Steve Coll, former The Washington Post journalist and financial correspondent, received his first Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism on a series of reports criticizing the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since then he has become one of the most respected and highly awarded journalists in the United States, serving as a voting member for the Pulitzer Prize board. He received his second Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2005 for what many consider his magnum opus, Ghost Wars. In which Coll attempted to create a more conclusive narrative and description of the events leading up to the September 11th attacks, focusing mostly on the actions of the CIA, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence; as those were the major players in the field
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Through the original aim of combating the Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan, he shows how our support of the Mujaheddin militant groups sowed the first seeds that would lead to radical Islamism and the September 11th attacks. The novel contains thirty-two chapters but Coll asks the reader to consider it as three separate narratives each characterizing a different time period and agenda for our goals in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The first part of the book, titled “Blood Brothers”, is a description of the period Soviet Forces moved into Afghanistan till their departure at the hands of militant rebel groups (November 1979 to February 1989). It opens his novel with a dramatic and gripping description of the 1979 hostage crisis that consumed the American embassies in Pakistan and Iran, focusing mostly on the lesser known of the two, the Embassy Burning of Islamabad, Pakistan. Descriptions of protesters pulling down the iron …show more content…
Taking place from January 1998 to September 10th 2001, the reader becomes entranced as we watch Bin Laden almost single handily outsmart the more powerful intelligence agencies the world has ever seen. After Bin Laden released the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, a document signed by Islamic military leaders and full of threats directed towards Israel and the United States, that the CIA began to pay much more attention to him and the jihad he was creating. Soon after came the embassy bombing in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, 1998. Soon after that came the first evidence that Bin Laden was personally involved in planning and funding the attacks. Coll goes into great detail describing the number of plans laid out by the CIA to the Clinton administration, which detail either the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden. Despite many of these plans seeming to have been sure shots to stopping Bin Laden, the Clinton administration had already found itself in the middle of Bill’s well know scandal and decided against pursuing anything that could cause civilian casualties. Massoud during this time was championing himself as an Islamic moderate and a friend to the west. He repeated again ad again that attacks against the west on their home front were inevitable and that ignoring Afghanistan
Through the original aim of combating the Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan, he shows how our support of the Mujaheddin militant groups sowed the first seeds that would lead to radical Islamism and the September 11th attacks. The novel contains thirty-two chapters but Coll asks the reader to consider it as three separate narratives each characterizing a different time period and agenda for our goals in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The first part of the book, titled “Blood Brothers”, is a description of the period Soviet Forces moved into Afghanistan till their departure at the hands of militant rebel groups (November 1979 to February 1989). It opens his novel with a dramatic and gripping description of the 1979 hostage crisis that consumed the American embassies in Pakistan and Iran, focusing mostly on the lesser known of the two, the Embassy Burning of Islamabad, Pakistan. Descriptions of protesters pulling down the iron …show more content…
Taking place from January 1998 to September 10th 2001, the reader becomes entranced as we watch Bin Laden almost single handily outsmart the more powerful intelligence agencies the world has ever seen. After Bin Laden released the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, a document signed by Islamic military leaders and full of threats directed towards Israel and the United States, that the CIA began to pay much more attention to him and the jihad he was creating. Soon after came the embassy bombing in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, 1998. Soon after that came the first evidence that Bin Laden was personally involved in planning and funding the attacks. Coll goes into great detail describing the number of plans laid out by the CIA to the Clinton administration, which detail either the capture or killing of Osama Bin Laden. Despite many of these plans seeming to have been sure shots to stopping Bin Laden, the Clinton administration had already found itself in the middle of Bill’s well know scandal and decided against pursuing anything that could cause civilian casualties. Massoud during this time was championing himself as an Islamic moderate and a friend to the west. He repeated again ad again that attacks against the west on their home front were inevitable and that ignoring Afghanistan