Getting Out of Afghanistan

GETTING IN is so vastly more thrilling than getting out. And never underestimate the importance of the thrill—the mania of the crusade, the liberation of vengefulness, the joy of cutting loose from messy hesitations, the sheer mindless excitement of getting in and getting it on. The thrill is the great simplifier. 

In the case of Iraq, it came, we will all recall, in a roar of self-righteous vindication, anguished victimhood, and a blur of bravado; with the near-dementia of “shock and awe”; in a haze of fantastical, deceptive, and self-deceptive claims about Saddam Hussein’s da... More