The Americans won. (Wow.) You see, they won everywhere, even though they backed off, just for humanitarian reasons, or just for peace reasons. (Yes.) They won because they are great, they are big; because they know they can win if they want to. (Yes.) They won because they have heart. They don’t want to continue the bloody war anywhere.
(Master, do You think that America lost the war in Afghanistan, as many people say?) They were wrong. The Americans won. (Wow.) You see, they won everywhere, even though they backed off, just for humanitarian reasons, or just for peace reasons. (Yes.) They won because they are great, they are big; because they know they can win if they want to. (Yes.) They won because they have heart. They don’t want to continue the bloody war anywhere. (Yes.) They won, I tell you.
(Master, why do You think they won?) Why? I’ll tell you why. Because they won ‒ they won the hearts of the Afghans. You see that? (Yes. It’s true.) Just a few hours after the Americans are pulling out, they all run to the airport to go with them! With only the clothes on their backs. They don’t have any baggage, nothing! All these men. They are men, they are not even women to be afraid of the Taliban’s torturing or controlling. (Right.) They are mostly men!
And even though the Taliban say they will have amnesty and all that, they cannot trust. (Yes.) They trust the Americans more! (Yes, it’s true.) Yeah! (Yes.) Mostly they are men, leaving their families behind, not even knowing when they will see them again. (Yes.) They run to the Americans because they trust them more than they trust their own people, the Taliban. And while other Afghans, knowing the danger and consequences, still went out on the street to protest. (Right.)
That should be a shameful mark in the history for the Taliban, no matter how they claim their win. (Yes, Master.) So, now you understand why I said the Americans win? (Yes, Master.) They won, they won everywhere! Everywhere the Americans left, people ran after them. (They win hearts.) From Âu Lạc (Vietnam) also. Hundreds of thousands from Âu Lạc (Vietnam) even, before. (Yes.) When the Americans went to Germany and won the war, people came out to greet them, not afraid of them. Everywhere, similar.
So, that should be a shame on the Taliban. Their co-citizens trusted strangers more than their compatriots. The American troops went to the airport just to bring some Americans out, but they ended up bringing also the Afghans. (Yes, it’s true.) Six hundred plus on just one airplane! (Yes.) They’re squeezed together, and being so happy that they’re lucky to get in it! They have nothing with them! (Yes.) They don’t even know what America looks like, they don’t know where they’re taking them, they don’t know whether or not they will have food or clothes where they’re going. (Yes.) They just went!
I don’t see if they have any money on them, either. They just run with just the sandals, some barefoot (Yes, yes.) because they run too fast, their sandals run away from them. They lost them all over the airport. I saw the picture that the sandals and shoes are all over.
So, you see, you can never win if you lose people’s hearts. (True. Yes.) So this is for the whole world to witness even! (Right.) This is the Taliban that “certified” the US’ trustworthy presence on their own soil. On Afghanistan’s soil. (Yes, yes.)
The Americans who came to the Kabul airport are also trustworthy, you see that? (Yes, they are.) These are not necessarily the troops that have been at the airport in Afghanistan before. The government of America sent different troops, just to keep order, or to register and all that. (Yes, I see.) They are not even used to the combatting ground or anything. Or even if they are, they came with very simple weapons. (OK.) Just a few small guns, nothing big deal, so they expose themselves to danger also. (Oh, right.) And they’re risking their lives! (Wow.) Because the troops all left and all the equipment is stolen or sold. (Yes.) They are barely getting to know the situation. A risky and dangerous one. And they came, still stay and want to stay longer until all the vulnerable are rescued, Americans or Afghans alike. They did not discriminate. They said, “We will not leave you behind.”
Even a pregnant woman, on the day of delivery, ran to the airport! (Oh, wow!) Just to go with the Americans, they feel safer with the stranger that they never knew before even. (Yes.) And they trust the stranger soldier with their babies. One of the soldiers was picking up the baby over the barbed wires. (Yes.) That’s on photo. (Yes, I saw it. Yes.) And the pregnant mother, already almost at the date of delivery, she delivered the baby on the American airplane. (Wow!) Yeah! Such a time like that and they ran! Not worried about where they deliver the baby. (Yes. Desperate.) They trust Americans. So, such desperation! (Right.) In such a desperate situation, they trust the Americans. (Yes, amazing.)
Of course, they know when they go to the Kabul airport, they may encounter also problems and danger, (Yes.) with the checkpoints and with the Taliban’s guns and all that. They had nothing in their hands, they’re unarmed. (Yes.) They have only one pair of clothes that they are wearing.
“MEDIA REPORT from Sky News Aug. 23, 2021: Day, night… It makes no difference. In their thousands, they just have to wait, and they’re sleeping rough, hoping for news. Thousands of children, parents and grandparents, grabbing sleep or basically passing out from exhaustion. The struggle never stops. No food. Little water. When the sun comes up, the true horror of the conditions they are living in is obvious. The would-be evacuees are standing up to their knees in a sewage-filled canal. The stench is indescribable. Some have been here for days. Remember the heat, the lack of water, the lack of food and the conditions they’re in are a cocktail just as lethal as any bullet. When they can identify people with the right papers to travel, they’re pulled from the canal. There is no shade here, only what can be fashioned from scarfs and plastic. The numbers of tiny children enduring all this is heartbreaking. It must be so, so scary. It’s noisy here, there are gun shots and shouting the whole time. Their days are spent hoping someone will spot them and take them out of this hell hole and on to a plane. The wait is often days and days.”
I can cry forever thinking about this situation. Some people cannot get on the airplane, they wait two, three, four days in the sun, in such a sun. In such a country, it’s very hot now, summer also, there’s no shade, nothing. (Yes.) They sit under the sun, on the ground to wait, hope that they can get on the airplane and go with the Americans. (Yes, Master.) They trust their lives, the life of their baby, the life of their wife! Just a few women. Mostly are men. Women don’t even dare to go out on the street. As soon as the Taliban came, the women disappeared, hiding into their houses, so frightened they are.
“MEDIA REPORT from PBS News Hour Aug. 19, 2021: They attacked my sister with a gun. And then again, an American soldier stopped them and carried us in here. Now we don’t know what we should do if we go out of this…
This young woman fled the western city of Herat when Taliban fighters took over and tried to force her to marry one of them.
In the past, when the Taliban was not here, we had an almost good life. I worked, I could work, I could drive. But now, I cannot even drive. I sold my car. Even I cannot go out without any man.
Do you think you’re going to be able to get on an airplane? (I don’t know. I don’t know. Just, I want to go and be safe. I just fear a lot.) You don’t feel safe? (No.)”
This should be a shame in the history of Afghanistan. (Oh, yes.) I don’t care who wins the war, who not. This is really a shame! And so sad, so sad! (It is very sad.) And I cry again, but who cares. So, that’s why I told you the Americans won, because they won the hearts of the people! (Yes. They win the hearts of the world right now also.) Yeah, they do, too.
And you see, the Taliban, even with all these terrible things happening, and deaths at the airport and all that, they still keep harassing and hunting women, and hunting whomever was working with the government before, or with the Americans before. (Yes.) And they just went on shooting or killing, torturing, at random like that, just to show their power. (Their power. Yes.) But the heart has more power than any weapons! Believe it or not. (Right.)
You see the hearts of the desperate people and even the pregnant woman, and with the mother who brought the baby there and trusted it in the arms of the American soldier. The hearts, those hearts that command ‒ even though silently ‒ command the most powerful soldiers on Earth to come to their rescue, risking their lives! Despite great danger to their own lives, to the American soldiers’ lives. (Right.) Those hearts… Those hearts… the Taliban cannot win. Cannot win them over. Any leader must win these hearts, if they call themselves a winner in the war. And then even being arrogant as winning, for that. That’s losing! Not winning. In my opinion, that’s not winning. (Yes, I agree.)
How can you win when you go and harass, torture a weaker gender, like women? They have no weapons, they had nothing. (It’s true.) And the children! Twelve-year-old girls! How can you “win?” How can you call that winning when you just use your might and your weapons to force people into sexual slaves! Nobody can call that winning. I would call that a shaming! (Yes. It’s a big shame.) Shame. That’s why I told you, they did not win. And they become arrogant because they think they’re winning.
No. The Americans are the winners. (Yes.) You can see people run after them like that. Trusting them, total strangers. And in soldier uniforms, even. (Yes.) The soldier in a uniform represents war. (Yes, yes.) But they trust them. They know that the Americans won’t harm them. They run into their arms. They trust their babies into their arms. (Yes.) Deliver the baby, on the airplane, in their arms ‒ of a stranger, while fearing their own people.
And some courageous enough went on the street, using their bare hands and their feeble voices to protest. How can they even protest? But they have to, they have to because they feel they’re dying anyway. (Yes.) They will die anyway, so they risk it. They don’t care anymore. So that must be a very terrible, desperate situation, which the regime impressed upon them. Makes them either so fearful, run away, or just bare their lives to show their discontentment with the new regime. Understand me? (Yes, understand, understand.)
I am not for war, you know that. (Yes, Master.) I am for peace. But these American soldiers, for 20 years long, they have been sacrificing their lives, forsaking their families, and wives and kids at home, to come to Afghanistan, to defend for what they believe. (Yes, Master.) Of freedom, and safety, for men and women alike. (Right.) Therefore, even the men trust them, they run to them. (Yes.) Men normally are stronger than women, and not easy for them to just trust anybody. But they run to the Americans. Total strangers, just to run there because they trust them so much!
