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My son and I were cutting firewood this afternoon. It may come as a surprise to some, but you can do a lot of daydreaming with a chainsaw in your hands. Between cutting and dragging and stacking, during the quiet times, we chatted about Afghanistan. I was in Viet Nam for a long time, my mid-30's son was fortunate enough not to have served and has no first-hand knowledge of war. That suites me just fine.
I suggested to him that this country had only been involved in three wars that were, to my mind, legitimate and that we certainly were not in one of them now. First we had our Revolution. We could not have existed without that war and so it is a given that it was a necessary war. Next came the war of 1812, when we were invaded by Britain and repelled them in what might be thought of as a continuation of the Revolution. The next war we entered with good reason was the 2nd World War. We were, after all, attacked by the Japanese and Germany declared war on us the next day. It could hardly be said our involvement in that was was illegitimate. That was, however, the last one.
As for the grotesque messes we have created in Iraq, Afghanistan, and indeed Pakistan those should have been solved half a decade ago by police and diplomatic action with little to no involvement by our military.
With that said, Stihl, we had work to do.
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