This week, John takes us through his participation in evacuation support during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Come for amazing and heart-wrenching stories of joyful success and heartrending failure, and stay for the mental images of John surviving on Zyn pouches and caffeine while he worked himself to the point of being mentally unhealthy to perform 68 miracles with the Evac Fellows.

About John Moses and Massachusetts Afghan Alliance

Find Massachusetts Afghan Alliance through their website: https://massafghanalliance.org/

Follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/massafghanalliance/

Or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/massafghanalliance/

About the host:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected]. Please include as much detail as possible, and let us know if you would like us to give you a pseudonym to protect your identity.

Welcome to Episode 61 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. I’m joined today by three women’s rights advocates to discuss the UN’s third round of talks about Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar. Mariam Solaimankhil is a former member of the Parliament of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Gaisu Yari is a human rights activist, writer, and speaker who has fought for freedom in Afghanistan and vocally opposed the Taliban's repressive rule there. Jason Howk is a U.S. Army veteran and the Director of Global Friends of Afghanistan.

Gaisu, Mariam, Jason and I talk about the disservice the UN has done to Afghan women, crushed under Taliban restrictions, by failing to include them in talks about the future of Afghanistan, and failing to even bring up the vast loss of human rights Afghan women have experienced since the Taliban took over the country in 2021.

We also discuss the current experiences of Afghan women, the hurdles they overcame between the prior period of Taliban rule and the fall of the country, and the hope that remains for Afghanistan when the Taliban’s time comes to an end.

About the host:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 60 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. Our guest this week is Army veteran John Moses, a veteran fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-founder of the Massachusetts Afghan Alliance, an organization supporting Afghans building new lives in Massachusetts.

John and Beth talk at length about the trauma for Afghans who were separated from their families during the withdrawal and are hoping for reunification, including the unique challenges faced by adults whose wives are left behind in Afghanistan, and children who have worked to forge new lives in the U.S. without their parents.

We talk about the load for volunteers who want to participate in resettlement efforts, and the need to atone for our failure to help those Afghans we promised to aid in return for their support during our Afghanistan endeavors.

About the Massachusetts Afghan Alliance

Find Massachusetts

Follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/massafghanalliance/

Or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/massafghanalliance/

About the host:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 59 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. Our guest this week is Leslie Merriman, whose work volunteering to aid Afghan special immigrant visa recipients through No One Left Behind became a broader mission of feeding SIV applicants left behind in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. Leslie’s work has now expanded to include coordinating medical care for communities, particularly in minority-dominated regions, with limited facilities, supplies, and doctors. Through Leslie’s medical clinics, she began explicitly supporting a large number of women and children who have been raped by members of the Taliban. She has started nonprofit organization Our Culture is Giving to coordinate emotional and physical assistance for these victims.

Leslie discussed the harrowing level of hunger impacting Afghans, including children who came to her clinics and were in such a state of malnutrition that they could not be saved. She also discussed the doctors working in her clinics who have been killed by the Taliban, and the women and children who have been raped by Taliban members, whom she is currently helping to rebuild their lives free from the trauma and stigma of the assaults they faced.

Leslie also discusses the deep and traumatic impact that her work has made on her life.

About our guest:

Follow Leslie on Twitter @LeslieAMerriman or Instagram @ourcultureislove, and support Our Culture is Giving by visiting their website, http://ourcultureisgiving.org

About the host:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected]. Please include as much detail as possible, and let us know if you would like us to give you a pseudonym to protect your identity.

Welcome to Episode 58 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast, featuring the incredible return guests Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an unmatched expert on the Taliban, and Will Selber, retired Air Force Lt. Col., prolific writer, and host of the "Shoulder to Shoulder" and "Stories From My Brothers" podcasts.

Today’s episode looks at the latest developments within al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic State Khorasan Province, as well as the group’s ties to one another and to Iran.

We also discuss the breadth and history of the war in Afghanistan, our lack of will to get the fight right, and the pain we left in our wake when ending nearly twenty years of involvement with the disastrous withdrawal.

About Will Selber and Bill Roggio:

Find Bill on X @billroggio, and find the Long War Journal here: https://www.longwarjournal.org/

Find Will Selber’s writings at the Bulwark, where he is a Military Affairs Fellow. You can follow him on X at @AggieWill00 or on Substack: https://substack.com/@willselber

About the host:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 57 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. Our guests today are Rob Dufresne, Tony Barnes, and Jason Howk, members of “Over Never Out.” Together, the group created “Hold On, Reach Out,” a moving song about the important role veterans play for one another in the fight for mental health growth and countering spiking suicide rates in the veteran community.

eRob, Tony, and Jason talked about how the song was created, and their unique backgrounds and connections to the message within “Hold On, Reach Out.”

Jason Howk also talks about his latest release, “It’s Not Over For Them,” a ballad about the ongoing battle our Afghan allies face in the aftermath of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, and the continuing battles for those in the U.S. who bear the emotional burden of that failure.

Recurrent themes in this episode are healing through pain, supporting those we care about as they deal with struggles we may never fully fathom, and using music to heal loudly, which is Rob’s post-transition goal and something Jason and Tony have personally witnessed.

About the guests:

Find “Over Never Out” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVqqu1DRcoMCX_kvrysKTvQ

Listen to “Hold On, Reach Out:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXc4rsRy9Lw&list=OLAK5uy_ku87T-xRWASumpCloIKxat-Om7Uj0tvh4

Listen to “It’s Not Over For Them:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBwddNCZ18M

About the hosts:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

Mikael Cook was an Army non-commissioned officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He was an active member of the #DigitalDunkirk movement to evacuate our Afghan allies in August of 2021. You can follow him on Instagram or X ⁠@Mikaelcook89⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected]. Please include as much detail as possible, and let us know if you would like us to give you a pseudonym to protect your identity.

Welcome to Episode 56 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. Our special guest today is an Afghan woman still living under Taliban rule in hiding in Afghanistan. We will be calling her “Amina” to protect her identity.

Amina spoke about her life as a legal professional before

We talked about the gender apartheid that the Taliban are

Despite all that she has lost in her current situation,

About the hosts:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations

Mikael Cook was an Army non-commissioned officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He was an active member of the #DigitalDunkirk movement to evacuate our Afghan allies in August of 2021. You can follow him on Instagram or X ⁠@Mikaelcook89⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

Welcome to Episode 55 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast. We're bringing back a return guest, retired Lt. Col. Will Selber, for an awesome update about how he was able to get Ahmadullah to safety, and the superhuman levels of trust and faith Afghan allies have had to hold in their American contacts in order to secure safety in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Will also talked about more incredible news that came shortly after Ahmadullah’s return – another friend, Nazir, made his way out of Afghanistan and to the States after going radio silent when he recognized that there was no quick path to safety to keep him from falling victim to the Taliban’s reprisal campaign without taking matters into his own hands.

Will and I, as we so often do, also talked about the mental load of this casework, which is significant, even if the events themselves are joyous.

About Will Selber:

Will Selber is a retired Middle East Foreign Area Officer who spent 4 1/2 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was an active member of Operation Sacred Promise and has helped relocate 100+ Afghans. He is currently the Millitary Affairs Fellow at the Bulwark. You can follow him on X at @AggieWill00 or on Substack: https://substack.com/@willselber

About the hosts:

Beth Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

Mikael Cook was an Army non-commissioned officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He was an active member of the #DigitalDunkirk movement to evacuate our Afghan allies in August of 2021. You can follow him on Instagram or X ⁠@Mikaelcook89⁠.

For Afghan listeners:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 54 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast, featuring John Ondrasik, the platinum-selling, Grammy nominated recording artist also known as Five For Fighting.

John discusses the anger he felt during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that led him to write “Blood On My Hands” and begin his efforts to help Afghans left behind during the initial withdrawal escape to freedom after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.

John continued to write more protest music as the worldwide destabilization from our failure in Afghanistan was felt in Ukraine. “Can One Man Save the World” is a tribute to the heroism of Ukrainians who have led a hard fight against Russia’s unprovoked attack in February 2022.

Most recently, when Hamas terrorists massacred over a

About John Ondrasik:

Follow John on X: https://twitter.com/johnondrasik

Find John’s charity website, What Kind of World Do You Want, here: https://www.whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com/

Listen to “Blood on My Hands” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpTrYHCmwOs

Listen to “Can One Man Save the World?” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3XEsIXJaI

Listen to “OK” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDJXo2Gn-ww&rco=1

About the hosts:

Beth W. Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan

Mikael Cook was an Army non-commissioned officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He was an active member of the #DigitalDunkirk movement to evacuate our Afghan Allies in August of 2021. You can follow his Instagram @Mikaelcook89.

For listeners in Afghanistan:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future

Welcome to Episode 53 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast, featuring Beau Lendman, a former Senior Vice President at Anham whose support to the company’s 5,000 Afghan special immigrant visa applicants led him to create AfghanHire, a remote hiring platform that links skilled Afghans with lucrative jobs.

Beau and I discussed the effort of supporting so many SIV applicants in the days after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the journey to understand how to successfully help applicants navigate the program. We also talked about a problematic development in December 2023, when a series of applicants were denied SIV in what appeared to be a batched manner, and some applicants who had achieved Chief of Mission approval and sometimes were preparing for flights to the U.S. had that COM approval revoked. We addressed the mental load that the latest devastating turn of events has added for Beau, who feels he has been party to malfeasance.

Finally, we talked about the development of AfghanHire, and how Beau hopes the company can make a difference around the world in the future.

About AfghanHire:

Follow AfghanHire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/afghan-hire/about/ or visit their website: https://teams.afghanhire.org/

About the hosts:

Beth W. Bailey worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Instagram or X ⁠@BWBailey85⁠.

Mikael Cook was an Army non-commissioned officer and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He was an active member of the #DigitalDunkirk movement to evacuate our Afghan Allies in August of 2021. You can follow his Instagram @Mikaelcook89.

For listeners in Afghanistan:

If you would like to have your story considered for a future episode, please send us a letter about your experiences to our show e-mail address, [email protected]. Please include as much detail as possible, and let us know if you would like us to give you a pseudonym to protect your identity.