It's So Easy To Laugh, So Easy To Hateit Takes Guts To Be Gentle And Kind.

It's so easy to laugh, so easy to hate—it takes guts to be gentle and kind.

The Smiths, “I Know It’s Over,” 1986

The Sandman by Jim Lee with words by Neil Gaiman

this man

On 15 August 2021, one year ago this Monday, the city of Kabul fell to the Taliban. I’m marking this anniversary because it is an event that shattered the lives of so many people I know— people who continue to persevere in the face of fear, despair, uncertainty, and grief. 

A huge amount of journalism has been produced about the U.S.-coalition withdrawal, the fall of Kabul, the abandonment of Afghans, and the humanitarian crisis that is ongoing in Afghanistan right now. Here, I’ve gathered just a few pieces that I particularly recommend. Please consider reading these.

George Packer: “The Betrayal.” The Atlantic. 

ProPublica: “Hell at Abbey Gate: Chaos, Confusion, and Death in the Final Days of the War in Afghanistan.” ProPublica

Eliza Griswold. “The Afghans America Left Behind.” The New Yorker. 

Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton. “Documents reveal U.S. military’s frustration with White House, diplomats over Afghan evacuation.” Washington Post. 

Ben Smith: “How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists.” The New York Times. 

James Landale and Joseph Lee: “Afghanistan: Foreign Office chaotic during Kabul evacuation - whistleblower.” BBC. 

Mark Townshend: “‘Shameful’: Afghans who helped UK abandoned to a life of fear under the Taliban.” The Guardian. 

“Last Days in Afghanistan: Reflections on the U.S. Withdrawal.” The New York Times. 

Christina Goldbaum and David Zucchino: “Taliban Rewind the Clock: ‘A Woman is a Helpless and Powerless Creature’” The New York Times. 

Alive in Afghanistan: a ProPublica initiative to continue covering stories from Afghanistan. 

Zan Times: A woman-led human rights-focused news site covering life in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

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I don’t want to participate in the portrayal of Afghanistan, and Afghans, as exclusively a nation and people of suffering. Some of the funniest people I have known in my life are Afghan. The Afghan students I know have continued posting on Facebook and TikTok even as their nation fell and they became refugees. They write poems. They read poems. They make memes. We should care about Afghanistan not because it is so extraordinarily indigent or abject in some sense, but because it is not: because there is so much to it that is lost through the act of not-caring.