Our brand is (was?) Freedom.

When I was a kid, in the 1990s of yore, Freedom was the thing we said made us special. And by ‘us,’ I mean the United States. Freedom meant freedom of speech. It meant women could vote and drive cars. It meant we thought we were the good guys. Many of the things we did in the name of this freedom were questionable. Well motivated but poorly executed. Poorly motivated but well executed. But the idea that we were, say, preserving democracy for the Kuwaiti people, and not just shoring up our oil supplies, was how we told the story of ourselves as the good guys. And it is important to believe that you are good and/or capable of good. Without that belief the future becomes a source of dread rather than hope.

When did we stop telling that story? Lately it seems like the story on the left is that this is all cultural imperialism and white supremacy. And the story on the right is that freedom means America first. I remember when our pretended moral authority actually spurred us to behave in ways that were (or tried to be) honorable. And believing in the myth of our own goodness inspired us to try to live up to the promise of our better angels. Which was better than not trying.

I’m talking about Afghanistan. The craven soulessness it took to abandon the blood debt we owe the Afghan people is the result of a deep cynicism. A rejection of the mantle of moral leadership to which we once pretended. I am not arguing that the history of American saviorism represented true virtue. I am arguing that our collective belief in it was at least better than the cynicism which has replaced it. I think it is important to acknowledge that the American myth of meritocracy is just that, and our country has never lived up to the ideals it put on paper. But I also think putting those ideals on paper, and then revising them, and then fixing them when they're broken (3/5s of a person, anyone? The addition of the 13th amendment? Or the19th amendment? Etc.), and then trying to live up to them, was part of what made America different and more than just another ethno-state. It created an idea, that inspired people from all over the world to come here to participate. My ancestors were among them. Never mind that coming here included participating in the displacement of first nations, that the idea was flawed, or even that it existed only as an ideal from which many would be excluded. This idea still animated a 200+ year worldwide pilgrimage of immigration, because it caught the imagination of so many who wished for freedom. There are still huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Now they are desperate to get out of Afghanistan. Or in makeshift camps on the US Mexico border. Or walking from South and Central America, facing homicide, theft, sexual assault, kidnapping, starvation, and the grim prospect of being separated from their families.

Perhaps we are tired and poor ourselves now, and that’s why so many cling to an ideology of scarcity like America First. Perhaps we never really helped anyone to breathe free, but just told ourselves we did, while reifying the hierarchy that stifled the breath to begin with, and now we are rightly reckoning with this legacy. I still think we have no excuse not to try. The harm of inaction here is no less than the harm of taking action and getting it wrong. I recently saw a meme that said “If you ever feel useless, just remember USA took 4 Presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace Taliban with Taliban.” This is, on one level, harsh but fair. But I think this flawed venture accomplished something unintentional but valuable. Twenty years is a long time in the life of a human. A generation of young Afghanis grew up thinking they could work outside the home, regardless of gender. That they could travel, or continue their education in ways their parents did not have available. I wonder if the psychological impact of these twenty years will bear fruit as this generation become leaders. I wonder if they will live up to the ideals the United States failed to demonstrate, when we fled in frustration from our poorly executed and savior-ist attempt to support the growth of a democratic nation in Afghanistan. I’m still glad we tried, because the Afghan people deserve better than the point of a gun, whether from the US, Russia, the Taliban (homegrown, but no less oppressive), or whatever other vultures gather next. Like the Afghan people, my people experienced some liberation at the hands of United States government. And also callous betrayal. It is not the reality of the United States that motivates me when I think the possibilities of what we can achieve collectively. It is the idea, the transformative moments when we have been moved to action by our better angels. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a betrayal of that idea. I hope the next generation of Afghanis will teach us a lesson in the power of ideas that we seem to have abandoned. Freedom is a lot of work, but it is better to strive imperfectly than to give up.