Afghanistan: One perspective

We were going through our normal routine yesterday evening, setting the dinner table, cleaning snow peas picked fresh from the garden that morning, and my youngest son asks me: "Dad how long have we been fighting in Afghanistan."

I realized he was watching the evening news on television (I had tuned it out) and was watching a report that June in Afghanistan "is rapidly becoming one of the war's most lethal months for foreign forces."

I had to figure quickly. "Since November 2001. We have been fighting in Afghanistan since November 2001."

My son cocked his head to one side, thought hard, then said – with some incredulity in his voice. "You mean we have been fighting in Afghanistan ever since I was born?"

Again I had to figure quickly. "Yes, we have been fighting in Afghanistan ever since you were born."

That put the conflict into perspective for me.

What I couldn't bear to tell my son is that as far as I can see, the only result of that lifetime of war is this: Remorseless Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad warns: 'We will be attacking the U.S.'