The international mission in Afghanistan has done some terrible things – locking up innocent people without due process, accidentally bombing civilians, humiliating families by invading their homes – but it’s also pushed back the Taliban, built a weak but better-than-nothing system of police and army, funded a government that would have otherwise collapsed long ago, and provided extensive humanitarian aid. Afghans would almost certainly be better off embracing the foreign presence, working with the Americans and Europeans, rather than rejecting it. They would also probably be better off living in a tolerant society that did not respond to every Koran-burning with violence and murder. But that’s not our choice to make, it’s theirs. The Afghans have the right and the power to choose their own future, and it looks like their chosen future doesn’t include us.