By Genevieve Long
For the consumer of news seeking smart, informed opinions about the war on terror from an insider with world-class credentials and experience, take a look at Steve Coll’s blog for The New Yorker, Think Tank. Coll is President & CEO of the New America Foundation and a staff writer for The New Yorker. But it is his years of incisive reporting and writing about Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the bin Laden family that give his insights about current events in the region so much weight.
Coll is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a 20-year veteran foreign correspondent and senior editor for The Washington Post, where he was also managing editor from 1998 to 2004. He has authored six books on economics and foreign affairs, including The Deal of the Century: The Break Up of AT&T (1986); The Taking of Getty Oil (1987); Eagle on the Street (based on reporting done with David A. Vise, 1991); On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (1994), Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004); and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (2008).
Coll’s most recent entry on the blog, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?, masterfully interprets the feasibility of Foreign Policy’s guess at bin Laden’s location using a so-called “biogeographic data” map, developed by UCLA geography professor, Thomas Gillespie. Part of Coll’s assessment of the map is obviously backed by his years of experience with and research on the region:
“Gillespie’s dot is likely in the right area, but the particular center of his concentric circles is not very convincing. First, his red dot is in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops and Special Forces hunting teams can operate freely, so that doesn’t make much sense. Second, although Kurram is near Tora Bora (which is why the dot is there) the area has been pretty unstable of late; local Shia and Sunni tribes have been shelling one another, and sectarian tensions run high. Not a good place to hunker down.”
While Think Tank is a worthy read for minds seriously curious about the war on terror, it also has some valuable insights on the economic crisis, including one entitled “Cleansing the Banks”. It’s worth checking out.
