He who wishes to chastise others should first chastise himself.Pashtun proverb cited in Ghost Wars
America’s intelligence services pursued Osama bin Laden as if maneuvering amid mirrors. Their blindness bred disaster.Steve Coll
Sometimes in life, in order to move forward you must face the past...Steve Coll
Scientific, technical cooperation, joint operations between services and, in some areas, harmonization of doctrine represented forms of collaboration more effective and routine than anything achieved during the Cold War.Steve Coll
The danger of loss, of catastrophic failure, is always present when you try something new. But there were ways to minimize those risks.Steve Coll
The United States did not have the knowledge, the will, or the mechanisms to stop Osama bin Laden. It fell to the journalists, and they were just not enough.Steve Coll
Bin Laden represented a new breed of terrorist—one steeped in the modern world’s intricacies, comfortably manipulating its technologies and institutions.Steve Coll
Overconfidence and a lack of understanding about what was really happening on the ground led to a strategic miscalculation.Steve Coll
Their lives had become mysteries even to themselves, their political obsessions unguided by strategy, tactics or sensible expectations.Steve Coll
The road to justice does not always align with the path of self-interest.Steve Coll
In politics, a combustible mix of certainty and ignorance is never in short supply.Steve Coll
Calamity sat in a Pentagon office with the power to jelly a major world capital, yet he could not force his own bureaucracy to check whether the tale he retailed was poisoned by falsehood.Steve Coll