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mburnamfink 's review for:
"The Unites States fought three wars after 9/11: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the one in the shadows."
So reads the blurb on the back of this book, and it's true, to a degree. In the wake of 9/11, America proved totally unable to pursue Al Qaeda, with a CIA averse to covert operations, and a special forces culture that trained for high-stakes rescue missions. The new war required human intelligence gathering in some of the most hostile corners of the world, and soon developed a system of secret prisons, 'enhanced interrogations', and long-distance drone assassinations. Neither the military nor the CIA was set up to do this, but they soon adapted and evolved.
This book isn't so much about America's shadow wars: the renditions, drone strikes, and secret armies, as it is about who would get to wield the knife. Mazzetti goes into the byzantine conflicts between the Pentagon, the CIA, State, the White House, private military contractors, and the whole weird menagerie of Beltway counter-terrorism experts. The dsyfunctional relationship with Pakistan is a second focus of the book, and the failure of the American relationship with the ISI, culminating in Admiral Mike Mullen's public declaration that the ISI supported terrorist attacks against American troops.
Mazzetti is too much of the professional reporter to make judgement, but he clearly feels that the duplication of effort between the CIA and JSOC has harmed American interests, and that the entire secret war exists on shaky legal and ethical grounds. The pragmatic question: what form should American engagement with this part of the world take? goes unanswered. I've heard it said that journalism is history's first draft, and this topic definitely deserves further study. But in the the here and now, this is the best book about what actually happened after 9/11.
So reads the blurb on the back of this book, and it's true, to a degree. In the wake of 9/11, America proved totally unable to pursue Al Qaeda, with a CIA averse to covert operations, and a special forces culture that trained for high-stakes rescue missions. The new war required human intelligence gathering in some of the most hostile corners of the world, and soon developed a system of secret prisons, 'enhanced interrogations', and long-distance drone assassinations. Neither the military nor the CIA was set up to do this, but they soon adapted and evolved.
This book isn't so much about America's shadow wars: the renditions, drone strikes, and secret armies, as it is about who would get to wield the knife. Mazzetti goes into the byzantine conflicts between the Pentagon, the CIA, State, the White House, private military contractors, and the whole weird menagerie of Beltway counter-terrorism experts. The dsyfunctional relationship with Pakistan is a second focus of the book, and the failure of the American relationship with the ISI, culminating in Admiral Mike Mullen's public declaration that the ISI supported terrorist attacks against American troops.
Mazzetti is too much of the professional reporter to make judgement, but he clearly feels that the duplication of effort between the CIA and JSOC has harmed American interests, and that the entire secret war exists on shaky legal and ethical grounds. The pragmatic question: what form should American engagement with this part of the world take? goes unanswered. I've heard it said that journalism is history's first draft, and this topic definitely deserves further study. But in the the here and now, this is the best book about what actually happened after 9/11.