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The withdrawal from Afghanistan, where to start?
Debates erupted like wildfire in California, not only over how the withdrawal would unfold, but also over the effectiveness and conduct of the 20-year Afghan effort. The skedaddle also swept aside President Joe Biden’s honeymoon. I will not join the debate, but it is remarkable, as reported in this July History of Reuters, that the origin of Biden’s withdrawal decision dates back a decade.
The question erupted everywhere: Has all the nation’s blood and treasures been spilled in Afghanistan for nothing, given that the Taliban gang is back in command?
Whatever the final answer, I think it’s important to separate the policies and the results, however they will be judged, from the worth of those who participated in what they were asked to do. for their country. A given insurgency operation will not resonate through the centuries like the Battle of Agincourt. No Shakespeare today will distill Afghanistan in a lyrical speech.
Still, the American servicemen who participated will likely adopt the feeling of “bunch of brothers.” In addition, each individual has left a mark that is real, albeit immaterial. What is that expression – if one person can’t tell the difference, neither can a million. Thanks to those, both military and civilian, who worked in this difficult country, millions of Afghans keep in their hearts and minds the knowledge of what is possible in a life without subjugation. It’s something.
This is therefore a good time to reflect on the value of one’s work as an individual. Let’s face it, most human activities are fleeting. Programs, products, activities, campaigns begin and end, even within sustainable institutions.
Suppose you worked in the Small Business Administration on the Payroll Protection Program. It came and went. You have never met any of the recipients. Complaining about the bureaucratic difficulties of applying, they have never met you. And yes, there was a lot of fraud and money going to the unworthy. And yet somewhere there is a restaurant, a building contractor, a bed and breakfast operator that is still in business.
The other day I interviewed an immigration judge from the Department of Justice, who is also the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Mimi Tsankov deals with many intramural questions on the status of the union and its collective agreement. She and her 500 fellow immigration judges are carrying a backlog of 1.4 million cases on their backs. It must seem futile from the outside.
Yet Tsankov is hardly a cog in a faceless machine. She speaks with the most conviction of the profession itself, deciding the fate of immigrants. On TV, they look like so many undifferentiated people, arriving from Mexico with Adidas backpacks and t-shirts. Maybe immigration judges are wondering who could be the next Roberto Guizueta, a defector from Cuba to the United States who became the legendary CEO of Coca Cola?
Plus, although she’s not a $ 1,000-an-hour lawyer in Manhattan, where she works, Tsankov appreciates her connections with the Federal Bar and the National Association of Women Judges. She teaches at Fordham. So business comes and goes, the backlog accumulates and politicians are unable to do anything constructive on immigration. This does not detract from the value of the work of each judge.
Many Feds themselves are unknown to the public but are fortunate enough to work on highly visible projects. My interview with Chong Le illustrates this. An engineer with decades of federal service, he runs a billion-dollar Air Force weather satellite program. Satellites are not permanent. They get older, new technologies are coming and the old ones are running out. But for 20 years, they rejected good data. The anonymous people who worked there did not work in vain.
Monday is Labor Day. Coming from the trade union movement, he celebrates, in part, the dignity of all work. We talk a lot about infrastructure. I see the infrastructure at the brick or rivet level. When I cross a bridge or admire an old building with intricate bricks, I imagine the riveter who put this connector in the George Washington Bridge in New York City in the late 1920s? Or who put that brick on top of that big townhouse near DuPont Circle?
No matter the job, honest leaves a mark one way or another. Including those serving in Afghanistan.
Almost useless factoid
Through Alazar Moges
According to data on births from 1994 to 2014 from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Social Security Administration, the most popular birth date in the United States is now September 9, with September being the busiest birth month of all. This suggests that many people conceive over the holidays, as pregnancies last on average around 38 weeks.
Source: Daily viewing
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