Steve Coll

The seemingly endless war in Afghanistan is both a recurrent headline and a perpetual mystery: the longer America's shadowy conflict with the Taliban drags out, the less we understand about who and why we're fighting.  Fortunately for us, journalist and author Steve Coll's deep reporting – which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for his 2004 book Ghost Wars – brings readers vital understanding about this monumental but mysterious struggle.  He joined us in the studio to talk about his bestselling new book Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016, and what its revelations tell us about a war we usually glimpse only in fragments.