It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYc.

It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. With us now the journalist Steve

Call, C-O-L, one of the most knowledgeable people anywhere about America's tortured relationship with the Middle East.

After 9-11, he won a poet surprise for his book,

Ghost Wars, The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan,

and bin Laden from the Soviet invasion to September 10th 2001.

He wrote another book called The bin Laden's, an Arabian family in the American

century and one called Private Empire ExxonMobil and American Power, among other books.

Steve was the Washington Post's first international investigative correspondent based in London.

He's also been managing editor of the Washington Post,

Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,

President of the New America Foundation Think Tank and a New Yorker staff writer,

he recently joined the Economist as a senior editor and now with America's relationship

with the Middle East again a central issue.

He has a new book called The Achilles Trap,

Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the origins of America's Invasion of Iraq.

He also had a New Yorker article in December called a ruinous war and

peacemaking in Gaza. So let's see what we can learn about how the history in

his new book perhaps informs the current crisis.

Steve, I always learn things reading your work and when you come on the show

welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you Brian.

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