The perspective of the moment, and the lens of history on Afghanistan

 There is a philosophy of historical analysis by which one cannot properly interpret any historical event without distance.  Perspective.  Time.  It is not merely that one cannot see how the consequences of an event play out, but that one needs separation in order to make detached judgments.  It is a compelling philosophy, in many ways, yet something is missing.  The very thing that we are observing now.  The essential tragedy of the thing.

As we read, watch, analyze and discuss the decisions and implications of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a few points have begun to crystalize.  This is a Saigon moment.  Implicit in that comparison is the comparison between the US involvement in Afghanistan prior to withdrawal and US involvement in Vietnam.  This implies a reason to withdraw to correct a mistake.  In the case of Afghanistan, I think we are beginning to see the contours of a "debate," such as it is, about when the US should have withdrawn, although given 9/11, it will probably remain a fringe position to hold that the US should never have had any military involvement there (then again, I work on a college campus, so...).  Yet the withdrawal?

The only ones defending the process by which US forces are withdrawing are Joe Biden and the Taliban, although Republican criticism should be taken with so much salt a cardiologist would have a heart attack just watching you do it.

Two perspectives.  History, and the moment.  We are in the moment.  In the moment, we see the tragedy, the brutality, the ugliness, and it is difficult for anyone with any sense of righteousness or empathy to feel anything other than horror, despondence and anger.

What will be the perspective in 100 years?  200?

Assuming such a thing exists.  Humanity is facing some grim challenges.  Climate change won't eradicate all human life, nor will any disease, but civilization will be harmed and diminished and ain't nobody doin' a fuckin' thing about it.  Instead, people yell about small things.  This is rather larger than small.  Global scale?  Not quite, but that is part of my point.

So what will be in scholarly texts, or history books in 100 years?  In a general, practical way, how the fuck should any of us know?  Yet we can make some reasonable guesses.  Not precisely hypotheses since we cannot test them, but someone will, eventually.  Not that anyone would ever read this.

Still, Saigon.  We keep coming back to Saigon, so I keep coming back to the observation that when we discuss Vietnam, our primary point of historical analysis is not the problematic nature of the US withdrawal, but the problem of US involvement in the first place.  Someone can bring up "Saigon," and we can say, "oh, yeah, Saigon," and discuss that great national embarrassment of a moment, but that is not what guides our discussion.  What guides our discussion is the notion that we shouldn't have been there in the first place, and "Saigon"-- the withdrawal-- is merely an afterthought if that.  And that's only half a century.  Living memory, for many.  People who were there are still alive.  Change the time frame.  Change the perspective.  100 years.  You, me, we're all dead.  Everyone alive, save for a few random people receiving stray birthday wishes on whatever passes for mass media entertainment as freakshow spectacles for having lived past the century mark... all dead.  And those centenarians?  They'll have been toddlers now, and they won't remember.

Only books.  Or whatever pushes books into the dustbins of history.  If it's twitter... hey, aliens!  Free planet!  Come and get it!

What will books say?  If the analogy really does hold, "oh, yeah, Saigon."  The broader point will be all that most books can cover, space-constrained as they are.  Specialized books, of the kind written by history professors, will certainly cover the details of the withdrawal, and the tragedies associated, but the rest?  "Oh, yeah, Saigon."

For perspective, I find myself thinking of the Boxer Rebellion.  Century, give or take.  There is a point at which we are allowed rounding error.  And right around that century mark, one of my favorite authors wrote... his worst book.  Neal Stephenson published Diamond Age right around a century after the Boxer Rebellion.  In my opinion, it was a flawed novel, primarily because it was a mash-up of two books, uncomfortably sharing space.  One piece was about kid growing up with a digital "book," which actually involved actors, and AI, and... it was weird.  The other was a futuristic Boxer Rebellion story.  Stephenson couldn't get the two ideas to play nice with each other, and the novel suffered.  My opinion.  Anyway, by modern times, knowledge of the Boxer Rebellion is so minimal that even the educated people who read Neal Stephenson books don't necessarily get that it was the Boxer Rebellion.

How many tragedies were there amid the Boxer Rebellion?  What was the role of Western countries in China, and what should it have been?  We could say a lot, but a century later, the educated population that reads Neal Stephenson books could only sporadically recognize a Boxer Rebellion metaphor.

History.  Perspective and time, and what is lost in that perspective can be all of the tragic, individual events as we focus on the bigger picture.

When we bother to remember it at all.

As a general rule, I offer a Mr. Spock/Mr. Pump perspective on morality.  It's a numbers game.  Life and mathematics.  Mathematics as a solution to the problem of lives.  X lives versus Y lives.  If X > Y, the needs of the X should prosperously live to do that cool "v" thing with their hands that Nimoy got by opening his eyes and watching the rabbi in shul when he wasn't supposed to.  What?  Don't raise your eyebrow at me!  Bigger picture.  That's history, right?  Also, the Vulcan way, the golem way, and anything else driven by logic.

What is missed?

As we watch, living in the moment, we see precisely what is missed.  Y matters.

That's why it's a tragedy.  That's why we watch in horror, and anger, and despondence.  In 100 years, few will remember that it happened.  Afghanistan?  I have a bleak assessment of Afghanistan.  I doubt the country has any real hope, ever.  The Taliban, as a group, will eventually fall.  What will replace them?  Warlords, or someone else atrocious.  US involvement there will eventually be little more than a footnote, like Soviet involvement, and subject to similar scrutiny.  The method of our withdrawal?  A footnote to a footnote.

But the tragedies are real.  And what is lost in the process of footnotes going to infinite regress is the reality of that horror.

The US could have saved more lives in the process of withdrawal.  In the process of withdrawing from a country that most analysis, at this point, says we should have left long ago, as demonstrated by the rapidity of its fall to the Taliban.  As demonstrated by this very process, I argue.

"History" writes in broad strokes.  The broad stroke is likely to be something about the nature of US involvement, staying too long, blah-blah.  A botched withdrawal?  Footnotes to footnotes.  And what is lost in the perspective of history is precisely what we see in the moment.  The core tragedy.  What cannot be seen with distance.  What becomes increasingly difficult to measure as X grows relative to a fixed Y.  Y exists.  Y matters.  Y will be reduced to footnotes, and footnotes to footnotes, but in the moment, in the reality of the now, we see Y.

And in 100 years, a novelist could write a metaphorical reference, and large portions of the audience wouldn't get it.

Some music.  Preston Reed, "View From Afar," from Pointing Up.