American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan,Matt Farwell ,Michael Ames

-About this book

Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl left his platoon’s base in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of June 30, 2009. Since that day, easy answers to the many questions surrounding his case–why did he leave his post? What kinds of efforts were made to recover him from the Taliban? And why, facing a court martial, did he plead guilty to the serious charges against him?–have proved elusive.
Taut in its pacing but sweeping in its scope, American Cipher is the riveting and deeply sourced account of the nearly decade-old Bergdahl quagmire–which, as journalists Matt Farwell and Michael Ames persuasively argue, is as illuminating an episode as we have as we seek the larger truths of how the United States lost its way in Afghanistan.

The book tells the parallel stories of a young man’s halting coming of age and a nation stalled in an unwinnable war, revealing the fallout that ensued when the two collided: a fumbling recovery effort that suppressed intelligence on Bergdahl’s true location and bungled multiple opportunities to bring him back sooner; a homecoming that served to deepen the nation’s already-vast political fissure; a trial that cast judgment on not only the defendant, but most everyone involved. The book’s beating heart is Bergdahl himself–an idealistic, misguided soldier onto whom a nation projected the political and emotional complications of service.
Based on years of exclusive reporting drawing on dozens of sources throughout the military, government, and Bergdahl’s family, friends, and fellow soldiers, American Cipher is at once a meticulous investigation of government dysfunction and political posturing, a blistering commentary on America’s presence in Afghanistan, and a heartbreaking story of a naïve young man who thought he could fix the world and wound up the tool of forces far beyond his understanding.

-CONTENTS

Dedication

Maps

Prologue

ACT I. A FANTASTIC PLAN

One. Little America

Two. Blowback

Three. Adjustment Disorder

Four. An Army of One

Five. OP Mest

ACT II. LOST

Six. DUSTWUN

Seven. The Lost Puppy

Eight. River City

Nine. Diversions and Deceptions

ACT III. TRAPPED

Ten. Not the Worst News

Eleven. The Pakistan Paradox

Twelve. Fixing Intel

Thirteen. Means of Escape

ACT IV. BRING BOWE HOME

Fourteen. Pawns

Fifteen. The No-Negotiations Negotiations

Sixteen. Bob’s War

Seventeen. The Five-Sided Wind Tunnel

ACT V. CODES OF CONDUCT

Eighteen. Welcome Home

Nineteen. Fox Nation

Twenty. Debriefing

Twenty-one. Squared Away

Twenty-two. The Noise

Twenty-three. Guilty

Epilogue

Photographs

Acknowledgments

Image Credits

Notes

Index

-Caractéristiques

Date de parution:12 mars 2019

Éditeur : Penguin Press

N.de pages : 400

ISBN-10 : 0735221049

ISBN-13 : 978-0735221048

Poids : 658 g

Dimensions : 16.26 x 3.3 x 24.38 cm

Langue:   Anglais