Book: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll
ISBN 0143034669
Reviewer: Agha Shahriyar Khan

"Indifference, lassitude, blindness, paralysis, and commercial greed often shaped American foreign policy in Afghanistan and South Asia during the 1990s"

Review:

The book, Ghost wars, narrated the history of twenty years (1979-2001) of policy making in the power corridors of the United States of America regarding one country: Afghanistan. This book revolves around the stories of alliances, counter-alliances, surveillance, intelligence sharing, kinetic operations and double-dealing among there prominent intelligence Agencies- CIA, ISI, GID- of United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Besides, a substantial portion of the writing is dedicated to the events of Afghan civil war, rise of Taliban and Osma Bin Ladin and his network Al-Qaida.

The book is divided in three parts. The first part deals with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and CIA-ISI sponsored Afghan resistance which ultimately resulted in the Soviet withdrawal. The second portion discusses Afghan civil war, particularly the rivalry of two afghan war lords: Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud, the rise of Osama Bin Ladin and various terrorists’ incidents inside USA. The third and final part illustrates the divisions among US policy centers: White House, CIA and Pentagon regarding Afghan policy which subsequently resulted in the shape of 9/11.

The constant theme of this book is Stephen Coll’s criticism on policy and decision making of US power centers. For instance, the author writes, “Indifference, lassitude, blindness, paralysis, and commercial greed often shaped American foreign policy in Afghanistan and South Asia during the 1990s”. Similarly, connecting the civil war with US ill-strategic policy, the author writes, “CIA remained focus on the fall of Kabul not on who would take power once Najibullah was gone”. Besides, the author lambasted the President Clinton for not ordering kinetic operation against OBL on the basis of concrete intelligence reports by saying, “President, weakened by impeachment proceedings and boxed in by a hostile Republican majority in Congress, proved unwilling or unable to force the astonishingly passive Pentagon to pursue military operation”.

The Book contains the in-depth stories of sporadically discussed albeit important events. For instance, Razi Youssef and Mir Kansi terrorists’ attacks at World Trade center and CIA headquarter, Langley in 1993 respectively and their subsequent arrests with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence. Similarly, the accounts of multiple plans concocted by CIA to missile OBL in Afghanistan and their immediate reversal at the last moment and the details of secret meeting between Agencies made this book an interesting one.

The strong point of this book is author’s extensive research. Almost 100 pages of research notes at the end the book bears the testimony of through research. This point made this book to win Pulitzer prize 2004.

However, there are also weak points. Over explanation, repetition, extraneous details of various personalities decrease the interest of reader. Besides, it also increases the overall size of this book.
Nevertheless, this book is a must read for every person who wants to know that how the most powerful state in the world with cutting-edge technology failed to pre-empt the danger of 9/11

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“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”