that they would most likely not catch the next one. Even if Clinton had done all the right things at that time, still the attack that was 9/11 was already launched. Killing bin Laden at that time would have unlikely stopped anything.
  
  When the Clinton cronies left over in the white house told the new occupant, the Bush administration, of the Danger of bin Laden, they did not warm up to the facts fast enough.
  
  Like the Clinton administration before it the Bush administration were told of the very likely upcoming attack. I think it was Richard Clark who told them; "act now like you are going to act after the attack, treat our uncooperative allies of Pakistan and the Gulf States, as if the attack had already happened". He said that or something like it. From all accounts I read sometimes Clarke was spot on, but other times he was a selfish toolbag.
  
  Condoleezza Rice did eventually push for all the right decisions to be made. She did finally decide that the Taliban was our enemy, and that it was unlikely that any amount of diplomacy was going to change that. Nor was any amount of diplomacy going to make Pakistan and the various Gulf States realize that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were our enemy with our current policies.
  
  By the time that Rice decided that Al Qaeda was our enemy, about a decade and a half of various of our Afghan allies constantly pleading to us the same thing. Rice agreed for the CIA to help Ahmed Shah Massoud and a coalition of other Afghan opponents of the Taliban genocide, and their extremist Wahabbi interpretation of Islam. The US finally agreed to help our allies against our sworn enemies, about the same time the Al Qaeda finally figured out how to kill the wily, brilliant and elusive Massaud.
  
  It should be noted that despite all the rhetoric of the injustice of the Palestinian situation. That was not the cause of 9/11. The Arab jihadists held the Palestinian cause as an afterthought at best.
  
  Also not a motivation for the attack was any Afghan policy that we had. If anything it was a lack of a US policy in Afghanistan that caused the attack. We stood by and did nothing while the most extreme elements in the Middle East and Pakistan funded and equipped a faction in Afghanistan foreign to Afghans and Afghan history. We even did some standing by while Pakistan used our money to fund our enemies.
  
  The main motivation of the 9/11 attacks was our policy of containment in Iraq.
  
  Also I'd like to note that one of the reasons that the Clinton administration did not want to help Massaud, even when it became clear the abuses that the Taliban were inflicting on women, and even after it became clear that Al Qaeda had attacked US already over seas, and was planning an attack on US soil. The main reason that Clinton did not want to help our ally fight our enemy is the pariah of American liberty, the drug war. To compete with the funding of oil Sheikhs, and the funding and assistance of the Pakistani military, Massaud was benefiting off of the number one cash crop in Afghanistan, opium.
  
  If there is one thing today that will ensure that our enemies in Afghanistan stick around a little longer than they should, it is our attempt at eradicating the poppy fields. We are driving the vast profits of the drug trade away from the legal government, and to whoever will oppose us. We are probably not going to stop a single European drug user from getting his fix, and I don't know why we are trying.
  
  
• A very important Book
  By on 2004-03-28
  .
  This is one of the most important books I have read in a very long time. It is an amazing eye-opener and is required reading for anybody who wants to understand the terrorist threat we face. This is the only book I have ever read that truly frightened me.

  After reading it, I can't help but feel this was inevitable the minute the Soviets fell. "Petro Dollar Islam" simply moved from the "Godless heritics" to the next enemy, the Infidels of the United States of America.

  I tell you, with all the money and support they have, we better get serious or we are in for an even bigger disaster!
  
  

• Culpability all the way back to President Carter
  By A3BMD4A0UZB48 on 2004-04-09
  While the 9/11 commission attempts to spread the blame for the US attacks across two administrations, Ghost Wars clearly underlines how the world we live in today was forged by so many ambitious, well-intentioned (but incredibly myopic) cold warriors from the 70's and 80's. To get an even better perspective, readers should tackle Leebaert's "The Fifty Year Wound" (another massive tome unfortunately) in advance. The two volumes certainly compliment each other and bridge some obvious gaps.

  I was a little perplexed by some of the previous reviewer's comments regarding the need for additional editing. Unlike Leebaert's volume (which I agree could have been gone over a couple more times), Ghost Wars read like a thriller. I ripped through this book in a couple of days. I can't recall a single chapter that did not hold my attention thoroughly. I actually enjoyed the "inside the Beltway " elements - they helped to humanize what might otherwise make for dry historical reading.
  
  

• Lessons to be Learned
  By A3EM82UWAUWTAQ on 2004-07-05
  . . . and I thought Bob Woodward had inside sources.
  
  "Ghost Wars" is a fresh, detailed, and fascinating assessment of the United States' experience with Afghanistan from 1979 to the eve of 9/11/2001. The axes upon Coll bases his discussion are all in the sub-title: Afghanistan, the CIA, and Osama Bin Laden. Coll's recounting of this twenty year saga goes far to explain the roots and development of the United States's inability to deter the danger that became so graphically evident the day after this book's narrative ends. Taking the trip with Mr. Coll is well worth the effort.
  
  Yes, the book is detailed, but it would be a disservice to back away from the intricacies of the story -- just as it has proven to be a mistake for the United States to have backed away from the complexities of Afghanistan once the Soviets withdrew.
  
  Coll's discussion illustrates just how difficult a task it is to deal with the tapestry of agendas that both divide and bind the Middle East from Egypt to India. While one might wish to disengage from such interwoven complexities, the risk of ignoring a failing state such as Afghanistan is to allow the creation of a untamed country in which an extreme regime such as the Taliban and a group as dangerous as that sponsored by Osama bin Laden can take root and thrive.
  
  There are a host of issues to be derived from this history. One of the greatest is the question of how the United States can ever deal with its constantly-changing, yet essential agenda. It is always huge. In hindsight, it is easy to condemn successive administrations for failing to pay attention to issues that later develop into crises. At the same time, a president such as Bush 41 may encounter other priorities such as the break-up of the Soviet Union or an invasion of Kuwait. Once a story falls off the front page, attention shifts elsewhere.
  
  As Coll illustrates, great risks can arise from the recurrent attention-deficit disorder of the focus of U.S. foreign policy. That risk is only compounded when the government tacks and gibes in response to political winds. It's devilishly hard to keep one's eye on the ball when the game itself keeps changing.
  
  Unlike a Tom Clancy novel, "Ghost Wars" shows that the good guys don't always win. The unfolding of actual events carries no guarantees. The government may be paralyzed by imperfect information and irreconcilable agendas both within and outside its agencies. If there is one sweeping lesson to be derived from this story, it is that the U.S. needs a far more varied and nuanced approach to the world, one that is not so reliant upon military predominance, but rather one that relies upon the collection of good intelligence, thorough analysis, careful diplomacy, and, yes, when needed, covert action.
  
  I sharply disagree with those who see this work as a political polemic. Coll's recounting of events carries plenty of blame (if that is the right word) for a succession of failures that can be attributed to a succession of agencies, politicians, and presidents alike. A system which embraces an ever-changing focus driven by political imperatives is the risk -- not necessarily the individuals or their politics.
  
  I do wish that Coll had carried through with an epilogue to shed light on the events in Afghanistan of the past two to three years and the relationship of the U.S. to that sad country today. The story ends rather abruptly with the assassination of Massoud on September 9. I know Coll has more to say about how the United States' response to 9/11 in Afghanistan has affected our relations with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
  
  
• Tough going, but worth it
  By ADR87C1AW147D on 2004-07-30
  One of this book's biggest liabilities, oddly enough, is the depth and density of detail it provides. The information is all there, but the names and places and events come so fast it's like trying to drink from a firehose. To make things even more challenging, the relationships between the principal entities keep shifting, with allies in one chapter at each other's throats in the next. Though it's a weighty enough tome already, it would have helped a lot to have one-paragraph descriptions of the principals in an appendix. A timeline or two would have been helpful as well, to illustrate the context in which these events played out.
  
  But then, we should wish that all books have such problems. If you read this book, you will have an understanding of Afghanistan that was previously limited to a handful of specialists before. You will have all the ammunition you need to win just about any informal debate regarding this country so often visited by great misfortune throughout its history, regardless of where you stand politically. One of the book's greatest strength is how it sticks to the facts and lets you make your own decisions about who the heroes (very few) and villains (very many) are. The many mistakes of presidents from Reagan through Bush II are detailed unsparingly, as are the unseemly political maneuvering between governments and government departments while lives hang in the balance.
  
  It can be very depressing at times, reading the book, to see how often principle gave way to expediency, or how the more malevolent players were able to recognize and exploit that pattern time and time again. Our enemies understood us far, far better than we understood them, and used that understanding to outmaneuver us. They're still doing it. Our only hope of reversing that trend is to learn how the game is really being played, and Coll's accounts are invaluable in that regard.
  
  
• It wasn't Bush, it was the CIA
  By A43M80BR7GZK4 on 2004-02-26
  How did we get in so much trouble in the international scene? Just why do people in the Middle East hate America so badly? This book answers these questions and many more, in great detail. It will be an eye-opener for the average American, some hard truth to swallow, but all the more necessary. The real truth is that the CIA got us in trouble, with programs it started years ago. Bush didn't get us in trouble. He's just belatedly trying to mop up the mess. This is what happens when any intelligence agency uses another country as a playground. Eventually, the playthings learn what we know and turn our own knowledge against us.
  
  
• A revealing history
  By A2Q9WUO5JRRHFB on 2004-08-18
  A revealing history of how our (in)actions jumped up to bite us in the rear. A very detailed accounting of what was going on in the US intelligence agencies and the government from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan right up until Sept 10th, 2001. To me the most revealing details are those surrounding our failed policies towards Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that allowed al-Qaeda to grow undesturbed in Afghanistan and then to metastasize throughout the world. The most poigniant was the assasination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud on Sept. 9, 2001, two days before the diabolical plot unfolded. As I neared the end of the book I couldn't help but feel a chill about how many parallels there seem to be with these months leading up to the US elections. Hopefully this time the clues are acted upon by the FBI and CIA.
  
  
• Everyone should read this.
  By A2M2T0RJY22NUK on 2004-09-10
  I wish every U.S. citizen would read this book so I don't have to hear anymore discussions and debates based on little or no knowledge.
  
  Here is a nonfiction book that really is factual rather than full of the author's opinion. Everything is footnoted (actually, endnoted), and, in this year of nonfiction books intended to club one politician or the other, Coll lays out facts and faults everyone, regardless of their political party.
  
  I not only believed what I read; I also learned a lot about what I thought I already knew.
  
  
• Refreshingly objective
  By A18OZ1TUYY7BTQ on 2005-04-28
  Steve Coll's Ghost Wars is an invaluable history of the U.S. Government's relationship with Afghanistan and other geopolitical players involved in its fate from December 1979 - September 2001. While this narrative about the USG's "war on terrorism" focuses on the intelligence component rather than the law enforcement, the reader learns the political, legal and diplomatic obstacles CIA faced (and still does) in the effort to protect this nation of 275,000,000 from suicide bomber attacks anytime and anywhere, including within the United States. Mr. Coll's book is a welcome addition to the literature of terrorism which should be read in conjunction with the 9/11 Commission Report; and Best Laid Plans by David Martin and John Walcott.
  Mr. Coll chronicles Afghanistan's tragic history from the Soviet invasion through the Soviets' expulsion and the fall of the Soviet Union; through the civil strife that followed until the Taliban's rise to power and Al Qaeda's parasitic attachment to the regime. He identified opportunities lost (as well as attempted) that might have changed the course of events leading to the September 11 attacks. From the time of the Soviets' expulsion, many partisan readers will be tempted to hang the bulk of responsibility on any of 3 Republican administrations or a 2-term Democratic administration. Other readers might fully blame the CIA, the NSC, State or Defense Departments. But these would be more examples of blaming the victim, a tiresome political argument Americans have had to endure for two election cycles. I for one, am delighted that Mr. Coll refrained from such an indulgence.
  While there is plenty of "blame" to go around as to why our government, in hindsight, did not act on this or that, the activities of the Saudi and Pakistani governments also share in the stock of shortsightedness. Mr. Coll identifies the ways that Saudi and Pakistani officials duped the USG about their relationship with the Taliban but were, in turn, also duped by the Taliban regarding Al Qaeda's activities.
  So why should we Americans torture ourselves with how these many components might have played out differently? Would it have saved all lives on September 11? Some? Or might seemingly favorable circumstances between so many conflicting views from different governments have actually cost more lives when aligned with other events? Mr. Coll writes about what happened without speculation as to what should have happened. The reader is more likely to fully appreciate the complexities of terrorism prevention.
  Americans have to discuss how powerful and pro-active they want their CIA and FBI regardless of which party controls the White House. It isn't just a matter of "personality clashes" or "turf wars." USG agencies have conflicting missions. There was and will continue to be fleeting foreign government support that varies year to year and ally to ally. The discussion about how these components work together is important enough that the less political posturing, the more successful a discussion about terrorism is likely to be. Mr. Coll's book illustrates that there are no easy answers. May Ghost Wars be part of the historic literature regarding September 11 for decades to come.
  
  
• Exhaustive and Comprehensive
  By A2B1GZIRD6W646 on 2006-05-05
  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.
  
  
• A Worthy Read
  By on 2004-04-30
  It may be long, but it is well worth the time to absorb every detail in the book. I would like to take the time to clear-up some of the misconceptions that some reviewers appear to be spreading about the conclusions of the book:

  1) It definitely REFUTES claims that the CIA supported/trained Arab militants who would go on to make-up Al Qaeda;
  2) It shows that the Clinton Administration was actively considering (and sometimes attempting to implement) countermeasures to deal with Bin Laden; however,
  3) It also shows that the Clinton team was never able to decide on any strategy to deal with Bin Laden and the Taliban, nor was sufficient presidential authority spent to press the NSC into fomenting a unified strategy (i.e. no PDD over the years 1998-2000 concerning Bin Laden)despite numerous (and ultimately fruitless)internal debates;
  4) It also shows (despite the sentiment of Clinton Administration officials, and albeit in a disputable manner) that the CIA was not given sufficient leeway to assassinate Bin Laden prior to 9/11;
  5) It shows that the Bush team did not see terrorism as its top priority; however,
  6) Nonetheless, the Bush team (in seven months)hammered out a strategy and had an NSPD ready for signature prior to 9/11 (something that its predecessor could not accomplish in over 2 years, despite probably seeing Bin Laden as a more immediate threat).

  In other words, it is a very nuanced book at both the tactical and strategic levels. Readers need to read carefully (and leave aside prior bias) to understand the nuances. For those interested in either the debate in the U.S. about 9/11, the way the national security apparatus in the U.S. operates, or the history of foreign engagement/civil war in Afghanistan, this is a must read.
  
  

• If you are a policy wonk .....
  By on 2004-05-25
  ..then you'll love this book. Otherwise, this is a very dense book that you may have trouble getting through. It is extremely well researched and detailed (almost too much so). And it does demonstrate the political and social complexities within south Asia that our spy (and civilian)agencies must deal with. One thing that struck me is that, in spite of American's deep involvement with the powers in this area, we still could not prevent 9/11. An utter failure of our intelligence community, in my opinion.
  
  
• Excellent History of Our Involvement With Militant Islam
  By A2WSB3W4GP3VFC on 2005-01-27
  An excellent history of the United States' early involvement with militant Islam in Afghanistan, and how we ended up facing an intractable foe today. Neither critical nor laudatory about United States' policy in the Middle East during the past twenty-five years; Coll simply tells it like it is.
  
  
• Thoroughly documented, but dry as Afghanistan's landscape
  By AC99O6EJAFLLN on 2006-02-24
  I was anxious to read this book since I knew very little about Afghanistan. Prey to many expanding empires over the past thousand years, this country has nevertheless maintained its identity and traditions. Strategically located between two major oil regions (southern Asia and the Middle East), Afghan civilians became victims of political, religious and economical disputes, a perfect environment for aspiring ideologies...
  
  Steve Coll's book sparked my curiosity by providing an excellent background and introducing the most important players of the area. During the first half of the book, I was really absorbed by the characters' descriptions, the government and intelligence entities and military/religious groups. The complexity of international relations and the workings within the US bureaucracy certainly helped explain why the Government was slow in preparing for the rise of terrorists.
  
  Unfortunately, the author dragged on detailing these complexities. The incessant squabbles between the various departments of the American Government were overemphasized and could have been summarized more efficiently. I am not arguing the value of the research: the details presented made this book an incredible source of information.
  
  The book provided little analysis of the United States' involvement in Afghanistan after the Soviets departure and on the rise of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. In terms of form, this book didn't grip me very much. It got to a point where I felt I was reading the newspaper. Many non-fiction books present historical material in a vivid, riveting way. This one is not one of them.
  
  

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