Below, we print some remarks that Charles Krauthammer made on television about Afghanistan and its president. The question was whether “airstrikes should be limited given Hamid Karzai’s criticism of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.” Krauthammer said, “The answer is no. We have to be adult about all of this.”

Those words rang a bell with me. Two years ago, a group of us had a sit-down — a “coffee” — with Karzai in Davos. I have gone back to find what I wrote. Let me excerpt:

Karzai talks about a man whose home was mistakenly bombed by coalition forces — this cost the man many members of his family. And someone asks why in the world Western powers are bombing innocent people. Karzai says that such mistakes are less frequent now; the coalition is making a big effort to be careful. But mistakes will happen in war, Karzai observes. Just last night — the night before our coffee — the coalition mistakenly killed nine members of the Afghan armed forces. But remember, says Karzai: The allies have lost people in such mistakes, too. The Americans have, the Canadians have . . .
Seldom have I seen a leader so cool, and unhistrionic, and un-demagogic — so mature.

The journalists in Davos were trying to get Karzai to slam the U.S. and the coalition, for the casualties they were accidentally inflicting. Karzai would have none of it; he would not rise to the bait. I applied the word “mature,” but I might well have used Krauthammer’s word: “adult.”