Vietnam lingered in the American body politic like a residual infection. Afghanistan could also poison American politics for years to come.
“ALL SORROWS can be borne,” wrote Isak Dinesen, “if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.” Today, America has sorrows to bear. The Afghanistan War has left 2,500 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Afghans dead, the Taliban in control of Kabul, Al Qaeda crowing about victory, and teenage Afghan girls unable to attend school. America needs to tell a story about Afghanistan or craft a narrative of the war that helps Americans make sense of events, learn lessons—and move on.
As the Afghanistan War recedes into the past—at least for Americans—the war moves from the drone’s eye to the mind’s eye. The Vietnamese author Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote: “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” Military loss is one of the most arduous traumas that a country can endure. “To lose an empire is to lose yourself,” said one French general in the 1960s. “It takes all the meaning away from the life of a man, the life of a pioneer.”
