Afghanistanism

Almost twenty five years ago, a few days after 9/11, I went to a restaurant serving food from Afghanistan. At the time, I still lived in Boston, from which two of the planes had departed that were used in the terrorist attacks. For a while, it was not clear whether Boston itself would be a target, so local employers sent people home. All air traffic had been suspended, meaning that for the first time I saw the crisp blue sky over the city without any trails left by departing planes. Instead, there was a single fighter jet circling over the city: You could tell that something had broken, even if at the time it was impossible to tell what would emerge next. It quickly became clear that the response to the attack would be very violent. Afghanistan, which served as the base of the terrorist group behind 911, was going to be the target. The question was not whether there would be violence but how much. Even as the window of critical discourse was closing very rapidly, it was clear to many…