"Hitting a baseball is very hard. Gaining foreign adversaries' trust so that they betray their country for the benefit of ours is also highly complex and difficult. Hitting .300 will keep you on the top of both professions. That is the magic number. But the key to achieving that magic number is coming to terms with the reality that you must experience and understand failure."
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The Biden administration has announced a Sept. 11, 2021, date for the withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.
I imagine that many in our military and intelligence communities are reflecting on their time spent in this distant land. What Rudyard Kipling and many others called the graveyard of empires, and James Michener beautifully described as an exotic and mysterious land, Afghanistan has perplexed warriors, diplomats, and spies for generations. I am not here today to extol the virtues of remaining in Afghanistan, nearly 20 years after the first CIA teams entered that nation only weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. Nor will I call for us to leave outright, putting a final bookend on a war that has taken more than 2,400 U.S. lives. Instead, having spent a year of my life in eastern Afghanistan a decade ago, I simply reflect on my personal stories, particularly the recollection of heroes that I served with, both American and Afghan.
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Spies, Journalists and the Literature of Witness
January 12, 2021
The Newsletter
by Clarissa Ward / Penguin Press
Reviewed by Marc Polymeropoulos
Cipher Brief Expert Marc Polymeropoulos served 26 years in the CIA before retiring from the Senior Intelligence Service in June 2019. His positions included field and headquarters operational assignments covering the Middle East, Europe, Eurasia and CounterTerrorism.
REVIEW Reading Clarissa Ward’s