Creating new enemies: Latest crisis points to need to end Afghan war

By David McElroy · November 27, 2011

Why are U.S. troops still in Afghanistan? Can anybody come up with a coherent, logical and pragmatic reason? I can’t. All I know is that the longer they stay, the more we’re turning former allies into enemies.

Early Saturday morning, U.S. forces killed 28 Pakistani soldiers, but that’s about as far as agreement goes on what happened. The Pakistani government claims the attack was unwarranted and unprovoked. An unidentified western official claims the attack on the Pakistanis was self-defense. In the meantime, Pakistanis are in the streets protesting, as you see above. I don’t know who’s right. We’ll probably never know the facts. Either way, though, we’re managing to turn millions and millions of people against us. Isn’t it time to declare the mission over and pull out?

The stated purposed for invading Afghanistan was to destroy terrorist training facilities in the country and to kill or capture Osama bin Laden. Well, bin Laden is dead and we’ve destroyed the facilities that concerned us. We’re not going to accomplish anything else, contrary to the bluster of various politicians about completing the mission.

Afghanistan has been a graveyard for conquerors for a long time. Britain conquered the place in the 19th century, but the Afghans refused to stay conquered. (In one remarkable episode, 16,000 people — both British soldiers and civilians — were killed in 1842. Only one man survived to tell what happened to the British forces.) More recently, the Russians invaded the country in 1979 and then spent nine years trying to keep control. It was a defeat that many people have considered the Soviet Union’s version of our Vietnam War.

Close to 2,000 Americans have been killed fighting in Afghanistan. Close to a thousand troops from various countries allied with the United States have died, too. Countless Afghans have died. And for what? There’s a weak government set up that’s supposedly allied with the United States, but just a few weeks ago, the Afghan president told Pakistani media that his country would side with Pakistan in the event that Pakistan and the United States clashed.

So what’s the purpose of still being there? More Americans continue to die. More Afghans continue to die. And now U.S. forces are killing Pakistanis — making more enemies in a country of 177 million Muslims, many of whom already believe the United States is engaged in a war against their religion. So even if you’re all for a muscular military that intervenes around the world — which I’m not — what good do you think it’s achieving?

Afghanistan is going to be an unstable basket case whether U.S. troops stay there or not, but there’s no logical reason to continue expending money and lives on an ill-defined mission that costs the lives of many innocent people and creates more enemies to hate us. Even if it was once justified to invade the country, that time is long past. Leave Afghanistan to the Afghans to fight over. There’s no reason for our involvement there.

It’s time to declare an end to the war and bring all the troops home — before we make even more enemies to come looking for us over here.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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