In the summer of 2019, I turned in my M4 rifle and Glock 19 pistol to an armory at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan, boarded a plane, and headed for home for the last time. The novelty of being in war zones, living out of a rucksack, and the constant state of heightened mental awareness had finally worn out. That, coupled with the fact that I had a newborn baby at home, meant I was ready to put Afghanistan, the mission, and the people behind me.
As a foot soldier in the behind-the-scenes mission to train and enable the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to secure their country, my personal mantra during my multiple deployments had been, “Afghanistan: what a waste.” I witnessed first-hand the seemingly insurmountable obstacles standing in the way of accomplishing the US objectives in the region. These obstacles were compounded by the fact that there was no discernible mission to speak of other than to keep the work going. As someone who interacted on a near-daily basis with my Afghan counterparts, I understood that nothing worked as it should. And yet, nobody wanted their contracts to end, so we put on a brave face and orchestrated elaborate dog and pony shows with the ANSF whenever the Congressional delegations would come through. Frankly, we contractors made a lot of money, so we kept going back. On my final flight out of HKIA, I was jaded, tired, and just wanted to forget my involvement in America’s longest war ever.
Which is why in the summer of 2021, I was totally unprepared for the collapse of the ANSF in the face of the Taliban assault. None of us had high hopes for the sustainability of the mission after we left, but the speed at which it all took place was shocking. The streets I had driven multiple times in an up-armored Toyota Land Cruiser were swarming with people. Helicopters were taking off of the roof of the US embassy, flying diplomats to HKIA because the road leading to the airport was impassible. It was the scenes from the airport itself, however, coupled with the news that the Taliban were expected to begin hunting down the very people I had helped train, that truly brought home the tragedy of this war. Residents of Kabul, desperate to escape the imminent Taliban takeover, ran alongside a taxiing military cargo plane, some attempting to climb aboard, clinging to the sides of the plane. Then, to our collective horror, as the plane took off, some of those attempting to hold on to the plane fell off and hurtled to the ground. To my mind, this unforgettable scene epitomized the futility of the last decade. Everything I had worked for, all the blood and sweat of training in the military, all the months I had been away from my family, was shattered.
It is true that fear contributed to the scenes that played out over the news for the next several days. The Taliban were known to be a repressive regime during their rule in Afghanistan in the 90s. The ANSF were heavily reliant upon US provided money, material, and advisory and operational support. One can only imagine their panic when informed that they would soon have to face down their enemy without the side-by-side support of their powerful ally—the US Government. But beyond the fear and panic, there’s something I found extremely poignant in the scenes at HKIA that fateful day. The reality is that those people clinging to the planes simply did not understand how impossible it would be to attempt to ride a C-17 jet aircraft by holding onto the outside. That lack of understanding is indicative of the failure of the entire decades-long US enterprise in Afghanistan.
Most Americans are ignorant of organized religion, but the Afghans we worked with would perform ablution (washing) several times throughout the day. We expect our city services to run like clockwork, while in Kabul the trash is intermittently collected and placed on a cart pulled by a sad-looking donkey and then burned for warmth in winter. Afghan fathers thought that teaching their daughters to read made as much sense as teaching dogs to read. Again, the notion that one could survive a long-distance flight in that fashion seems fantastic to you and me—but not them. That, for me, was the moment it became undeniably clear that we had failed in our mission to influence the “hearts and minds” of Afghanistan. We built roads, sent their daughters to school, and gave them free and open elections. But in the end, a significant number of the populace didn’t understand why we were doing what we did, didn’t care, and were only going along with the project because we kept throwing money at them.
In Reinhold Niebuhr’s 1932 book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, he distinguished between individuals, who may at times conduct themselves self-sacrificially and altruistically, with collective groups who always assert their power on behalf of their own self-interest. To put it in Niebuhrian terms, then, the representatives of the US Government in Afghanistan collectively promoted their own aims. For two decades we found ourselves mired in a protracted conflict from which there was no way out without serious loss of international prestige. In our hubris we attempted to refashion Afghanistan in our own image, only to be met with resistance at seemingly every turn.
Yet, in addition to how Americans at home and abroad collectively shut their eyes to the situation, there is also the individual aspect with which I am most familiar and which appears just as bleak. The immorality resulting from the fall of humanity was present and working in us as we carried out our mission in Afghanistan. There are two obvious ways in which we sinned: first, we dishonestly covered over the fact that the ANSF was never going to survive without American assistance. Instead of telling the truth about the incompetence we saw, we pretended things were progressing just fine. Second, we acted out of greed. The simple fact is that most of the contractors I worked with (myself included) were there for the money. I needed the mission to continue. I acted out of self-interest. Plain and simple.
The good news is that the Christian message of forgiveness for even these sins is graciously given to individuals who place their trust in Christ. Indeed, the promise is that all of our sin—past, present, and future—is removed from us “as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).” In the Calvinist tradition, though Christians are forgiven their sins, personal perfection is unattainable in this life. There is always a struggle; a battle between our desire to glorify the Creator and the reality of living in a fallen world. Thus, as redeemed individuals who find ourselves involved in society, we must remain both humble and vigilant. On the one hand, we know our proclivities to pursue only self-interest and that of our collective groups. Cognizant of this reality, we must be prepared to speak the truth even if it means giving up temporal gain. At the same time, we should bear in mind that, while God may choose to fundamentally change a society from the bottom up, the mission of the church is to disciple individuals toward greater Christlikeness. Christ calls us to a life of suffering and patient endurance as we eagerly await the hope laid up for us in heaven. He never promised his people an earthly kingdom in this life. Rather, he has guaranteed something infinitely more valuable: a future crown of glory.