A Crisis of Confidence
What Was the Point of All This?
(GCV Note: It’s my honor to introduce you to my friend Andrew Walker, who has done so much for our Afghan brothers and sisters)
Although I am not an authority on war, a historian, or a former soldier, I claim one thing: patriotism. After a lengthy career, I volunteered to function as an Afghan Evacuation Handler to support our allied partners after the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
As far as I am concerned. The United States of America is the global superpower. We have no equal in the world. One of the key ingredients of our power has been, and remains to be, the ability of our nation to form international alliances to make the world rule law-based, free for commerce, and safe for our population.
The fact that America can establish or restore order anywhere in the world, if necessary, by force, makes America a vital link in safe and efficient global travel and commerce that supports business and industry here and around the world. We create and enforce the contracts, covenants, rules, and laws that govern the world’s markets. Although we make mistakes, the world is much safer, more efficient, and more profitable for America’s intervention.
However, America is not admired for our ability to wage war; it is admired most for being a free and fair country with safety, security, a good education, and healthcare. It is a society ruled by laws. It is a country you can get ahead in if you try hard and play fair by these rules. This is the promise of my America; at least, this was the promise of the America of my youth.
As a handler, I faced threats of jail and even death. I participated proudly in a process of information collection to aid the investigation into war crimes. I did all I could think of, including trips to Congress, to DC, to their offices, had meetings, attended talks and fundraisers, and tried to be an American with the courage of my convictions. I am against terrorism, crimes against women, rape, torture, false imprisonment, child sex trafficking, slavery… so it makes sense I am against the Taliban.
In my brief time as a handler and afterward, as a concerned citizen who volunteered to support our Afghan Allies, I have seen every manner of sick, demented, terrible thing one human being can do to another. One of the Taliban’s favorite things to do is to send torture videos to soldiers who they taunt with the deaths of their friends.
I cannot have a morality that only works in my own zip code. I cannot pretend the terrible things I know the Taliban have done they will not do to the people I know from Afghanistan who relied on me to forward their interest.
I cannot turn my back on them now, and tuck my ball under my arm, end the game, and return home. I am in this for the duration. I pressed on; I tried to find another way when there was no way, and never quit. This was my promise. That is all I can do. While there is breath - there is hope, and I owe fighting men and women at least my best efforts to aid and shelter them from our enemies.
Afghan Evac Handler
As a handler, you become part of their family, their “American Uncle.” There is a genuine fellowship with these men, women, and children. I cannot imagine myself being a refugee with my whole family by my side.
The level of stress on these people (who are our allies) is almost unbearable. I had several periods I had to stop working on this, had a breakdown, and went into therapy after this experience.
It is grueling to be inside a bureaucratic system without current information (sometimes for years), leaving you in a virtual state of limbo, your life hanging in the balance. If you are a compassionate person that is against things like: rape, torture, and murder - it is easy to understand the gravity of this situation for Afghans.
They are placing their lives in our hands, and we can help them or choose to do nothing as they turn them over to the Taliban, who have jailed, tortured, and murdered many of their former enemies in revenge killings. Most recently, those former soldiers returning from Iran were subjected to detention or, worse, returning to Afghanistan after deportation.
Keeping the Promise Alive
We need to prioritize our fellow soldiers on the Afghan side—especially those who are in the most jeopardy now for reprisals and retribution from the current Taliban government. More than eight hundred people have been killed in revenge murders since the war ended, and this number has increased over time.
One of the hardest elements of supporting Afghans is the sheer length of the visa process. It may take as many as three or four years to clear the process and finally get the visa, and you need a lot of support after you travel.
If you travel down the path to support an evacuating family, you and that family will have a years-long relationship. You will get to know the names and ages of their children; they will learn your kids’ names. They often have large families. You become a fixture in their large family, someone they pray for, and their only hand to hold in this process.
One moment came when the stress got to me so much that I was a terrible wreck, and my wife said I should take the kids and leave if I wanted to go down this path at the expense of my health. Without hesitation, I said, “Go then if you’re going - but I won’t turn my back on these people.” I knew their fate and would not allow them to be cast into the hands of a brutal enemy if I could help it.
I eventually capitulated and turned over my day-to-day duties to a handler better than myself to take care of my friends. I stayed on just to function as a conduit of information and moral support for our allied partners.
Tribal Life vs Western Society
Although I may not be a veteran or a commando, I understand what it means to be a father, a husband, a brother, and a son. I care about my country, and I know Afghans care about theirs, too. There are universal things all men share.
The desire to live a decent life peacefully and watch your children grow up. That, to me, at least, is not too much to ask. If you were good enough to wage war for and with my country, you should be good enough to live peacefully after the war.
It should not be the death penalty to fight for America’s foreign policy agenda as an allied partner at war. We fought shoulder to shoulder for years; we should not abandon those people now when they need us to fight for them.
Tribal societies often have multiple generations living together, with adult children supporting the family financially. Marriages are usually arranged, and Afghans prefer traditional ways of life over modern Western lifestyles. Most Afghans enjoy living among their familiar customs and culture.
Two decades of war educated a generation of Afghans, both men and women, and they saw, however briefly, the promise of a modern democratic Afghanistan. Despite corruption issues, this period provided a glimpse of modernity and democratic order to a generation fighting terrorism alongside us.
The Implicit Promise of War Fighting
There is an implicit promise in war: if you fight for me, I will fight for you. It is not about country or personal values but protecting the person beside you. The most important individuals are the front-line soldiers and their sergeants, who ensure everyone gets home safely.
It will be those men who “guard the gates” and “hold the line.” The line is everything. Regardless of how complex and menacing your technology is, you still need the men who hold the line and act as a vanguard in the war against terrorism directly.
In a foreign war, there is no more critical fighting man than a green beret. Green Berets are taught to collaborate with Indigenous people and our own and foreign intelligence agencies to create strategies that inform tactics and foreign policy.
When fighting abroad as a foreign Army, you need the Indigenous soldier’s judgment, knowledge, relationships, and allied support to understand the people, customs, culture, history, and terrain.
The intelligence community and Green Beret established alliances and regional partnerships that later set the stage for the wider conflict. These early meetings and intelligence work laid the footing to wage wars.
The alliances with local tribes and Indigenous fighters create a dynamic real-time understanding that informs our judicious use of force. In Afghanistan, their tactical units and the commando battalions from the Afghan special forces were the ones fighting terrorism by our side during the twenty years of GWOT (Global War on Terror). The commandos are well-trained; some have attended ranger schools in America or England.
To establish a society, you also need the presence of professionally trained police to maintain order and investigate crime. Many people have lost their lives in these parts of the former government and Afghan society. If we liberate the higher classes, cabinet officials, and generals and leave behind the men we trained to reconnoiter and fight without support - it leaves them vulnerable to attack. We have forsaken those men and women who would have given their lives for the cause of freedom.
Is this who we are as Americans? Is this our legacy to our children? There is no good side to turning our backs on our former allies and warriors who fought terrorism by our side, shoulder to shoulder. Now more than ever, they need our support, not unlike the support we needed - as we waged war with them by our side in Afghanistan for two decades.
Visa Process for Afghans
The process is fraught with hurdles, not the least of which is the language barrier. Afghans often have not traveled widely, and they do not typically hold passports; instead, they hold national IDs. Even in other countries that speak their language, it is often hard to understand the dialect spoken there.
The wide diversity of the Afghan population makes it that much more challenging to translate the instructions for the laborious visa process. Illiteracy is not uncommon in Afghanistan, so many of the people who met the criteria to earn a visa would have a difficult time with the application process. (It was later translated into numerous languages, and the process was improved.)
Once the application is completed, you will need a letter of recommendation from someone in your direct command who has seen you at work for at least one year (working as a translator for a tier-one supplier or service provider).
Many of the SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) cases were for senior-ranking officers and cabinet ministers. Most people who did most of the fighting in the war were P1 or P2… (Preferred class one or two). The fighting men are P1 and P2 cases, and they were not even addressed yet.
They are also of the highest value in terms of retribution and revenge killings from unsettled tribal or GWOT grievances at the hands of the Taliban. Taliban henchmen have murdered more than eight hundred women and children since the war ended.
Lack of Education System as Refugees
There are educational visas that Afghans can take advantage of, but again, without American sponsors, it is hard for the average Afghan to understand this kind of process without help and sponsorships. Working with a task force, the State Department or the USAID is critical for many of these people to overcome the barriers to success in working inside America's vast bureaucracy.
Imagine your children are deprived of education for years, living in hiding and having very few resources to provide for your family. The whole family lives in constant limbo between worlds, and you are not issued visas to work or attend school.
Imagine hearing the news that your female children will not be attending school after the sixth grade; they will not appear alone in public; they may be carted off to jail for showing their hair or speaking out of turn.
The Consequences of Failure
The consequence is life or death. Many soldiers, if sent back to Afghanistan and handed over to the Taliban, will be imprisoned, tortured, and even murdered. They are punished this way for the sin of helping America and our allies fight terrorist in their country for two decades.
All the corruption that contributed to the dissolution of the Afghan State rarely (if ever) was the fault of the special forces or other tactical branches of the Afghan National Army that did the fighting - yet they are the ones we abandoned and left behind.
Tactical units of the Afghan military confronted terrorist who was their countryman and fought for their right to self-determination in a democratic government at America’s urging. When we capitulated and surrendered the country back to the Taliban, we did so with guarantees to our former soldiers written into the Doha Agreement. Guarantees that have never been honored.
Some indictments in the criminal courts are warranted, and now some have been issued. These are good first steps with the Taliban to enforce the standards of common decency that any modern state must adhere to. Until the Taliban accept the Doha terms, we should not honor our financial guarantees.
Save Afghan Commandos
America fought for twenty years, rarely losing a battle, but lost the war. Our strength lies in our unmatched ability to wage war with intensity and ferocity.
War is violence; it is senseless and often kills many good men, women, and children arbitrarily without any warning. There is not a good side to war but for the fellowship of the men who fight them.
Let us be remembered as people who cared for the fighting men during and after these wars and lived by the warrior’s ethos. We will not leave our brothers behind. Let this be our battle cry and our epitaph: “WE NEVER QUIT.” Let us go down swinging on peace and brotherhood for our allied partners in the war on terror we fought together.
If we cannot fight for our brothers after the war is over - what did we fight the war together for in the first place?
Follow my writing at my website at www.22FORYOU.com
Follow me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwalkerco/
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****If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This free, confidential crisis hotline is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, visit www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
 | A guest post by
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I helped and mentored an Afghan family whose father had been special forces fighting with American soldiers last year. My daughter now tutors one of his daughters. I hesitate to say anything that could identify him but it was clear that he was both grateful and bitter. Bitter because much of his family (aside from his wife and children) had either been killed by the Taliban or was still at high risk of such. I felt helpless and embarrassed when we discussed it. I have harangued all of my representatives to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. When I hear people rail against importing poverty I don't understand how they can consider themselves the party that supports the military.