Political column – August 28

As the last evacuation flights leave, I am guessing that some of the brave Western journalists who have been covering the terrible scenes in Kabul will be instructed by their superiors to leave with them, as it will be too dangerous for them to stay.

After that, our window on what is happening will depend on those journalists who remain in an environment of extreme hazard, on local stringers facing an uncertain future under a media regime controlled by the Taliban, and on fuzzy internet interviews with residents living in fear of discovery.

For a good template of the aftermath of Western intervention, look to Libya, where correspondents sent reports which led news bulletins while riding with the forces which rode on Tripoli. Then there was the triumphal headline moment of "victory."

In the weeks, months, and years that followed, another real story developed of a nation descending into chaos, ethnic cleansing, civil war, and callous exploitation of refugees. The trouble is that Libya is now so volatile that it is very risky for Western media to operate, but in truth the outside world seems to have lost interest in any event.

If you want to look for what the West achieved from the perspective of ordinary Afghans, it is that for 20 years or so they had rights, freedoms and opportunities which would have been denied to them under the Taliban.

There is no consolation to be had in the hope that at least the fall of Kabul is a resolution which will bring a period of peace. That is an illusion, as underlined by the deadly bombings at the airport. Even without those, there is plenty of precedent to point to the fall of a capital city not being an end to things.

Napoleon took Moscow in 1812. He hung around there for a while thinking he had "won." Look what happened thereafter to his army in the long retreat back to France.

We British took the Boer capital Pretoria in 1900 and then faced many months of guerrilla war. The Americans walked in to Baghdad in 2003, but it was not mission accomplished after all, as they had to endure a long insurgency.

Even the Americans, with all the technology and military capability at their disposal, were unable to make Kabul completely secure, although on a relative scale they were able to provide a high degree of safety which enabled residents to live normally.

Now the poisoned chalice of providing security in the face of diverse threats falls on the Taliban, who are of course a threat in themselves.

The fall of Kabul and the pullout on August 31 are going to be just historical punctuation marks in the continuing agony of Afghanistan.

Joe Biden wants to end America's "forever wars."

For Afghans, "forever wars" are a fact of life. No wonder so many are desperate to leave.

.................

We've been thinking about repainting the garage door.

"What colour is it now?" "I think it's red." "Isn't it green?" "Oh, I'm not sure."

It's something we see each and every day and yet without looking we couldn't say for definite what colour it is. It's like when you drive down a familiar street and something has been knocked down, and you can't for the life of you think what was there before.

And then there was the family Zoom call the other day when my brother came up with an amusing little anecdote about how I announced my marriage (I have a significant anniversary next year) in front of a surprised family gathering. He remembered it clearly, but another brother was able to prove it was a false memory because I had actually sent out an email, a copy of which he still had.

There is a serious point. Studies have already shown how fallible memory is, and that people who confidently remember things with total clarity may be completely wrong.

I suspect that some day in the future all court evidence based on memory will be ruled inadmissible through unreliability. I shudder to think how many miscarriages of justice there have been.

Oh, the garage door is red, painted over green which is showing through in places, hence the desire to repaint it.