Synopses & Reviews
A National Security Council insider and adviser to presidents Johnson and Nixon, Roger Morris was intimately involved in U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Drawing on this singular experience and perspective, he takes us from Washington, London, and Beijing to Moscow, Kabul, and Islamabad to tell a shocking story of power politics and covert intrigue.
Morris reveals the role of the United States in the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He makes clear how our government sanctioned, and the CIA profited from, drug and weapons trafficking out of Afghanistan. He tells how we helped create Osama bin Laden; how we sabotaged UN peace efforts; and how corporate influence has affected U.S. policy. He provides illuminating portraits of key policy-makers, among them Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
A Land We Never Knew is a revelation not only of our offhand treatment of a little-understood foreign power, but also of the price we pay for the facile idealism and ready cynicism that govern our relations with much of the planet. It is certain to be one of the most myth-shattering and newsworthy books of the year.
Synopsis
Drawing on a vast archive of previously secret documents, a National Security Council insider reveals the untold story of American covert activities in Afghanistan during the last half-century.