The Ask

In this episode of The Ask award-winning filmmaker Michael Tucker discusses his work on THE MEANING OF HITLER.

About the film:

Famed Nazi hunters and top scholars lead an urgent interrogation of our culture’s fascination with Hitler and Nazism, set against the backdrop of the current rise of white supremacy.

Our Episode Guest:

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii. American filmmaker Michael Tucker, together with his wife and creative partner Petra Epperlein, has produced a growing library of award-winning films chronicling our times. THE MEANING OF HITLER joins their catalog that includes films like Gunner Palace, The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, How to Fold a Flag, Fightville, and Karl Marx City.

Welcome to The Ask.

It is the 20th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

Episode 12 of the Ask is a roundtable discussion about Afghanistan after America.

This episode draws together several extraordinary people, Afghans and Americans with strong connections to the modern story of Afghanistan and the Afghan people, to discuss what has and what could lie in the future for both people.

For this episode, I was undeservedly blessed with the presence of:

Ambassador Ronald E Neumann

Ambassador Neumann began his career in service as a U.S. Army infantry officer in the Vietnam War. As a US foreign service officer, he eventually would go on to serve as American Ambassador to Algeria (1994 – 1997) Bahrain (2001–2004), and Afghanistan (2005–2007). Following his tenure as the United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, he has since served as the President of the American Academy of Diplomacy in Washington DC and remains deeply committed to Afghanistan and the Afghan people.

Former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Karzai, Homayra Ludin Etemadi

Homayra Ludin Etemadi served as the former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Karzai from 2007 to 2015. A brilliant trailblazer, Homayra was the first Afghan woman to attend the University of Cambridge and has spent much of her life in development and humanitarian aid working with the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies, International Catholic Migration Commission, and others.

New York Times Bureau Chief Carlotta Gall

Carlotta Gall reported from Afghanistan from 2001 to 2013 as a correspondent with The New York Times, following in the footsteps of her father, legendary journalist Sandy Gall.

Her 2014 book The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 took an unflinching look at the role of the Inter-Services Intelligence in protecting Osama bin Laden, and sustaining the Taliban in their fight against the United States, NATO and Afghan forces.

Carlotta now serves as the Istanbul Bureau Chief for the New York Times, covering the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.

Author & Soldier Elliot Ackerman

Author and soldier Elliot Ackerman served with the U.S. Marine Corps, deploying to multiple tours of duty in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including the Battle of Fallujah.

As a Marine Corps Special Operations Team Leader, he was the primary combat advisor to a 700-man Afghan commando battalion responsible for kill/capture operations against senior Taliban leadership.

His first novel GREEN ON BLUE is set in modern-day Afghanistan and told from the point of view of Aziz, a young boy who joins a U.S. funded militia – in order to save his injured brother.

He has gone to author several more award-winning novels and continues his work as a journalist and valued opinion writer for major publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post, to name just a few.

and Tolo Media Executive, Massood Sanjer

Tolo TV senior executive and beloved friend Massood Sanjer brings the singularly unique perspective of working for the Taliban run Radio Shariat during the late 90s before embarking on a career at Tolo TV as a radio host and Director of Content that has celebrated everything the Taliban had tried to suppress, including Afghan women and music. 

As the host and moderator of discussions on my podcast, I try to keep my own opinions out of the discussion as much as possible. However, outside of this podcast episode, here on this page I will offer up some personal views of my own.

There are bright people out there claiming that the 20-year effort to build an allied government in Afghanistan was a waste. This is both true, and not true.

It was indeed a waste to see Afghanistan returned to the very same Taliban leadership that the allies drove out 20 years ago following the September 11th attacks. It was indeed a waste to abandon the generations of Afghans that grew up under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, to the Taliban offensive.  

But the bright people would say: the government was corrupt. This is true, the Afghan government was corrupt, but that has never stopped the United States of America before. We continue to prop up some of the most corrupt regimes in the world.

But the bright people would say: Afghanistan would always be hopeless, no matter how long we stayed.

And to that, I would say these bright people could not be more wrong.

The last 20 years have been full of bloodshed and pain, this is true. But in the middle of that strife, something beautiful did blossom.

Music and song filled Afghan lives once again, people could live mostly how they wanted to, not how they had to under the Taliban.

Men could grow beards or go about their lives cleanshaven. Women could choose to wear the burqa, or the hijab. Girls could go to school, not just religious school, but actual school. Boys too. Young women could pursue university degrees, work in the private or public sector, and host shows on radio and TV.

And speaking of radio and TV, under the umbrella of Operation Enduring Freedom and Resolute Support, and with the support of the United States and NATO allies, an entire industry arose around reporting the news.

Afghan men and women crisscrossed their country, reporting on weddings, politics, the War on Terror, the Taliban, government corruption and scandal, elections, and problems with elections. For the first time ever, Afghanistan had a vibrant and fearless free press.

In the Afghan National Security Forces, problems around morale and reliability persisted. However, in recent years a core commando force began to emerge.

Better trained, better equipped and better paid than the regular army, Afghan commandos fought with bravery and courage throughout their country. And indeed, they ended up being some of the last forces to fight against the Taliban onslaught this past summer.

This 2021 they were just a 17,000 men strong force. We can only speculate what could have happened if the ANSF had been given more time to develop and build out this force of Afghan commandos.

And that is it, the bright people who wrote about the failure of the Afghan effort, could only write about the Afghanistan they understood from 2001.

A country smashed to pieces by civil war.

They could not or would not see the 9/11 generation of Afghanistan.

Young Afghan men and women born in 2001 or after. Young Afghan men and women that grew up in a completely different social and educational environment.

More than half the population of Afghanistan is under 25 years of age. The most important legacy of the Western effort had just begun to come into full bloom when President Biden lost patience in Afghanistan and allowed this delicate but beautiful flower to be cut by war.

This generation was on the cusp of transforming Afghanistan.

And their abandonment to the Taliban is the single most gut-wrenching tragedy to emerge out of our 20 years in Afghanistan. For I have no doubt that they would have changed Afghanistan, the region, and the world for the better.

And I will grieve for them and what they represented, and what they could have been for the rest of my life.

Finally, I dedicate this milestone episode of my podcast to my father, Ali Mohammed Azimi.

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan on the 16th October, in the year 1950, my father Ali would immigrate to the United States with our mother Khalida, raise my sister Sara and I, in the safety and opportunity of this country.

He would embark on an amazing career as an Environmental Scientist at the Asian Development Bank and work throughout Asia. And in 2002, when the US overthrew the Taliban and began the reconstruction of Afghanistan, my father Ali would join that effort and make important contributions. Including establishing peace parks in the province of Bamiyan and the Wakhan Corridor.

This year, he would join tens of thousands of Afghan and foreign nationals, in the evacuation of Kabul. And thanks to some brave American and Afghan soldiers, would safely reach Kabul International Airport, and have the opportunity to meet his first ever grandson in Geneva, my sister’s son River.

I owe my life and everything I have achieved to my father Ali. And this podcast series will be forever dedicated to him, and my mother Khalida.

In this episode of The Ask, we meet Hamid, Sajid, Tamim, and Abouzar, former Afghan interpreters for foreign forces.

Since the start, Afghan interpreters have been at the forefront of this war. The first interpreter, Hamid Karzai, would go on to become the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Thousands would follow him down the dangerous path of working with US Forces throughout Afghanistan in their attempts to beat the Taliban insurgency and hunt down Al-Qaeda leadership.

Now, after a catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan that has seen the Taliban return to power, thousands of Afghan interpreters and allies have been left behind with their families to face a grim and uncertain future.

Through the years of my work in Afghanistan, I was blessed to meet a few of these interpreters. I sought out these good friends of mine to better understand their lives, hopes, fears and sacrifices.

This conversation invites you into the lives of those that stood by us, and those we have left behind.

Our Episode Guests:

In this episode of The Ask award winning filmmaker and filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky discusses his work on A THOUSAND FIRES.

About the film:

Set to premier this August at the prestigious Critics Week section of the Locarno International Film Festival, A THOUSAND FIRES is set in the Magway region of Myanmar, is a beautiful film of transient moments; of hopes and aspirations; of faith in the forces of karma and luck; of a place, a community, and the rhythms of the day-to-day; of lingering memories and a turbulent past; and of life persisting, regardless.

Our Episode Guest:

Palestinian-British filmmaker and artist,Saeed Taji Farouky has been producing work around themes of conflict, human rights and colonialism since 1998. In 2011 he was awarded a Senior TED Fellowship for his work and has previously been named Artist-In-Residence at the British Museum and Tate Britain.

In addition to his film work, Saeed has dedicated himself to raising up the next generation of artists through his work as the Director of the REcreative Film School. A radical, free film course that takes place annually at the South London Gallery and that is dedicated to serving aspiring artists from under-represented backgrounds.

In this episode of The Ask award winning journalist and filmmaker Catrin Einhorn discusses her work on FATHER SOLDIER SON.

About the film:

After a single father is severely wounded in Afghanistan, he and his sons embark on a journey of love, loss and redemption. A decade in the making, this monumental film is directed and produced by New York Times journalists Catrin Einhorn and Leslye Davis, and is now available over Netflix. Learn more here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81002464

Our Episode Guest:

Journalist and Filmmaker Catrin Einhorn

Since joining The Times in 2007, Catrin was part of a team that examined President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan by telling the personal stories of one battalion’s yearlong deployment in a multimedia series called “A Year at War”

In 2016 (at the very height of a mass migration of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan) Catrin and fellow journalist Jodi Kantor wrote an important series about everyday Canadians adopting Syrian refugees, documenting the surprises, challenges and intense relationships that arose over their one-year sponsorship periods.

And in 2018 she was part of a team that received the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for exposing sexual harassment and misconduct in the American workplace.

Throughout her career, Catrin has focused on narrative-driven work in print, film and audio. Her work has also been recognized by the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and the World Press Photo and Picture of the Year International Awards.

Today, you can follow Catrin’s award winning work at the Times as she covers the story behind our fragile and finite environment, our blue planet and the slow extinction of the Animal Kingdom.

Welcome back to The Ask. If the last episode on this podcast was about hope, then this episode is about heroism.  

Learn more here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81070008

I invite you to join acclaimed filmmaker Barry Avrich and myself, as we explore his award-winning work on his feature documentary film: PROSECUTING EVIL: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF BEN FERENCZ.

Filmmaker Barry Avrich has produced and directed over 30 documentary films and television productions, winning multiple awards for films like THE LAST MOGUL, THE TEMPEST with late Oscar winning actor Christopher Plummer.

Some years ago, Barry turned his considerable storytelling talents towards exploring the life and work of lawyer, soldier and last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, Mr. Ben Ferenz – and his lifelong quest to end evils like the Holocaust forever, not through force of arms – but through a shared understanding and commitment to legal accountability and justice.

It is my great honor to return back to this film, with filmmaker Barry Avrich, and contemplate a hero for the ages.   

In our first episode for 2021 I would like to explore the idea of hope.

In 2015, a sense of despair swept throughout Afghanistan. The Obama administration’s surge to suppress and route the Taliban had ended long ago – and as the United States continued the long drawdown from the country, the Taliban were resurgent.

Now, young Afghan men and women who grew up with a sense that their country would forever be on upward path to something better – soon realized they could spend the rest of their lives, much as their parents did – in a land of ruin, wracked by civil war.

And so, they went, by the thousands first, then the tens of thousands, and finally in the hundreds of thousands. This was a journey that began by foot, car, bus, horse from Afghanistan, overland to Turkey and then over a perilous stretch water to Greece and on to mainland Europe.

This crisis would shape history for the next ten years and beyond. Faced with millions of desperate souls on the borders of Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, ired on the side of compassion and opened her doors to this refugees – and in so doing, opened the door for the Far Right in Germany to finally rise up again from the ashes of World War 2 in the form of the Alternative for Germany or AfD.

Across the Atlantic, in the United States, businessman and Presidential aspirant Donald Trump would seize upon the crisis and use it to frighten Americans about a looming wave of Muslim migrants invading the United States if he would not be elected President. And, upon winning office would quickly impose a ban on Muslim migration and slash America’s longstanding commitment to taking in refugees.

However, the West saw it to many, including my interviewee – this moment in time represented a doorway to hope. To peace, to a chance to rebuild and continue a life that would otherwise sink back into war or be lost entirely.

It is my great honor to introduce THE EDITOR, my friend Mirwais Amiri – and to talk with him about the hard choices he had to make against this backdrop.