Book Review: The Dogs Are Eating Them Now


The Dogs Are Eating Them Now

By Graeme Smith

COUNTERPOINT

With Iraq and Syria hogging the headlines, it’s remarkable how quickly we’ve forgotten our longest war. Graeme Smith’s memoir is a cutting account of how the Afghanistan conflict unraveled. His recollections—of embedding with a coalition offensive and covering a Taliban jailbreak, for example—underscore the emotions (revenge, hate, distrust) that made the fight unwinnable. Michael Herr’s Dispatches it’s not, but Smith’s illuminating postmortem is worth reading and remembering the next time we’re tempted to repeat our mistakes.


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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

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