Hi, everybody. Happy Monday. It is August 15th, 2020, and we are marking one year since the Taliban

took over Afghanistan. And we're going to be doing this in a unique way. Exactly one year ago today,

almost at exactly the same time, we were doing an Instagram live together with a journalist who was based in Afghanistan at that

time, and her name is Holly McKay. Holly and I had just met only days earlier over Zoom.

We had only just become more familiar with the work that we were doing.

And I was so impressed by her ability to report inside Afghanistan during such a critical time in history.

We knew this was an important time going into August of 2021.

We knew that it was going to be history

making because we knew on the horizon was America's withdrawal from Afghanistan. We just

didn't know the specifics of it. We didn't know when, exactly how it was going to take place,

what to know about it. And so there was some unknown. At the same time, we were also hearing

that the Taliban was gaining

more ground and had controlled more ground, more territory in the country than at any point in the war.

And so these two storylines were sort of going to be intersecting. And then something rather

unexpected happened on August 15th. There will be those that will tell you that there was a high probability of the Taliban

taking over the country once the United States withdrew.

But very few had talked about the Taliban taking over the country while the United States

was still present. And that's something to remind ourselves of today.

So August 15th, 2021, the major cities, the major districts in the country fall to Taliban control,

but specifically and strategically, this happens in Kabul, the capital city.

And that was kind of the holdout.

Well, Kabul will stand, but Kabul didn't stand.

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