Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism

by John K. Cooley

Book Overview

This book examines the events of September 11th 2001, Osama bin Laden's role and the complex working of the Al Qa'ida terror network. This is the classic book on the history of the USA's involvement... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0745316913
• ISBN13: 9780745316918
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent reportage on the dark side of U.S policy

This book discloses the historical facts behind the rumors that the CIA did train people like Osama bin Laden as Muslim rebels to fight off the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late seventies and eighties. Well apparently it is all true. Given the author in depth research and documentation, this story appears credible enough to become part of history. This is an incredibly interesting book for both its shock value and historical documentation. The book main two themes are:a) that a U.S. foreign policy in the eighties aimed at fighting back the Soviets in Afghanistan resulted in the acceleration of the formation of Muslim terrorist networks such as al-Qaida; andb) that in the nineties, the U.S. supported the advent of the Taliban in the hope of stabilizing the Afghan government. This was to facilitate the building of a Trans-Afghan pipeline to be developed by U.S. oil companies. As part of a Cold War strategy, since 1979 and onward, the U.S. provided support and trained Muslim warriors who built up a resistance to the Soviet-backed Afghanistan government. The Soviets soon decided to invade Afghanistan to crush this Muslim resistance movement and control the U.S. rising influence in the region. At this stage, the U.S. renewed their efforts and enlisted, trained, and funded more and more warriors or moujahidin. The CIA turned to many Muslim charities and religious groups around the World and the U.S. for recruiting. Pretty soon the funding and arm supplies came not only from the U.S., but also from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries. At the same time, Osama bin Laden also found his way in Afghanistan and joined the fight against the Russian. Osama success in fighting the Soviets, gave him the leadership and momentum to build his budding organization al-Qaida. After the retreat of the Soviets during the early nineties, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, and the U.S. all favored the advent of the Taliban in Afghanistan. For the U.S. and Pakistan, the idea was to create an independent, strong, and stable Pushtun state in Afghanistan. In turn, this reliable Afghan government could provide the stability needed to allow U.S. oil companies to complete their plans for a trans Afghan pipeline that would deliver oil from Central Asia to Pakistani ports on the Indian Ocean. For Osama bin Laden, the Taliban created an alliance and a haven for his terrorist network al Qaida, since bin Laden had lost his Saudi Arabian citizenship. This was because he supported Saudi opposition groups against the royal family. He did that because of the Saudi government letting U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia in the 1990 Gulf War.Also, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, many Muslim moujahidin joined al Qaida and other terrorist networks. As a result, Osama and his colleagues started exporting terrorism literally Worldwide and causing havoc in Africa, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Chechnya and many other places. Ever since terrorism has escalat

Amazing

At a friend's advice, I read this book. It is so full of amazing history and facts, I highlighted so many passeges, some pages are yellow! This book has information about every Middle East and Central Asia conflict, and the amazing thing is that many of the ones who are our enemy now are the ones we supported with arms and money! I had forgotten that we supported Saddam and Osama, and even the Taliban. All the terrorism you see in the news today: Sept 11, Iraq, Chechnyans, el Quaida, Bali. Do you want to know how how and why it happened, how we contributed, and how we could have prevented it? This is a difficult book to read. Not only because it is packed with facts, but because it can give you nightmares!

unholy alliances

Former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize for his Middle East peace efforts. Yet Carter's Central Asian policies were directly responsible for the spawning of international terrorism as we know it now. On Juy 3, 1979, Carter, acting on the recommendation of his National Security Advisor, cold-warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, began clandestinely supporting Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan. Carter may rue this now. But at the time, he believed Afghani Islamist rebels were simply fellow Believers denied their religious freedom by the "godless" Marxist government in Kabul. Brzezinski knew better. But as he stated in a 1998 interview: "This secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap." When the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan in late December 1979, Brzezinski gloated, "Now we can give the USSR its own Vietnam War!" Brzezinski and Carter's CIA Director Adm. Stansfield Turner freely acknowledged that "possible adverse consequences of the anti-communist alliance with Afghan Islamists (and shortly afterward with their radical Muslim allies around the world) -- the growth of a new international terrorist movement and global outreach of Central Asian drug-trafficking -- did not weigh heavily, if at all" in their calculations. Brzezinski, asked later whether he regretted arming and training future terrorists, retorted: "What was more important in world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet empire? A few over-excited Islamists, or the liberation of eastern Europe?" Brzezinski's native Poland was, of course, in eastern Europe... Carter encouraged Islamist incursions into the Central Asian republics of the USSR, ostensibly to foment religious rebellion in those secular Islamic states. As Brzezinski admitted, the US intended to "build bridges to states having a strong Muslim identity." However, the insurgents frequently committed small-scale terrorist acts by planting bombs in crowded markets, bus depots, apartment and government buildings, and through kidnappings and executions. Carter's sincere but misguided religious naivety regarding Islamism was rewarded with the Iranian hostage crisis which ended his chances of a second term.The Reagan regime continued Carter's Central Asian policy, and began to deploy an army of Muslim zealots from geographically strategic Pakistan and wealthy Saudi Arabia. Jihadists from every corner of the Muslim world were recruited and trained by the CIA and US military Special Forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even at US military bases. Reagan vastly increased funding of mujahedin "holy warriors" who established their own facilities -- later to become terrorist training camps -- in Afghanistan. There, exiled Saudi billionaire Usama bin Laden started his ascent from mujahed commander to international terrorist mastermind. Following the death of Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev implored the UN to intervene and help negociate an end to the Soviet Afgha

The truth about 9/11

This book (written before 9/11) convincingly if dryly traces the steps taken by our brilliant CIA to start, train, and unleash cadres of insane Islamic fundamentalists on the world. Thanks alot, guys! Now we're depending on these same geniuses to "smoke 'em out". The arsonist is now the fireman. This book should be required reading for all American victims of 9/11.

Highly Recommended!

In this impressively detailed and exhaustively documented book, John K. Cooley gets to the roots of the international terrorist organizations that are striking fear and violence into the world’s populations. Beginning with surprising revelations about U.S. and Soviet actions in Afghanistan during the Cold War, Cooley traces the origins of today’s terror back to the West’s strategy of creating an army of fanatical Muslim warriors to mire the USSR in its own Vietnam. While that plan was successful, it gave birth to the terrorist violence we face today, and Cooley deftly explains how. (...) strongly recommend this book to all readers for the historic context lacking in mainstream media coverage of the war on terrorism.