Kabul has fallen. The twenty-year American occupation of Afghanistan is, for now, over. A few short weeks after US forces pulled out of the country, the Afghan army dissolved into rocky dust, a stratum of sediment tamped beneath the Taliban assault. Now ghosts stalk the craggy graveyards of empire. A helicopter alights. A disgraceful runway escape. Another Vietnam?

We should pause at these easy comparisons and equivocations. Afghanistan and Vietnam are more than wars; they’re also countries. But, at least for Americans, Vietnam is more than a country—it’s also a demon. It’s a meme, a ritual, pregnant with a half-century of US domestic strife. When the Vietnam cliché is invoked, it doesn’t refer to a people in Southeast Asia—it refers to mid-century American social conflicts. It registers the high-water mark left by a tidal wave of national struggle over ideals like freedom and civil rights. The struggles between the races, classes and generations were condensed into a single white-hot point and projected on to a scapegoat: Vietnam.

• Tags: Anthony Morreale, Vietnam