Afghanistan: Winning more Hearts and Minds

The NYT reports that NATO helicopters yesterday killed 9 boys collecting firewood to heat their homes.  Petraeus has apologized.  But in the village where the boys were from:

More than 200 people gathered in Nanglam on Wednesday to protest the boys’ deaths, witnesses said. Waving white flags, they shouted “Death, death to America” and “Death to Obama and his colleagues and associates.”

This has happened too many times - in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq - for Americans (including the McCain-Lieberman-Graham faction in the US Senate) to shrug and glibly remark, 'Hey, it's too bad, but it's war.  And after all, we're fighting to win these folks THEIR freedom."

I'm sure they're all going to thank us someday.