When a two-decade war ends in the collapse of the government the U.S. built, thirteen American service members and roughly 170 Afghans are killed at Abbey Gate, and thousands who worked with U.S. forces are left behind — what do religious traditions and the Constitution say about how a country ends a war it started?
Ending a twenty-year war was a decision within the president's authority and defensible on serious grounds. What the Christian just-war tradition, the Jewish emphasis on covenant, and the Islamic doctrine of protection all press on is what the end owed the people who could not leave when it came. Thirteen U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghans died at Abbey Gate; thousands of Afghan allies remained after the deadline. The chronology reaches across two administrations, and honest analysis distributes the failings across both — the Doha Agreement was signed by one, the withdrawal executed by another, the intelligence failings shared, the SIV backlog inherited. The moral responsibility for the allies who worked with U.S. forces does not pass with an administration change. It stays with the country. Whether the country still owes them — and what it owes them — is the question the war's end left open, and it is still open.
Religious perspectives
Religious traditions have thought carefully about the moral obligations at the end of a war — the discipline that Christian ethics calls jus post bellum, "justice after war" — and they are unusually direct that the way a war is concluded matters as much as the way it is fought.
Christianity: The Christian Just War tradition, especially in its modern development after World War II, insists that a just conclusion requires care for the vulnerable created by the war itself — refugees, allies, and those whose lives were reshaped by the fighting. Jesus' Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) makes the choice of a foreigner as the moral hero: the neighbor obligation crosses national and tribal lines. Interpreters, drivers, families of soldiers who fought alongside U.S. forces — these are neighbors in the parable's sense.
Judaism: The prophet Jeremiah's instruction to the exiles in Babylon — "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile" (Jeremiah 29:7) — became a foundational text for the Jewish tradition's treatment of obligations to a place one has been part of. The Talmud treats promises to those who helped a community, especially in wartime, as binding beyond convenience. Israel is repeatedly told to remember that "you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:21); the point is that a people that has been an outsider owes special care to the outsiders who now stand with it.
Islam: Islamic tradition treats promises made in wartime — including the safety promised to those who assist an army, and the protection of the musta'min, the person under a grant of security — as morally binding. The Prophet Muhammad reportedly said, "Whoever kills a person under a covenant of protection will not smell the fragrance of Paradise" (Sahih al-Bukhari). The covenant is not a strategic option; it is a moral obligation.
The honest counterweight: Religious traditions also accept that wars have to end, that endless occupation is not the answer, and that withdrawal — even messy withdrawal — is sometimes the right decision. The traditions' concern is not the fact of ending a war; it is with what the ending does to those who cannot leave when the ending comes.
Constitutional & legal framework
The August 2021 withdrawal ended America's longest war on terms shaped in part by decisions two administrations old — and produced a set of constitutional and moral questions that both parties are still reckoning with.
The chronology: On February 29, 2020, the prior administration signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban, committing to full U.S. withdrawal by May 1, 2021, in exchange for Taliban commitments on al-Qaeda and negotiations with the Afghan government. On assuming office, President Biden reviewed and extended the withdrawal date to August 31, 2021. On August 15, the Taliban entered Kabul and the Afghan government collapsed; President Ashraf Ghani fled. Between August 14 and August 30, U.S. and coalition forces evacuated approximately 124,000 people, including about 6,000 Americans and roughly 78,000 Afghans (many holding Special Immigrant Visas or SIV applications). On August 26, 2021, an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate at Kabul airport, killing 13 U.S. service members and approximately 170 Afghan civilians. The last U.S. military aircraft departed on August 30. A significant number of Americans and Afghan allies remained after the deadline; the State Department has continued facilitated departures since.
Article II and the commander-in-chief: The decision to end the war, to set its timing, and to determine tactical execution are all core Article II functions. There is no serious constitutional challenge to the president's authority to make these decisions; the constitutional debate is over how they were made, not whether they were his to make.
The intelligence question: Multiple inquiries — including the State Department's After-Action Review (2023) and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction — concluded that the intelligence community underestimated the speed of the Afghan government's collapse and that both the Trump and Biden administrations had made decisions that contributed to that outcome. The reviews found significant failings, without treating them as the failings of a single administration.
The obligation to SIV holders and allies: The Special Immigrant Visa program was created by Congress in the mid-2000s specifically to protect Afghans who worked with U.S. forces. Backlogs and procedural delays predating 2021 meant thousands remained unprocessed at the time of the collapse. The moral obligation to those who fought alongside American forces is not a partisan question; it is one both parties have historically affirmed and, in the withdrawal, both parties bear a share of failing.
The honest other side: The war had cost roughly 2,400 U.S. service members' lives and over $2 trillion; the assessment that indefinite occupation was neither achieving strategic goals nor sustainable is a serious argument that spans the political spectrum. Ending the war was a decision defensible on multiple grounds. The constitutional and moral questions concern not the end but the manner of the ending — and the specific reckoning still owed to the thirteen Abbey Gate families, the Afghans killed alongside them, and the allies left behind.
See: Article II (Commander in Chief) → | State Dept. Afghanistan After-Action Review (2023) →