Farewell to Kabul

Jesse Walker | February 25, 2009

Iraq hawk Ralph Peters says we should get out of Afghanistan:

Initially, Afghanistan wasn't a war of choice. We had to dislodge and decimate al-Qaeda, while punishing the Taliban and strengthening friendlier forces in the country. Our great mistake was to stay on in an attempt to build a modernized rule-of-law state in a feudal realm with no common identity.

We needed to smash our enemies and leave. Had it proved necessary, we could have returned later for another punitive mission. Instead, we fell into the great American fallacy of believing ourselves responsible for helping those who've harmed us.

Elsewhere in Reason: Peters was among the people I interviewed for this feature on U.S. foreign policy, way back in the innocent days of 2003.