All I want for Christmas is for Americans to stop dying in Afghanistan

Six more dead Americans in Afghanistan. Tell me again: Why?

On Tuesday, the six U.S. soldiers were riding in a helicopter in southern Afghanistan when it crashed. Mechanical failure is suspected, though the Taliban, of course, claimed its fighters downed the craft.

Which matters not one whit, of course. Dead is dead. Just in time for the holidays, six American families are getting the worst news possible about their loved ones.

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Do you know how many American soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year? Only 125. In 2012, it was 310. In the worst year, 2010, it was 499.

And for what?

Yes, I know, we’re fighting terrorism. We’re fighting to keep Afghanistan from falling back into the nasty hands of the Taliban. Heck, go ahead, try to say it with a straight face: We’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them in New York.

But I’m tired of that argument. What was the lesson of Vietnam? What was the lesson of the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? What was the lesson of Somalia and “Black Hawk Down” in 1993? Not to mention the Mother of All Mistakes, the invasion of Iraq in 2003?

No. We’re fighting in Afghanistan because it’s what we always do, because we’re too easily seduced by the notion that this time, if we just fight smarter, stay longer, try some newfangled idea of warfare, it will work.

But it hasn’t. It doesn’t. It’s fool’s gold. Paid for in blood.

Sure, I know, we are getting out of Afghanistan. We’ve negotiated an agreement with President Hamid Karzai’s government; it’s not the one he wants, nor the one we want, so I’m not sure what will come of it, but it’s supposed to get the U.S. out late next year.

Not all Americans, though, and that’s the rub. Some special forces troops will remain. And lots of American money too, the lifeblood of the corrupt Afghan government headed by our guy Karzai.

It’s been a long time coming. We went in in 2001 to drive out the Taliban and the terrorists. Then, having learned nothing from the history of that sad place, we stayed, pouring more money and more lives into a country that has resisted foreign interlopers since Alexander the Great.

Now, I’m not a peace-at-all-costs guy. But there are simply places, and circumstances, that aren’t worth dying for. Probably, in 2001, Afghanistan was a place we needed to be. But now, it’s not.

It’s the holidays. But for six American families, it just became the worst Christmas ever.

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