BOOK REVIEW: American Cipher (Bowe Bergdahl and the US Tragedy in Afghanistan)

By Matt Farwell and Michael Ames. Penguin Press, hard cover, 388 pp with bibliography and index. US$37

On December 9, 2019, the Washington Post began a major series of stories called “The Afghanistan Papers” that was as devastating in its way as the Pentagon Papers were when the New York Times began printing the futile history of the Vietnam War in 1971.

According to 2,000 documents made available to the Post under the Freedom of Information Act, US offic…