Summary: Today’s must read is a retrospective on our expedition to Afghanistan, now that the cloud of lies slowly dissipates. Since Vietnam we’ve masked our failures by myths, short-circuiting our ability to learn. A hegemonic power can substitute power for smarts. The coming multi-polar world will prove more challenging, so that weaknesses become terminal flaws.

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Opening from “Afghanistan: ‘A Shocking Indictment’”
by Rory Stewart
New York Review of Books, 6 November 2014

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Review of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes
by Anand Gopal

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Ashraf Ghani, who has just become the president of Afghanistan, once drafted a document for Hamid Karzai that began:

There is a consensus in Afghan society: violence…must end. National reconciliation and respect for fundamental human rights will form the path to lasting peace and stability across the country. The people’s aspirations must…