This is a question. Consider the first few chapters of First Maccabees and and tell me if you think that they have anything to say about our adventures in Afghanistan. What do you think? All other things aside, do you think the tribal leaders and Taliban in Afghanistan have anything in common with the Maccabeans? Do we have anything in common with the Seleucid army presence? The first thing I would object to is comparing the Taliban or Opium war lords to righteous Jews desiring to follow the laws of the only true God, and I would be unhappy being compared to the arrogant, pagan and cruelly violent Hellenists. How about bracketing all of that? Then what? What might the Maccabeans teach us about America and Afghanistan?