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Directorate S: the C.I.A. and America's secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Penguin Books 2018 New YorkDescription: xxiii, 757 p.: ill. Includes bibliographical references and indexISBN:
  • 9780718194499
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 958.1047373 C6D4
Summary: 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 US 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. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529288/directorate-s-by-steve-coll/
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Item type Current library Item location Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Vikram Sarabhai Library Rack 45-B / Slot 2555 (3rd Floor, East Wing) Non-fiction General Stacks 958.1047373 C6D4 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 202747

Table of Contents

Part one. Blind into battle, September 2001-December 2001
1. "Something has happened to Khalid"
2. Judgment day
3. Friends like these
4. Risk management
5. Catastrophic success

Part two. Losing the peace, 2002-2006
6. Small change
7. Taliban for Karzai
8. The enigma
9. "His rules were different than our rules"
10. Mr. Big
11. Ambassador vs. Ambassador
12. Digging a hole in the ocean
13. Radicals

Part thee. The best intentions, 2006-2009
14. Suicide detectives
15. Plan Afghanistan
16. Murder and the deep state
17. Hard data
18. Tough love
19. Terror and the deep state
20. The new big dogs
21. Losing Karzai
22. A war to give people a chance

Part four. The end of illusion, 2010-2014
23. The one-man C.I.A.
24. The conflict resolution cell
25. Kayani 2.0
26. Lives and limbs
27. Kayani 3.0
28. Hostages
29. Dragon's breath
30. Martyrs Day
31. Fight and talk
32. The Afghan hand
33. Homicide Division
34. Self-inflicted wounds
35. Coups d'etat

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 US 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.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529288/directorate-s-by-steve-coll/

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