Dispatches with Hollie McKay

“We kill 100 million [sharks] yearly. By 2050 we will have filled the sea with more plastics than fish.” ― Sy Montgomery, Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind As a child growing up in the 80s, synonymous with the “Jaws” era and its notorious John Williams theme song seared into the collective subconscious, Australian military veteran Paul de Gelder came of age in the sunburned ou...

“Afghan women are no longer in cages. We will hold our heads high and continue to fight for our rights and dignity.” - Shahla Zaland, Musician and Singer Saira Saleem, a 23-year-old journalist from Jalalabad, divides her life into two parts: before and after America’s 2021 pullout from Afghanistan. Her voice cracks with grief as she confesses that many people in her country have expressed suicidal...

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War BAGHDAD, Iraq – Every conflict, every fighting faction, and every enemy has its heroes – the locals whose hands are calloused from years of wielding heavy rifles through the sunburnt desert, who preach religious doctrine to keep the cadre upbeat, and who vow from dusk to dawn to expunge every American from th...

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” * Marcus Aurelius Anthony Stephen Malone traversed the dust-swept streets of Kabul, Afghanistan for three months helping to evacuate some of the country’s most vulnerable people during the chaos of  last year’s collapse  back into Taliban rule. In conversations over soup and soft bread, Anthony discusse...

“The depth of the love of parents for their children cannot be measured. It is like no other relationship. It exceeds concern for life itself.” -          James E. Faust It is every parent’s worst, most unimaginable nightmare. August 9, 2001. A blistering summer day. At the time, Arnold Roth was the chief executive of a drug company in the technology hub of Jerusalem when his wife Frimet called –...

"I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it." — Maya Angelou SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Everyone remembers the last moment of normality. For Karla Hernandez, it was the fading daylight of December 18, 2020. Her Utah-born husband Gerald was catching his last waves in the twinkling azure seas of the family-friendly Playa la Boca, Barceloneta, Puerto Rico. Around 6 pm, Karl...

“To see things in the seed, that is genius.” -          Lao Tzu BABYLON, Iraq – On a shimmering high-desert morning, I moved closer to the ancient ruins of Babylon, hulking, stoic slabs jutting from the earth cast against clear blue skies. These remnants of the old empires knit together histories of cities, industrial hubs, and battles of ancient civilizations. Just 50 miles south of Baghdad, Baby...

“...we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in one's right mind.” ― Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED THE POTENT PSYCHEDELIC IBOGA ENSENADA, Mexico – Deep within the remote mountains of northwestern Mexico, my existence dips and dips with the fading colors of the pink sky, morphing into darkness...

PUERTO RICO IS THE NEW SILICON VALLEY SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – In the middle of a crowded cobblestone street in the heart of Old San Juan, people gather in their work attire consisting of shorts and flip-flops inside a breezy ballroom of an old monastery adorned with stain-glass awnings and high arched ceilings. It’s owned by former child actor-turned-crypto billionaire Brock Pierce, one of Puerto...

Please listen to the full interview to hear more about Hollie’s take on the War on Drugs. AMERICA’S FAILED WAR ON DRUGS The United States is wrapped in the deadliest drug epidemic in history. Data released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show a surge in overdose deaths involving fentanyl and methamphetamine. Nationwide, deaths from overdoses soared to unprecedented l...

Please listen to the full interview to hear more of Hollie’s insights about Iraq. “Intuition had to be grounded in lived experience.” ― Zachary D. Carter, The Price of Peace WHAT HAS REALLY BECOME OF BAGHDAD FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ISIS DEFEAT? Despite tangerine skies and a city where dust covers the ground as thickly as winter snow – a sign of the unprecedented dust storms engulfing much of the nati...

They say it was a shocking sight, After the field was won, For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory.” ― Robert Southey, Poems by Robert Southey ISIS SCARS REMAIN: FORCED ABORTIONS AND SOCIAL EXILE FOLLOW IRAQ’S YAZIDI WOMEN, FORMER SEX SLAVES BAGHDAD, Iraq — It is a searing scene: wisp-like women huddled together, wedged i...

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell THE STATELESS KIDS OF ISIS FATHERS ARE NOW LIVING IN FEAR UNDER THE RADAR With a bright smile and blazing pink t-shirt, a small girl named Layla glides around a Baghdad living room, showing me her latest painting on a flimsy white sketchbook. A prominent activist helped shield Layla’s...

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi SURVIVING TALIBAN DETAINMENT: ONE AFGHAN-CANADIAN’S SURPRISING STORY A prominent face of Afghan social media, Afghan-Canadian Nadima, 38, disappeared after an altercation with the Taliban in her Kabul office on a bitterly cold mid-February evening. “I had gone out for meetings. My team calle...

Welcome back to another dispatch from Hollie McKay.  How are you doing? I'm doing well, thank you. Very good. Hey, first thing you're back in Iraq. What's changed there? So, I'm in Baghdad at the moment. Last time I was here was 2018. There is still a lot of ISIS fighting happening. It’s still a very tense situation in much of the country. Every country has its problems, and its security issues. B...

‘When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”’ -          Kurt Vonnegut INSIDE UKRAINE’S FIRST CRYPTO-FUNDED EVACUATION AND WAR EFFORT Victoria Zavgirodnaya, 28, stares out the frosted cafe window as the rain gently falls on a field of green pastures in the Flemish-dominated countryside. With ancient churches dotting the...

“Every informed person needs to know about Bitcoin because it might be one of the world’s most important developments.” —Leon Luow, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Winding down a somewhat different path than the war and human rights conflict, I have been probing various aspects of this new, strange and emerging notion of Blockchain technology and the role it is – and can potentially – have in the way we...

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ABOUT MOHAMMAD WITH HOLLIE DECORATED AFGHAN COMMANDO FINDS SOLACE IN AMERICAN LIFE BUT STILL YEARNS FOR THE BATTLEFIELD OF FREEDOM Whenever Mohammad Wali, 37, speaks of Afghanistan, his gentle face softens into a map of memories: the suffering and loss, paired with the camaraderie and struggle for freedom that will never end. The United States is now his home, but it is cle...

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW ABOUT ELAINE WITH HOLLIE “I always saw being a woman as an advantage. It made you stand out. I had my own way of doing things, and I’m pretty proud of that.” Elaine Fischel This week I am highlighting the work of two very prolific figures you probably won’t ever here or read about in mainstream news circles. But these are the sort of people who inspire me in my work, the ty...

The United Nations designates May 3rd as World Press Freedom Day . The UNESCO site notes, “3 May acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom and is also a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics. Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for th...

“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” Khaled Hosseini I am excited to announce I will be heading Content for a new military/blockchain-centered initiative entitled LIBERTY BLOCKCHAIN. Please follow and support my investigative/adventure/war zone work for LIBERTY DISPATCHES here: https://dispatch.libertyblockchain.com/ FOLLOW HERE: TWITTER FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM Updates on...

“Seeds of destruction take root in the human heart, and even among those who long for peace, they call to our darker instincts and urge us to violence.” ― Victoria Armour-Hileman, Singing to the Dead: A Missioner's Life among Refugees from Burma For M Tu Aung, 46, life has always existed as an endless cycle of running — running from danger, running into the unknown, running to lands far away and t...

“Cowards will always commit war crimes.” ― Anthony T. Hincks Listening note: This episode includes additional audio track discussion of the challenges of war crimes investigation, conflicting viewpoints about Russia, and upcoming work by Hollie. AS EVIDENCE OF WAR CRIMES MOUNTS, IT'S FAR FROM A SURE THING ANYONE WILL PAY THE PRICE It’s the stuff of nightmares: hundreds of blistered corpses strewn...

LISTEN TO HOLLIE DESCRIBE THE BOOK THE PRE-ORDER IT HERE . “‎I know you're still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very, very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because...

Listen to additional audio commentary! “A hospital alone shows what war is.” -          Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front While back home in the U.S. for a break this week, these articles were written amid my time in Ukraine (and even a bonus from Afghanistan). Thank you again for all your support. ‘I HAD TO LEAVE MY TWO CHILDREN BEHIND’: UKRAINIANS FLEEING TERROR — AND THEIR RUSSIAN...