Directorate S: Uncovering the C.I.A.'s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

lorenzo: Un ottimo reportage giornalistico ricco di informazioni , non gli do 5 stelle perché risulta a volte un po caotico nel passare dal caso specifico alla storia generale

Italy on Nov 15, 2023

Harshit Kumawat: Words cannot describe the greatness of this book. Author Steve Coll's books "Ghost Wars" and "Directorate S" are seminal work on history of Afghanistan covering the time from Soviet Invasion in 1979 to American withdrawal in 2016.
I couldn't have started reading these two books at a better time. In August 2021, Taliban entered Kabul and took over Afghanistan. The longest war of my generation ended in a military and economy superpower US defeat by poor, ill-trained, ill-equipped Taliban. I always wondered how come US could be defeated by Taliban. I guess I got the answer after reading these two insightful books.
Directorate S starts from where first book Ghost War ends. The war on terror announced by US in response to 9/11 terror attack and its invasion of Afghanistan. The book dives deep into the policy making, decision making, relations between US, Pakistan, Afganistan and the trust, deceit and betrayal among various factions of Afghanistan.
Overall it turned out US was deceived and betrayed by their most trusted ally in war on terror: Pakistan. The book details the actions taken by Pakistan Army and its secret service ISI to ensure Taliban and even Al Qaeda leaders...

India on Jul 05, 2022

David H. Ray: A worthy successor to his Pulitzer Prize winning GHOST WARS

Mexico on Mar 30, 2019

cassio Carvalho: Eu estou lendo o livro Directorate S é um excelente livro, é um livro cheio de detalhes, e o leitor se sente no meio da historia do livro, nos bastidores da guerra dos EUA, no Afeganistao e no Paquistao, e esse livro é uma continuaçao de outro livro do mesmo auror, Steve Coll com o nome deGhost wars : the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin. (2004).

Brazil on Mar 16, 2019

Randolph Eck: This is an interesting, and very lengthy, account of C.I.A. activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also details their cooperation with I.S.I., Pakistan’s main spy agency. One of the purposes of the book is to address questions about how worthwhile this invasion has been and “why the seemingly successful lightning-strike American-led war of late 2001 had failed to vanquish the Taliban and Al Qaeda for good.” It picks up where volume one, Ghost Wars, ended – September 10, 2001. The author’s purpose is to also provide “a reliable history of how the C.I.A., I.S.I., and Afghan intelligence agencies influenced the rise of a new war in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and how that war fostered a revival of Al Qaeda, allied terrorist networks, and, eventually, branches of the Islamic State.”

We learn that the region’s endless conflicts are not innate to its history. It is actually an outgrowth of specific misrule and violent interventions. The author lists political maneuvering, hubristic assumptions, intelligence operations, and secret diplomacy at the highest levels in Kabul, Islamabad, and Washington. All of these are contributing factors that have...

United States on Aug 08, 2018

Amazon Customer: fascinating book it reveals the inhumanity of what CIA and ISI doing to the Afghan people and to their country.

Canada on Apr 02, 2018

philip smucker: I know Steve Coll from his brilliant work at the Washington Post and at the New America Foundation. I waver between four and five stars on this book. First of all, it is a "tour de force" in terms of reporting and as a service to the US public and to policy makers. If you read this book to the end, which is not easy as it is, to quote Rumsfeld, "a long slog," you will get Coll's final analysis (a bit on the short side) on the failures of the Afghan adventure. I would have preferred more analysis throughout. Many of the US policy makers and spooks, who go on to work in the US military industrial complex after retiring from the Afghan theater, are to blame here, but sometimes I sense that Coll does not hold them up for as much ridicule as they actually deserve. Some policy makers and operatives actually resigned or dissented and, in my view, they could have been given more prominence. Coll is particularly brilliant in the segment on Blue on Green attacks (killing of US army and civilian officers by Afghan counterparts). While much of the book reads like an excellent reportage of spooks and scoundrels, this section, with its human interest focused on the Americans with "best...

United States on Mar 30, 2018