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Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule

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Hollie McKay

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“What would you do if rockets barraged your home and you had nowhere to hide? What would you take if you only had ten seconds to fill a plastic bag? Where would you go if every street you turned onto was filled with fighters? Who would you save if all your children were buried beneath the rubble and crying?”

ChildrenWarMotivationalPoliticsConflictPhotographyForeign PolicyReporter
Book:Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule
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“Children still fly kites from high on the hilltop, shrieking in delight as the nylon floats off toward the sunshine as if it was the most magnificent thrill in the world. All I can think to say, hoping those small boys could hear me, is 'fly on.”

ChildrenWarMotivationalPoliticsConflictPhotographyForeign PolicyReporter
Book:Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule
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“I think of an Afghan driver I once had, a medical student who spoke whimsically of the homeland he loved so dearly but so badly wanted to leave. 'We Afghans are unlucky people,' the driver had whispered. "But we would be the luckiest people if the wars ever left—look outside at this magical place.”

ChildrenWarMotivationalPoliticsConflictPhotographyForeign PolicyReporter
Book:Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule
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“The sounds of music have dimmed into a self-censored silence. We pause, we gaze for far too long at the markets from a broken window where Kabul's finest orchestras weeks ago were still learning to play. We linger, remembering what used to be.”

ChildrenWarMotivationalPoliticsConflictPhotographyForeign PolicyReporter
Book:Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule
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“My view from the window consists of mounds of clay dried to dust. I see delicate girls wrapped in brightly colored hijabs bent over in the fiery heat, carrying heavy bundles on their heads like people in a primeval time and place. Burqa-clad beggars sit with their babies beside bombed-out roads, waiting for those passing by to throw a coin or a bottle of water their way.”

ChildrenWarMotivationalPoliticsConflictPhotographyForeign PolicyReporter
Book:Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule
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“[Martha] saw it all so very clearly. That phrase, 'having a baby,' which was every girl's way of thinking of a first child, was nothing but a mask to conceal the truth. One saw a fluttering image of a madonna-like woman with a helpless infant in her arms; nothing could be more attractive. What one did not see, what everyone conspired to prevent one seeing, was the middle-aged woman who had done nothing but produce two or three commonplace and tedious citizens in a world that was already too full of them.”

ChildrenFeminismMotherhood
Author:Doris Lessing
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