The Wars of Afghanistan – Peter Tomsen

As elder George H.W. Bush’s Special Envoy and Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, Peter Tomsen has arguably been as close as any foreigner to the Afghan leaders who have been involved in the last two decades of conflict in the region. Tomsen accompanied President Hamid Karzai when Karzai’s motorcade was ambushed in Kandahar in 2002. He was one of the last foreigners to meet with the famed Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood before Masood was dramatically assassinated by an al-Qaeda bomb days before 9/11. He now is a well-established commentator on Afghan affairs in the U.S. and international media. In this book, Tomsen draws on a rich trove of never-before-published material – including declassified memos, telegrams, policy papers and his own diary notes – to shed new light on the American involvement in the long and continuing Afghan war. He also offers a deeply informed perspective on how Afghanistan’s history as a “shatter zone” for foreign invaders and its tribal society has shaped the modern Afghan narrative. He chronicles the lessons learned, but always forgotten, by every great power who has disastrously invaded Afghanistan.And he brings to life the appallingly misinformed, occasionally farcical secret operations by foreign intelligence agencies, including the Soviet NKVD and KGB, the Pakistani ISI, and the American CIA. American policy makers, Tomsen argues, still do not understand the Afghan tribal environment or how U.S. actions facilitated the ISI-supported Taliban comeback. At this critical time, he presents proposals on how the U.S. and the coalition it leads can assist Afghanistan and the region back to stability and peace. It will answer the questions: Why is the United States failing in Afghanistan? Are we throwing away more troops and money at an intractable problem, just like we did in Vietnam? How can we succeed in Afghanistan? At once an insider historical narrative and an indispensible policy primer, this book offers a unique view of American blunders in Afghanistan, showing how the CIA’s ill-advised covert operations and the Pentagon’s military strategy have strengthened extremism and chaos in the country.