Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism
By John K. Cooley, Pluto Press, 1999

Recommended reading. From the back cover:

‘The devil of John Cooley’s unsettling book is in the detail… A persuasive argument against one-night stands in international alliances and makes clear that there will be an intolerable price to pay if Islam replaces communism as the next “Satanic Foe”.’ “Independent on Sunday”, UK

‘John Cooley’s remarkable book is the first systematic and detailed account of how the United States utilised the intelligence services of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to create, train, finance and arm an international network of Islamic militants to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.’ Tariq Ali, New Left Review

‘Indespensible reading for those interested in international politics and the future of our global society.’ India Weekly

From the introduction:

This book narrates the course and the consequences of a strange love affair which went disastrously wrong: the alliance, during the second half of the twentieth century, between the United States of America and some of the most conservative and fanatical followers of Islam.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the administrations of four US presidents – Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon – all faced the task of defending American interests in the Middle East and South Asia. Like President Harry S. Truman before them in 1945-53, they perceived those interests as interconnected. Protection of strategic geography and defending sea and air access routes were linked to defending the vast reservoirs of oil and natural gas in and around the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf, which the industrial world had begun exploiting and depended upon. (p.1)