Because a wiseman once said that you don’t give your enemy a loaded gun, some persons think that reports of $85billion worth of United States military equipment, ‘gifted’ the Taliban from the manner in which the US military left Afghanistan, should occupy a prime position for further interrogation.
What these persons do not know is that the matter became a parable when 22,174 Humvee, 634 M1117, 155 MxxPro mine-proof vehicles, 169 M113 armored personnel carriers, 42,000
trucks and SUVs, 64,363 machine guns, 8,000 trucks, 162,043 radios, 16,035 night vision goggles, 358,830 assault rifles, 126,295 pistols, 176 artillery pieces, 33 M117 Helicopters, 33
UH60 Black Hawk Helicopters, 43 MD 530 Helicopters, 4 C-130 transports, 23 Embraer EMB 314/A29 Super Tucano aircraft, 28 Cessna 208 aircraft and 10 Cessna AC-208 strike aircraft, fell into the hands of the Taliban.
Parables draw from other parables, and riddles rise from the shadows of other riddles. Parable hounds and close observers of like matters, always examine matters in an interesting way. They look for clues in some of the most unexpected of places. Why would anyone ‘gift’ another individual having a demonstrated history of hate, equipment capable of inflicting incalculable damage on the original creator and owner of the said equipment? Whatever the manner by which the equipment fell into the hands of the ‘enemy,’ and the matters arising as to which of these high-caliber military equipment, may be remotely deactivated, or which may be tweaked and reconfigured by the ‘new owners,’ to cause maximum damage to its original owners, the parable elements in the story, constitute grounds for interrogation by parable hounds.
For the ancients, who excelled at dissolving riddles and unraveling parables, when matters became knotted and difficult, they resorted to the books in search of clues. When they
discovered parallels between what they find in the books and the puzzling realities that confronted them, they heaved sighs of relief. They were soon able to connect the dots afterwards.
One distinguished parable hound and close watcher of the kind called C.S Lewis, revealed long ago that when an enemy is ‘gifted’ a strategic advantage, in which a much stronger party seemingly capitulates to the weaker party, it could become a game-changing moment. In C.S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, it was definitely the game-changing moment when Aslan walked intentionally to his own death. He laid down his life. Literally. And everything changed in Narnia forever.
But what did C.S Lewis mean by his allegory? Was it another stooping to conquer moment? Or it was something much deeper? It was much more than a stooping to conquer moment. It was simply a reminder of a bigger event that had taken place hundreds of years before. Just like those who killed Aslan did not know that it was the plan, the princes who killed the Lord of glory, according to 1 Corinthians 2:8, did not know that it was the plan. Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Had they known, they would have suspected the sudden change of heart and strategy. Had they known, they would have interpreted the matters differently, and not say they were in sudden luck or good fortune.
