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When it comes to waging war on Afghanistan, we might as well turn around and go home. The British occupied that country from 1839 to 1842, and ended up going home with their tails between their legs, and it looks like we will too.

In the August 16th issue of the New York Review of Books, Rory Stewart writes: "The British ‘Army of the Indus’ swaggered into Kabul from India in 1839 (with) the general’s personal baggage loaded onto 260 camels." Besides soldiers in scarlet cloaks, he brought along a pack of hounds, in case he wanted to hunt foxes. The Afghans "were soon watching ice skating and giving advice to British women on their geraniums."
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Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington and former Mossad Chief Meier Dagan appeared on 60 Minutes to warn that war with Iran would be a mistake. Meanwhile, it has been pointed out by numerous commentators that no country which has acquired nuclear weapons since World War II has used them, and that nuclear arsenals are instruments of peace rather than war, because the prospect of mutually assured destruction enforces stalemate. The prime examples cited are the US and the USSR, which never actually fought a nuclear conflict, and Pakistan and India, which fought three wars prior to acquiring nuclear weapons, and have not fought since.
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