The Inertia of Democracy | Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the...

Great book | Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September ... | Steve Coll

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	• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September ... Steve Coll Penguin (Non-Classics), 2004 - 738 pages average customer review:based on 142 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Ghost wars

Tremendous book. Reads at times like a great adventure/thriller fiction novel. Steve Coll has really hit the mark with this book. Clearly there has been exhaustative research made on the subject and Coll's personal experiences have made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience to the reader. The CIA's changing roles post and pre coldwar are certainly significant enough to influence history in that region. The effects of this agency's regional / foreign policy through different administrations continue to be a major factor in world politics well into the coming future.

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The Inertia of Democracy

Steve Coll gives us a focused, detailed analysis of U S inertia in dealing with the building crisis of terrorism, as manifested by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization, in the decades running up to 9/11. Mr. Coll's balanced and well researched presentation aptly illustrates the dynamic tension which existed among the agencies and actors, countries and their leadership, and the varied and fluid Afghani factions.

In particular the interworkings of the CIA, White House, Defense Department, FBI and related committees and leadership groups, across Democratic and Republican administrations, are methodically scrutinized. The struggle for consensus produced the policy logjam which seemingly left the U S defenseless against bin Laden's 9/11 terrorists.

Although he falls short of making an outright assertion, the author ably demonstrates that 9/11 could have been prevented if the institutional inertia of the US government could have been overcome.

Overall an excellent book.

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Great book

This book was really interesting and engaging to read, not boring at all. It did a lot to also help explain the development of terrorism and Middle East politics. I encourage anyone to read it.

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Exhaustive and Comprehensive

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.

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Detailed, eye-opening and disturbing

Steven Coll has produced an authoritative masterpiece. Though I found the number of densely worded pages a little intimidating (588 pages of text, in addition to nearly a hundred pages of notes/bibliography along with a copious and useful index, several maps and more), it was well worth the effort. I agreed with the numerous laudatory quotes from newspapers around the US that the book was "Objective and terrific... finest historical narrative so far on the origins of al Qaeda" (New York Times), "of the more than one hundred published books dealing with the September 11th attacks... none approach Mr Coll's work for clarity and insight into the [CIA] itself" (Seattle Times), and that "Coll's... access to senior officials of all the principal countries involved in Afghanistan is nothing short of astounding" (Toronto Globe and Mail).

Coll's narrative went from interesting to fascinating for me when he started writing about the involvement of Texas Congressional Representative Charlie Wilson in procuring money for and drawing attention to CIA aid to Afghan mujahedin. Wilson abused his position to impress a series of beauty queens (with exciting names like Miss Sea and Ski and Miss Humble Oil) during tours the Afghan frontier. He also became an advocate for the mujahedin in Washington and channeled cash, mostly earmarked for fancy weapons systems, to the CIA's Afghan budget. Coll had other interesting comments about the CIA's relationship with Congressmen visiting Afghanistan including the rule passed on from the CIA to Mohammed Yousef - Pakastani Intelligence's Afghan point man from 1983 to 1987 - "Never use the terms sabotage or assassination when speaking with visiting congressman". In other words, with fighting for freedom, like making laws or sausages - it's best not to show outsiders the specifics on how things are done.

I was particularly outraged to read that the CIA had been dealing with aerial plots since at least as early as 1995. Early that year Filipino police uncovered a plot (reported to American investigators) to suicidally crash a plane into CIA headquarters. Later that year a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on terrorism was circulated to Clinton's cabinet. It speculated on future attacks and assessed that "civil aviation will figure prominently among possible terrorist targets in the United States". The Estimate also drew attention to the " domestic aviation security system [whose weaknesses have] been the focus of media attention". This is especially maddening in light of Condoleeza Rice's comment on 17 May 2002, when she said that, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile - a hijacked airplane as a missile." Rice's words are absurd not just when viewed alongside the 1995 NIE but also in light of Tom Clancy's two bestselling books featuring the use of an airplane as a missile.

"The CIA's annual budget was a Pentagon rounding error", mentioned while explaining the need for the CIA to balance its relationship with and placate the Pentagon, "The CIA did not typically work inside the American legal system... CIA espionage and paramilitary operations overseas were conducted in secret and not subject to review by American courts... The CIA was created to prevent another Pearl Harbor." Well, maybe they succeeded on other occasions we never heard about.

This story does not put the FBI, the CIA, the Clinton administration or the Bush administration in a positive light. It shows lots of good intentions and many smart folks who saw at least part of what was coming but were marginalized or ignored. It doesn't seem as though enough has been done to keep something like this from hapenning again.

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