BoekWorc discussie over 'Directorate S - The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016' van auteur Steve Coll - dinsdag 16 oktober 2018 in Amsterdam

omslag directorate s

'Directorate S'
Het boek geeft een gedetailleerd verslag over de aanloop naar en het verloop van de oorlog van de Verenigde Staten (VS) en de NAVO in Afghanistan over de periode 2001-2014. In het bijzonder wordt ruim aandacht besteed aan de invloed en het belang van Pakistan en India. Aanleiding tot deze oorlog (“War on Terror”) waren de aanslagen door Al Qaeda in de VS op 11 september 2001.

Boekworc discussie mmv Marten de Boer, van 2010-2016 werkzaam via BuZa in Kunduz en Kabul.

Lees het verslag
Okt 2018 | Verslag Boekworc - Directorate S, Steve Coll (login)

Over het boek
"Story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, ostensibly in cooperation, although often in direct opposition, with I.S.I., the Pakistani intelligence agency. While the U.S. was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as ''Directorate S'' was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan's sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U.S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan.

Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.'s ''Directorate S.'' This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence.

Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking.

This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism."

'Directorate S - The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016'
Steve CollI, januari 2018 | 720 pagina's | ISBN13 9781594204586

BoekWorc - 'Directorate S' van auteur Steve Coll
dinsdag 16 oktober 2018 | 14:00 uur in Amsterdam
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