The resolution required to get out of an imperial or a humanitarian-improvement occupation is not different in kind from the heave of the will required for getting in. The problem is that getting in was made possible by a morale of entitlement that speaks the language of self-sacrifice and decency; this one-way bridge of excuses is still in place when the moment comes for getting out. If the choice to invade and occupy were actually derived from conscience, our duties might be revised once the mission was shown to be riddled with atrocities. Yet the occupying power will always be hampered by the emotion of conviction that drove it to attack in the first place.

A different bridge of excuses has sometimes proved serviceable. The majority of the people in the occupied country can be portrayed, often with a degree of truth, as victims of an active and energetic faction. The mission then comes to be seen as a salvage operation on behalf of the nonpolitical or the less political,...

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