The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

For several weeks now I've been reading Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, From the Soviet Invastion to September 10, 2001 by Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll. As the title suggests, the book is long. But, the reason it took me so long to read is because that, as the weather warmed, my number of tasks increased and I wasn't able to devote as much time to reading. I think Ghost Wars is a really important book for Americans to read because, despite the adjective "Secret" in its title, it is not a conspiracy book. It is a well-researched, well-recited history of America's involvement in Afghanistan. The book is a lot to process, and I'd like to read through it again, though I suspect that won't happen anytime soon. But, this is an important book for Americans because it explains so much about Afghanistan. I really feel like I have a much better comprehension of what happened leading up to and on 9/11.

One thing, for example, is that U.S. leaders, though decidedly anti-Taliban, knew that Pakistan backed the Taliban. Prior to 9/11, the big concern was not so much terrorism (though there were some, such as George Tenet and Richard Clarke, who considered this America's biggest threat), as it was the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nation-states. America was trying to address this concern through mediation with Pakistan, among other countries. Pakistan encouraged the U.S. to engage the Taliban diplomatically, while promising help in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. This help never came.

Coll's writing is never embellished; he never tries to make the story more dramatic than what it is. He never attempts to create drama. This restraint is admirable and allows him the space to cover the history as thoroughly as he should. One never gets the idea that Coll has an agenda other than to talk about Afghanistan in a deeper fashion than what soundbite news broadcasts allow. That's not to say that Coll doesn't occasionally offer is own commentary, just to say that his agenda isn't political in nature. Here's an example:

On March 1 [2001] the movement [The Taliban] announced its intention to destroy all the statues in Afghanistan that depicted human form. Militianmen armed with rockets and assault rifles began blasting two ancient sandstone statues of Buddha believed to have been hewn in the third and fifth centuries when a Buddhist community thrived in central Afghanistan. One statue rose 120 feet, the other 175 feet. Their jewels had long ago been stripped away, and their faces had been hacked off by previous Muslim rulers. But the figures remained, glorious and dignified, legs draped by folded robes. The Taliban's audacious vandalism provoked worldwide condemnation and shock that rarely followed the militia's massacres of Afghan civilians (548).