So far the government admits that our own First Afghan War has cost about $300 billion and 1,000 lives. Cheney and Rumsfeld might have thought about before going in, something that President Obamas advisors might have considered before beefing up the mis- sion. Two misinformed and ignorant American presidents have sent their countrymen to die in the rocks and stones of Kabul, protecting the right of child-molesting warlords to grow the opium that is poisoning the soul of Europe and America. Military men have told me that General McChrystal is an excellent officer, but his job-subduing Afghanistan-is not only impossible: It is not worth the doing. One friend told me he went to bed each night and woke up each morning with but one thought: 'I don't want to have my legs blown off for these people.' Returning veterans have said they find our Afghan 'allies' as revolting as our enemies, and, from what I can gather, pedophilia and homosexual rape are routine pastimes, like bowling or having a beer with your buddies in the good old U.S.A. I know too little about the place to speak with any more authority than the CIA experts who permitted a Jordani- an triple agent to blow them up, but even that little is more than I wish to know. It is one Pashtun tribe against another, Pashtun against Uzbeks and Iranians, and Uzbeks against Iranians, old guard corrupt mujahideen against idealistic Taliban, and, overall, Shia against Sunni. It is patchwork of hostile ethnicities and regions engaged in endless conflict, alternately lapsing into a cold, or blowing up into a hot, war. Afghanistan is not a nation, much less a nation- state.

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