Taliban Takes Afghanistan.

On Sunday, August 15, as Kabul fell to Taliban forces, a partner and friend based in Kabul with deep ties across the country asked if Preemptive Love would marshall the resources of our community of peacemakers to help. Our members’ monthly giving made it possible to say “yes” immediately.

Preemptive Love’s members immediately committed $50,000 for food, water, and shelter, but we realize that more will be needed. We will continue to provide any resources we can to help people in this region survive and recover over the next 12 months, at least.

The United Nations reports that thousands have already been killed in the Taliban’s advance. The parks and streets of Kabul are full of displaced people seeking shelter. Friends we’ve talked to are locked down in their houses, terrified of what could happen if they encounter the Taliban. Food supplies are already running low, as many shops are closed to avoid the Taliban.

This is a regime change, which means there is no established blueprint. An entire government has just fallen, and a new one is being installed overnight. As dynamics on the ground change, local Afghan peacemakers will lead the way in making decisions about how our community responds.

Since 2020, the Preemptive Love community of peacemakers has been working strategically to engage in regions we previously did not have the capacity to serve. This allows us to leverage our friendships across the globe to provide better, more enduring local help to people in crisis situations without all the cumbersome red tape and expensive foreign staff that characterize so much traditional aid work.

Yes and no.

Yes, because we have extensive experience planning, partnering, and operating in the highly volatile context of war, terrorism, and crisis. As we have always done in other wars and conflicts, we are looking beyond the immediate needs of those we see sleeping in the park today. Ours is not a crisis response only. Our experience has taught us to marshal resources for both emergency needs and long-term peace.

No, because we never worked in Iraq or Syria in the context of a full regime change. There is no blueprint for exactly what to do when an entire country’s government collapses and a group like the Taliban takes over. The friends we are talking to in Afghanistan are terrified to leave their homes. Forces are rumored to be going door-to-door and raiding offices. We don’t know how this will escalate or where this ends.

We are asking everyone in our community to respond generously in ways that will allow us all to continue to work for the peace of the people of Afghanistan for the next 12 months, at least.

Since a regime change is a unique situation, typical “proof protocols” may be difficult to guarantee. Friends in Afghanistan are terrified to leave their homes, with reports of Taliban forces going door-to-door, ransacking offices. Anyone with Western affiliations is especially vulnerable.

In order to prioritize the safety of our friends in Afghanistan, Preemptive Love may not be able to publicly disclose video/photographic assets in the ways we have in other crises. Any visual assets that we do provide may not have our name attached to it. Initial work may be small-scale, to avoid the appearance of Western intervention. We ask for your understanding and patience as our community follows the lead of our Afghan peacemaker friends on the ground.

All funds will be transferred through legal channels and delivered directly to our established, proven network of peacemakers and partners in Afghanistan.

We make every conceivable effort to ensure that each dollar you entrust to Preemptive Love is used with transparency, to maximum impact, to bring safety and comfort to the people of Afghanistan, in full compliance with international laws.

Immediate needs include food, water, and shelter for those who have been forced out of their homes by the Taliban’s advance and regime change. This may change as the situation on the ground changes. Long-term needs will depend on whether a large-scale resistance mounts against the Taliban, whether international sanctions are levied, and other factors. Because our community of peacemakers in Afghanistan is primarily comprised of Afghan nationals, you can be confident your resources will be allocated where it’s most needed.

Preemptive Love does not have paid staff in Afghanistan at this time. At this time, we are working with a community of fifteen peacemakers who reached out to Preemptive Love for help. These partners share our vision and values and asked us to expand our community in order to provide the resources to help Afghanistan during this crisis.

This is precisely the kind of communal support we hoped for during our earliest days in Iraq. And it is the kind of trust and support our community now enjoys as we expand to embrace those—and are embraced by those—who’ve already been working for the peace of Afghanistan for decades.

Preemptive Love is a global community of peacemakers working to replace traditional aid with something more humane, relational, and effective in order to stop the spread of violence. Our community is comprised of donors, staff, volunteers, and experts from various fields, organizations, and networks who share a common vision and common values.

We don’t grant money to strangers, and we never engage a crisis without an invitation. We work on the basis of friendship, mutual impact, and trust.

For security reasons, Preemptive Love cannot name the members of our community. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has a history of killing those with Western ties. Our community has experienced the same in Syria and Iraq. These deadly conditions are why local peacemakers end up cut off from global support. The Preemptive Love community solves that by pre-deploying support to local members of our community, often before it is even necessary, so that when the time comes to act, help is already on the scene.

Preemptive Love does not have a local office in Afghanistan to shut down. Preemptive Love is a community of peacemakers around the world, and Afghan peacemakers on the ground marshalling resources to wage peace. As foreigners escape and the Taliban raids NGO offices, we expect the global-meets-local approach of Preemptive Love will allow the whole community to continue working for the peace of all who call Afghanistan home for the year(s) ahead.