Chaotic scenes at the airport in Kabul earlier this week were excruciating to watch on the TV news. Hundreds of desperate people tried to board a military plane which took off with many clinging onto the outside and falling to their deaths. This unforgettable scene epitomises the tragedy that has been created in Afghanistan by the lack of an effective exit strategy. The ill-prepared withdrawal of American and British forces left the way open for the Taliban’s swift seizure of power.
The desperation of people to get away from the Taliban is because they know what to expect when their version of Islam will be imposed upon the nation. With hundreds of American and European citizens still in Afghanistan and thousands of Afghans who are eligible for visas because they have worked for the Americans and the British – it looks impossible to get them all to safety.
Was it worth it?
It is almost 20 years since the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York killing over 3,000 people that precipitated the invasion of Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden and the terrorist cells where the attack had been planned. In the 20 years since the beginning of the occupation many American and British lives have been lost and many more still carry the wounds of combat – both physical and psychological. These men and the relatives of the dead are all asking the question of whether it has been worthwhile. What have we achieved with the expenditure of vast sums of money and the loss of so many lives?
We were told that the Afghan Government that we helped to set in place and the Afghan army that we trained and equipped with the latest weaponry, plus the defeat of terrorism, would be a lasting legacy that would keep us safe for decades to come. But it did not even last for one month! Two weeks ago, the Taliban had not taken a single major town in Afghanistan – though they did control some rural areas. Now they occupy the whole land. The entire social and political structure we had constructed over 20 years has been swept away in a matter of days.
Built on sand
Jesus told a little parable about houses built on sand instead of being founded on the rock. Not only were the houses that we built resting upon sand, but their walls were paper-thin. We tried to create a modern Western-style democracy in an Islamic culture whose values are fundamentally different and which we have never understood.
We went to Afghanistan to protect the Western world from terrorism, but we have never taken the trouble to understand the spiritual dynamic behind Islamic Jihad. That is the tragedy that is now unfolding. The fear that is gripping thousands who want to flee the country is because they know what is likely to happen. Women and girls will be taken and given to Taliban soldiers to be reduced to enforced domestic slavery with no social rights and they will not even be allowed to walk the streets without a male escort. Men who collaborated with the Americans or British, and especially those who converted to Christianity, face summary beheading.
We have never taken the trouble to understand the spiritual dynamic behind Islamic Jihad.
It took us ten years to locate Osama bin Laden in his hideout. But it was not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan! And it is in Pakistan where the Taliban have been trained. In fact the whole operation that has swept across Afghanistan in a few weeks was all planned in Pakistan. It was a spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Kabul who let the cat out of the bag in a TV interview that was rapidly suppressed in the Western media. Certainly no one in Britain wants to face this truth when we have more than two million Pakistanis settled here, some of whom have risen to the highest levels of political responsibility.
The dangers of Islamism here
The values underlining Western democracy are rooted in our Judaeo-Christian heritage – the values of the gospel. Without these values the whole social structure of the nation has no foundations. But our immigration policy in Britain has been based upon a similar rootless ideology. We have simply allowed millions of people to come to the UK without offering them any training to help them to understand life in Britain. So, we have areas in our big cities where no one can speak English, and it is this laissez-faire policy that has produced the kind of homegrown terrorists who took the lives of many people in the London bus and underground disaster in 2005.
This situation is perpetuated by allowing people from India and Pakistan to send their daughters back home for a marriage partner who is then automatically allowed into Britain from a totally different culture, and they are given no induction. Their birthrate is several times higher than that of the native population which means that before the end of this century Muslims will be in the majority in the UK. Then they will want to enforce sharia law under which women have no rights and homosexuals are beheaded.
Perhaps that is God’s intention to bring judgement upon our godless society where we have had the truth for centuries, but we have deliberately turned our backs upon God, despising our Judaeo-Christian heritage and all the freedoms and benefits it has brought to us.
As I watched the chaotic scenes in Kabul and cried out to God, I distinctly heard him say: “But this is part of my purposes to open the eyes of the blind.”
I have been warning about our disastrous immigration policy since the 1960s, but our politicians refuse to listen: instead, they run around, courting the Muslim votes where leaders complete the postal voting forms for whole communities. But our politicians care for none of these things as they recklessly close their eyes to reality and run headlong towards disaster. In the words of Isaiah: “So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance: truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter” (Is 59:14).
The end of Western influence
The worldwide implications of events this week are horrendous. It effectively means the end of Western influence in world affairs. Former President Trump’s shortsighted and self-centred policy of ‘America First’ ignored the needs of developing nations. But Joe Biden promised a more compassionate policy; instead of which he has run for cover with even greater haste leaving a disastrous situation behind where millions face the death of their hopes and dreams.
A glimmer of hope
There is however a glimmer of hope. As I watched the chaotic scenes in Kabul and cried out to God, I distinctly heard him say: “But this is part of my purposes to open the eyes of the blind.”
I believe that we in the West are being given what may be the last chance to save our biblical heritage. If beheadings hit the Western news media, it will expose to the world the true nature of Islam and show us what we can expect as the outcome of Islamic Jihad as they pursue their objective of world domination. It may be that the shock will cause us to reopen our Bibles, seeking the Lord in repentance, and he will once again pour out his Spirit to cleanse and purify nations that have despised his word.