garrett reviewed Directorate S by Steve Coll
None
4 stars
Based on the title and the early framing, I assumed this would dig into a bit more of the Pakinstani intelligence agency that was supporting extremist organizations while the Pakistani government outwardly said that they weren't aligning with them. While this book has the most about this organization that I've been able to read so far, a lot of it ended up centered around American mismanagement of the war in Afghanistan. I think I made an accident of not reading Coll's other book, "Ghost Wars", prior to this entry but it's a very specific slice of history of the war in Afghanistan and didn't seem to make this entry harder to understand.
Overall, I struggled a bit with this book which might've just been issues with the way I was reading, feeling significantly more dense than other books that I've recently read. I wouldn't hold it against the book since …
Based on the title and the early framing, I assumed this would dig into a bit more of the Pakinstani intelligence agency that was supporting extremist organizations while the Pakistani government outwardly said that they weren't aligning with them. While this book has the most about this organization that I've been able to read so far, a lot of it ended up centered around American mismanagement of the war in Afghanistan. I think I made an accident of not reading Coll's other book, "Ghost Wars", prior to this entry but it's a very specific slice of history of the war in Afghanistan and didn't seem to make this entry harder to understand.
Overall, I struggled a bit with this book which might've just been issues with the way I was reading, feeling significantly more dense than other books that I've recently read. I wouldn't hold it against the book since it's billed as a very specific segment of time during the conflict, although it's very detailed and seemingly well sourced. I feel the wiser for reading this even if I was hopeful it'd have a bit more of other components. Perhaps some of the writing could be more digestible and some assertions challenged but I understand Coll is a very traditional journalist and historian. Sometimes, that's exactly what you need.
Related media:
Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (Netflix)
"The Afghanistan Papers" by Craig Whitlock (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898213-the-afghanistan-papers)
