THE AMERICAN WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: A History
Author: Carter Malkasian
Pages: 576
Price: $34.95
THE AFGHANISTAN PAPERS: A Secret History of the War
Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 368
Price: $30
In the predawn hours of July 1 they departed, the few remaining US troops at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, the centre of operations for America’s longest war. It marked the symbolic end of America’s 20-year military intervention in a war-ravaged land.
It will be up to historians of the future, writing with broad access to official documents and with the kind of detachment that only time brings, to fully explain the remarkable early-morning scene at