Afghanistan: "Graveyard Of Empires"

Rudyard Kipling's early 20th century poem "The Young British Soldier" includes:

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains
and the women come out to cut up what remains
jest roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains
and go to your gawd like a soldier."

Afghanistan has received and became a "graveyard of empires" from Alexander The Great through Genghis Khan including the British then the Russians and now the United States. Barack Obama declared today, " Afghanistan is a war we have to win." And so the only comfort that can come for those words is philosophical. No matter when you lived or died you have experienced the one reality.