Empire of Graveyards

The widely accepted truism goes that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires where strong nations or empires come only to be destroyed. While that may be true, the argument smells of rotten selfishness and speaks volumes about a dehumanised mindset. The end of a war on Afghan soil is viewed from an extremely narrow and self-centred perspective. Afghanistan’s loss is never part of that calculus. Similarly, everyone unquestioningly repeats the same mantra that this was America’s longest war. This was Afghanistan’s longest war too.

And for Afghanistan it really was a war that had disrupted everyday life. Afghans felt the war at home every day and every night. It is not like people in America could not go to Mardi Gras or buy groceries from their local Walmart. And it is rather Afghanistan that has become an empire of graveyards where countless innocent men, women, and children died without even being acknowledged. Afghans are indeed Orwell’s Unpeople.

The leading punditry in and out of America is taking pride in being brave enough to call it an American defeat and how the exit scene was reminiscent of Saigon. That really is not the real issue here. Whether or not it was Saigon-like, it is a strange defeat for the mighty America because just as the war had not disrupted the American lifestyle, the defeat is quite mind-boggling as well. America in defeat has lost a little over 2,400 soldiers and Afghans in victory saw countless deaths that run into tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands. America in defeat is getting ready to enter the Fall season sale discounts. In Afghanistan, more blood will drop to the ground than leaves this Fall.

The Afghans who did not work for the Americans stayed behind and some fell from the sky, but the ones who did work for the Americans fell from grace. Even those labeled as the fortunate ones who made it to the American military cargo aircraft are not welcomed in America. An American politician tweeted the now famous picture of that cargo plane filled with Afghans, asking: who would want this plane to be landed in their hometown?

The US has a moral obligation to take in as many Afghans as it can. It wouldn’t hurt to go an extra mile and break some laws to make this happen. For waging a boundless war and invading Afghan land, laws and constitutionality were broken at will. Those who didn’t work for the United States but whose lives and livelihood are badly hurt by the war deserve to receive American help. Actually, those who did not work for the United States in Afghanistan deserve American help even more because while the interpreters had a nice paycheck, thanks to the American taxpayers, they did not.

And if one really thinks about it, those people are the real brave Afghans. They did not fall into the trap of joining either side to benefit themselves. In the movie Scent of A Woman, in the end scene, Al Pacino delivers an impeccable speech to the high school students and their teachers. He questions their character by reminding them that the only student who refused to testify against his friends despite being offered a lucrative scholarship in bribe is being thrown under the bus while the one who sold out his friends just to save his own skin is being praised and forgiven. He further advises them to embrace the brave student since that one would one day make them proud.

Today, America is doing what that school was about to do by rewarding the ones who were traitors to their own people and throwing under the bus the ones who took the harder route. If the US is a society that cherishes itself for being “The Home of the Brave” then it must become the home of those Afghans that did not side with the Americans for an easy pay and an easy exit.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2021.

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