Are we doing the right thing in Afghanistan?

Avatar (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Worldwide, Avatar grossed an estimated $232,180,000 on its opening weekend,[15] the ninth-largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. After 17 days in release, it became the fastest film to reach $1 billion in box office receipts[16] and the fifth to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. Less than three weeks after its release, the film became the second highest grossing film of all time worldwide."

According to reviews of the film, I have not seen it myself, the US army is beaten up by a spiritual people called Na'vi in a sensitive ecosystem, a planet Pandora. In other words there is both save-the-earth and anti-war sentiments that seem very popular. It is fascinating to observe capitalism in action against its main proponent. Don't misunderstand me, I'm very grateful that it is the US that has the largest military in the world.

Yesterday I referred to a speech by Hillary Clinton, the US State Department Secretary, where she spoke of development as a means of lowering risks to the US in the future from states that are on the verge of failing. Military would be used to secure such operations. She makes use of an axiom: if we don't invest in this today, it will be more costly tomorrow. Is this axiom correct if the countries in question are indigenously hostile to the West in general and to the US in particular? Because, development will not work under such circumstances and it then smells of waste of good money, not mentioning the loss of lives. Making war, polluting and devouring raw materials apparently do not make the US, China or the EU popular.

Used as a world opinion poll Avatar might be more important the many seem to think?