It’s hard to avoid newscaster parallels between our mad scramble to get out of Afghanistan and our mad scramble to get out of Vietnam.

After all, troops are sprinting to helicopters. Residents are clinging to departing aircraft — and dying in the plunge down. A country curses our name for promising safety in the face of tyranny.

But any comparisons of war strategy, troop movement or foreign presence need to stop with the period of this sentence. Because the lesson of Afghanistan is not the lesson of Vietnam (assuming either can be reduced to a singular moral).

Ken Burns’ 10-part series on Vietnam underscored the threat of exporting morality. Namely, the American lifestyle.

Afghanistan is a lesson on importing morality. Namely, religion.

Theists will cry in protest, I know. I think I can hear them now, just under the shrill din of anti-vaxers. Those are Muslims, not Christians, I hear them caterwaul. And what about Hindus and Buddhists, you ignorant slut?

To which I say, good question. But did you have to ask it so rudely? Asshole.

What was I saying? Oh yeah! Lesson.

This is the lesson. Religion poisons everything. Everything.

Those people beating down the doors of Kabul? They are believers, like Christians. Those people enforcing their own mask mandate (in the form of burkas)? They think they know the word of God, like Jews. What we’re seeing are just jersey and coaching changes on Team Abraham.

And as for the Buddhists, the Hindus, and anyone else who believes the universe has your best interest in mind: You are part of the problem. That reasoning is why the the Earth overheats and why beatable diseases linger and grow. The debate is no longer about accountability; it’s about degree of complicity.

We are the lesson of Afghanistan.