Tag: security forces
My Escape From the Taliban
The text message came a little before 5 p.m. It was August 26, 2021. Eleven days earlier, the Taliban had overthrown the Afghan government. My friend—a German writer and academic—had been trying to help my family flee the country. Now she told me she had gotten my two younger sisters and me on the list for a flight to Frankfurt, a last-minute evacuation negotiated by the German government and a nonprofit group.
“What about my mom?” I asked. She
The Future of Dynastic Rule in the Philippines
The wedding ceremony held in November on a verdant farm in the Philippines was for the daughter of a senator. Most of the guests’ attention, though, was paid not to the bride and the groom but to another duo in attendance.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the country’s late dictator, escorted Sara Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of the current president, Rodrigo Duterte, past guests sitting in white trellis-backed chairs. Marcos wore a dark suit with a boutonniere pinned to his
How Trump’s Ukraine Call Led to His Impeachment
One phone call changed my life.
On Thursday, July 25, 2019, I was seated at the table in one of the two Situation Rooms in the basement of the West Wing. The bigger room is famous from movies and TV shows, but this room is smaller, more typically businesslike: a long wooden table with 10 chairs, maybe a dozen more chairs against wood-paneled walls, and a massive TV screen. This was the room where President Barack Obama and his