What’s Happening in Afghanistan is a Tragedy

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

I don’t want to make this political, although it’s difficult to avoid criticizing our current president for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan. I won’t presume to be an expert in geopolitical issues beyond the impact they have on my asylum clients, and my depth of knowledge in the national security sphere is as shallow as a YouTube makeup star. But I can’t avoid the reality that until Joe Biden made the executive decision to draw down our presence with unexpected haste, the Taliban was relatively dormant.

They’re never inactive. They’re always terrorizing people like my Ph.D student from Peshawar ,who was beaten as he returned home from vaccinating villagers against smallpox. They target folks like my elementary school teacher from the Swat Valley, bombing his building because he dared allow girls in his classes. They make examples of men like my cab driver from Islamabad, who made the mistake of delivering a Swedish journalist who’d written an expose about fundamentalist terrorism, to his hotel. For that service, “Nawaz” was shot at by masked men on a bike.

And these are just the ones over the border in Pakistan.

Now, with the vacuum created by this recent withdrawal, the Taliban in Afghanistan (as well as their Pakistani brothers of “Tehrik I Taliban”) have become emboldened. They are winning, and they know that they are winning, and we have left.

Years ago, my brother Michael was living and working in the Green Zone in Iraq, assisting in the prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He wrote home about the men and women who served as translators, people who risked their lives every day to serve the U.S. government. That government promised to protect them.

And they needed that protection. Those civilians in the Green Zone like my brother were living in one of the safest areas in the Middle East, an almost impenetrable fortress guarded by the most competent, fearless and resourceful troops in the world. The interpreters, on the other hand, lived in villages seeded with informers and terrorist sympathizers. Their families were at risk. They could not hide behind American artillery for their safety. And yet, they showed up every day, and did their jobs, and then squared their shoulders and walked home.

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