'We're Going to Need a Miracle': Edward Graham Tells CBN News U.S. Officials Should Have Foreseen Afghanistan Debacle

Edward Graham is the youngest son of Franklin Graham and the grandson of the late evangelist Billy Graham. He's also a graduate of West Point and served several combat tours in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger.

This is an Evil Enemy 

As a veteran of that war, he told CBN News, "This hurts. We spent years there fighting, but to see the enemy back, this is an evil enemy," he said. "I've seen what this enemy has done to women and children and I've watched on drone footage for years as we hunted them, what they're capable of, and to see them back in charge of this nation is a great and tragic loss." 

The Biden administration is blaming the Afghan army for giving up, but some say without U.S. support, they never had a chance.

Graham, the assistant to the vice president of programs & government relations for the Christian humanitarian organization, Samaritan’s Purse, agrees with that assessment.  

"I was there for years, I worked and trained the Afghan Special Operations," he explained. "They could go out and actually conduct combat operations against the enemy but the conventional army never could. Same in Iraq. The Iraq army failed. So did the Afghan army and how we didn't see this coming, I don't know."

"If you asked an E-5 sergeant on the ground, he would have told you this. This is a man-made mess on both sides with the Taliban, with evil, with failed policies on multiple administrations here in the U.S. But in order to get out of this and get everyone out, to get our partners out, the church, NGOs, (nonprofit organizations) we're going to need a miracle," Graham said.

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They Know Exactly What's Coming

"It's going to take God to get us out and that's my prayer," he noted. "I go to bed at night praying for a way to get these people out. They're hurting. They're scared. They know what's coming with the Taliban."

"They know exactly what's coming, and that's why they're fleeing," Graham continued. "They've either lived it or they know the stories. And it's my prayer for a peace that only God can bring about, not man. Clearly, man cannot bring peace in Afghanistan, only God can and that's what I'm praying for."