Hollie McKay is no longer in Afghanistan. She arrived in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Thursday, August 12, 2021 to collect interviews and photos for an independent project. The city was occupied by the Taliban on Saturday, August 14, 2021; everyone except the Afghan government and military commanders did not anticipate this event. They negotiated to transfer the country to the Taliban without the knowledge of the world. Surrender and surrender.Holly reported this to the world Blockbuster interview On Sunday, August 15th, SmartHER news shocked the world, and the elaborate plan of the United States and the NATO alliance was turned to ashes overnight. RedState has received a request from one of our other contributors, Hollie’s old friend Dennis Santiago, to help amplify Hollie’s report on this platform to maximize its influence; and increase Hollie’s presence in other news media organizations around the world Visibility. We did it.
Saying that starting from Saturday, a large amount of traffic back and forth to explore the visibility regulated by risk management is moderate. By Monday, with 200 miles from Kabul and no US aid, it was time to turn to what made McKay one of the most successful foreign journalists in the press. It is Holly’s extensive network of contacts that has been established in the Middle East since she first started reporting on the region in 2014. She once contacted the Taliban and asked for assistance in leaving the country. Hollie and her photographer Jake Simkin were driven to the Uzbekistan border by the Taliban on Wednesday, August 18, 2021.
Now safely in Uzbekistan, Holly conveyed this message to RedState readers.
She also wrote this powerful and profound love letter for the Afghan people on her personal blog, which we reprint here.
The Taliban said the war was over. But is the new war just beginning?
“Goodbye belongs only to those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love wholeheartedly, there is no such thing as separation.”
-Rumi
I have never been to a place soaked in blood and despair. I have never been to a place full of poetic voices and smiling eyes.
This time I returned to Afghanistan because I wanted to tell the story of mankind and the ultimate cost of war, just like the last swan song of the United States.
We can talk all day about statistics, percentages, deaths and displacement, but numbers have names and names have faces.
Every face has wrinkles, marking a map full of stories. These are ordinary Afghans who often lose their favorite people in the world. These are ordinary Afghans who have no choice but to endure decades of hardship and catastrophe. These are ordinary Afghans who supported the United States during the 20-year occupation. In pursuit of freedom, they took care of the wounded and abandoned their families for weeks or months.
Unlike many other places where I have worked, where people continue to work and struggle, but don’t seem to know that life might be different or better, Afghans have tasted something else. They know that lasting peace is not forced by hand.
The despair is beyond words. The beggar stretches out his hand endlessly from under the blue robe to grab your arm. When I asked them about the fate of family members, they would imitate the movements and sounds of bomb explosions. A young Afghan named Lahr told me that everyone-even children-want to learn English so that they can escape and thrive far away from themselves.
Everyone lost a person. Everyone in Afghanistan is a survivor. Everyone has a strange story to tell. When we eat bread and stew goats on plastic mats under candles and moonlight, it is usually passed on casually.
In 1989, the Mujahideen commander casually told me of his encounter with Usama bin Laden on an orange farm in Jalalabad. There was a witch doctor who tried to cure my sad food poisoning by slapping his hands. I will not forget the women who boil hot water and soak my hair with soap without electricity and running water. I will not forget the elder of the tribe, who excitedly demonstrated the best way to fold my new checkered silk headscarf.
The most important memory is the smallest. These are the people who supported me and pushed me to continue to waver on this rough historical draft.
In view of the turbulent situation, in the end, at the end of this week, all we can do is to evacuate safely under the escort and approval of the Taliban. This is a completely strange portrait of a victorious team seizing the media moment to deploy a softer public relations front. It is true that in a country that I care about very much, I am very excited looking at the jagged mountainside.
I will continue to work in the area for a while and monitor the impact, and reconfigure how I can best write and serve the Afghan people as the situation develops. As a conflict zone writer, there are things that can both cheer and destroy me. You want to keep going, keep going, never go home, because home is not a fixed object. Home is where my heart is, and my heart is with the Afghan people. I feel so helpless and unable to do more to support those whose lives are torn, pleaded and scared from under their feet.
Everyone wants to stop the bombing and bloodshed. Therefore, the Taliban said that the war was over.
But the question remains: is it over? Or is the other just beginning?
When the window is correct, I will come back. As my lovely Afghan friend told me this week, his gentle voice was hoarse, “I will keep all your things here for many years until you come back.”
I will not say goodbye to Afghanistan.
Dennis San Diego Contributed to this report.
