Evening Details

7:30 PM Program & Book Signing
Interabang Books

Like the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan is a quagmire of epic proportions. In his new book— Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan—Pulitzer-Prize winning author Steve Coll reveals why more than 16 years after its start, efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and prepare it for self-government have tragically missed the mark.

Through meticulous research and sourcing, Coll—dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and writer for The New Yorker—reveals how bureaucratic inter-agency conflict led to America not only fighting the Taliban, but itself, as well.

Myopic miscalculations about a strategic alliance with Pakistan allowed billions of dollars in U.S. aid to be secretly funneled to Directorate S—a clandestine division of the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Using U.S. dollars, Directorate S conducted “secret operations in support of the Taliban, Kashmiri guerrillas, and other violent Islamic radicals”—the same enemy factions America was trying to defeat.

Along with deceptions by the Pakistani government, Coll—whose neutral and unbiased account represents the epitome of journalistic excellence—also reveals how rancor among U.S. agencies and bureaucratic infighting created a quagmire that is now the longest war in American history.

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