America has governed non-Taliban Afghanistan as a colonial possession for 20 years and in that time has reduced it to such a state of dependence that it is utterly unable to defend and govern itself.

The problem is that we have almost never been abroad for the democracy-building reasons we have always given to justify our new acquisitions. For 175 years we have spread our wings across the earth to obtain land, to support military industries, and to fulfill the political needs of Presidents.

Polk started a war with Mexico by redrawing the border line and claiming the Mexicans had crossed it. We got California out of that gig. McKinley put a ship in Havana Harbor, an act of war against Spain. When an explosion rocked the boat, we pressed forward and picked up Puerto Rico and the Philippines for our trouble.

Wilson deliberately exposed the British boat Lusitania (with Americans aboard) to German subs in order to get the U.S. into World War I. Roosevelt, long before Pearl Harbor, committed an act of war against Japan by embargoing iron and steel, gas and oil, and then ending all trade with that nation.

Lyndon Johnson illegally parked navy vessels in North Vietnamese waters, provoking the specious Gulf of Tonkin resolution that enabled the Vietnam War.

Of course, George W. Bush went after those pesky weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for all the profit and politics that would accrue to his party and pals.

— Kimball Shinkoskey, Woods Cross

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