The guns below

Another year and the guns in central Asia, unheard by all but a tiny handful of citizens of the United States, have not fallen silent. There is no Armistice above the Durand Line, or in the many hidden places where American soldiers do their nation's bidding.

What more, what better can I say than what an earlier President of my country said some one hundred fifty years ago:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Surely it is time and past time to "finish the work we are in", and to "honor" the veterans by bringing the Armistice and making no more of them.

Bringing women's soccer to Kabul can hardly be worth the cost in blood and treasure. For all the good that we may do there must be an end to our thankless task of hustling the East, while the task is borne by those we send to do what we choose not to do ourselves.

And for many of them only their death will see an end to war.