My guest this week was Hollie McKay. Hollie has worked on the frontlines of several major war zones and covered humanitarian and diplomatic crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other areas. She has written for Coffee or Die, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications where she has garnered a slew of foreign press and humanitarian awards for her writing. Today, I spoke with her about Afghanistan. She was in Mazar-e Sharif when it fell to the Taliban, she was evacuated by the Taliban to the Uzbek border and she returned a few weeks later to travel throughout Afghanistan for the next three months, capturing aspects of Afghan life and the changing culture and politics perhaps in ways that no other journalist has done so far. There is no one better acquainted with the new normal in Afghanistan than Hollie and I was beyond thrilled to talk with her and press her for details on foreign involvement in Afghanistan to the root causes of the collapse – and everything in between. She was refreshingly candid, humbly honest and poignantly articulate. Bookmark this chat - whether you care about Afghanistan now or won't care about it until the next Afghanistan-rooted crisis, Hollie is bearing witness to an unfolding history we all need to understand.

Only Cry for the Living by Hollie McKay

Hollie is on Instagram and Substack.