List Books » Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Authors: Steve Coll
ISBN-13: 9780143034667, ISBN-10: 0143034669
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Date Published: January 2005
Edition: Reprint
Steve Coll is the author of The New York Times bestseller Ghost Wars. He is a former editor of The Washington Post.
The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan
With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.
Coll, the managing editor of The Washington Post, has given us what is certainly the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of Al Qaeda in the post-Soviet rubble of Afghanistan. He has followed up that feat by threading together the complex roles played by diplomats and spies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States into a coherent story explaining how Afghanistan became such a welcoming haven for Al Qaeda. James Risen
List of Maps | ||
Principal Characters | ||
Prologue: Accounts Receivable: September 1996 | 1 | |
Pt. 1 | Blood Brothers: November 1979 to February 1989 | 19 |
1 | We're Going to Die Here | 21 |
2 | Lenin Taught Us | 38 |
3 | Go Raise Hell | 53 |
4 | I Loved Osama | 71 |
5 | Don't Make It Our War | 89 |
6 | Who Is This Massoud? | 107 |
7 | The Terrorists Will Own the World | 125 |
8 | Inshallah, You Will Know My Plans | 147 |
9 | We Won | 170 |
Pt. 2 | The One-Eyed Man Was King: March 1989 to December 1997 | 187 |
10 | Serious Risks | 189 |
11 | A Rogue Elephant | 205 |
12 | We Are in Danger | 225 |
13 | A Friend of Your Enemy | 240 |
14 | Maintain a Prudent Distance | 257 |
15 | A New Generation | 266 |
16 | Slowly, Slowly Sucked into It | 280 |
17 | Dangling the Carrot | 301 |
18 | We Couldn't Indict Him | 314 |
19 | We're Keeping These Stingers | 336 |
20 | Does America Need the CIA? | 353 |
Pt. 3 | The Distant Enemy: January 1998 to September 10, 2001 | 369 |
21 | You Are to Capture Him Alive | 371 |
22 | The Kingdom's Interests | 397 |
23 | We Are at War | 416 |
24 | Let's Just Blow the Thing Up | 437 |
25 | The Manson Family | 451 |
26 | That Unit Disappeared | 470 |
27 | You Crazy White Guys | 487 |
28 | Is There Any Policy? | 504 |
29 | Daring Me to Kill Them | 520 |
30 | What Face Will Omar Show to God? | 538 |
31 | Many Americans Are Going to Die | 553 |
32 | What an Unlucky Country | 567 |
Notes | 577 | |
Bibliography | 653 | |
Acknowledgments | 665 | |
Index | 669 |