afKENistan

Can Flying a Kite incite Jehad?

2010-01-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

How Good People Can Become Recruitable for the Dark Side: Terrorism

If you want to have some insight how a good person with some education can come to this country and, because of hard times, become disillusioned and über-angry and perhaps consider unthinkable things then read the email exchange below. I met Abdul at a book party for a friend of mine a year ago when his new book came out. The book was gay in content. Abdul seemed very nice and very modern, apparently having no hang-ups about gay culture since the book-premiere party took place in a gay leather bar. Abdul had, through the diligence and help of my friend, been brought to America. Abdul was my friend's translator in Afghanistan and wanted desperately to come to the land of Milk and Honey, so my friend pulled some strings and made it happen. At the party Abdul and I exchanged cards. On December 16 Abdul sent an email to me and 80 other people. Most are names you’d find in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but a few of the names are of editors at the New York Times and other publications. Attached was a document stating that the book the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was rabidly anti-Pashtun, a hateful work that sought to divide Afghanistan, something I didn't feel at all when I read the book. The article was long and tedious. I printed it out then read it a few weeks later when I had time to concetrate. The email exchange below is a blow-by-blow account illustrating how someone can go from very Pro-American to vehemently anti-Western within a matter of months and become a perfect target for terrorist recruitment.

EMAIL #1

date Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:27 AM

subject interesting article on kite runner,

from Abdul

to priyanka@aicongallery.com, Padmini Biswas , asifnang@yahoo.com, Fraidoon Ilham , ANWAR SHAHEEN KHANKHEL , Ayub khawreen , Khaled Khan , Inayatullah Kakar , Chithra KarunaKaran , Ganesh Karunakaran , Azhar Khattak , Fawzia Afzal-Khan , Kaseem Kakar , Kalpana Jain , Lutfullah Mashal , Majeed Ludin , Ali Mohammad Sabawoon , "Borhan M. Younus" , David E McCraw/CORPHQ/NYTIMES , Michael Moss , "Dawat Afghan Newspaper/ M. Tariq Bazger" , Al - Hayat News Paper , Harris O Niazi , najibamir , "EslahOnline. net" , onayqasmi@hotmail.com, Mohammad Ozair Akbari , riffat orakzai , Andrew Proctor , Avanti Pradhan , Emal Pasarly , "Helene P. Quinn" , Miriam Poser , Jennifer Parrales , Ken Paprocki , "Paikar Paikar\\'" , Pervaiz Tapand , Pashtun Peace Forum , Anna R Schecter , Aziz Rukya , rahimullah samander , Rana Sweis , rajwali shah , Ahmad Rasikh , Asha Olivia SAAAIDS , jawedan sahar , Brekhna Tahrik , Fatima Tariq , habib taseer , Kajsa Törnroth , Nafees Takar , Terra McLeod , Talwasa Talwasa , Zia Ul Haq Amarkhel , Rahman Ullah , Mujeeb UL Rahman Angaar , Habib Viqar , wahedfaqiri@yahoo.com, wmasoud111@yahoo.com, Abdul Wahab Bazeed , Abi Wright , ewitchel@cpj.org, benawa , Whadat Tajdar , Waklil Akbarzai , Ahmad Wais , Sayed Abdullah Walizai , Najiba Waziri , youssofghafoorzai@hotmail.com, Yousafzai Sami , yasir afridi , Arif Yaqobi20 , yahya_wardak@hotmail.com, Yaqoob_hazrat@yahoo.com, zabih2002@yahoo.com, ziarmal76@yahoo.com, zmarai.a@googlemail.com, zohrachopan@hotmail.com, Zubaida Khilji , Zarmalwal Asadaullah , zenatb5@yahoo.com

Dear friends,

Read it and share it with your friends.

Best,

Abdul

Kite Runner-2.doc 96K Download

EMAIL #2 [It took me almost 2 weeks to print out, sit down and read the piece]

From Ken Paprocki to Abdul 12/29/09

very interesting, altho i dont think i'd agree with all his points

EMAIL #3 [Abdul sent me a response immediately]

From Abdul to me 12/29/09

Thanks, can you please point out which points you disagree with?

Abdul

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

EMAIL #4 [Abdul sent me another response a few hours later, obviously very anxious to hear my feedback]

From Abdul to me 12/29/09

Dear Ken,

I am really interested to know which points of the article you disagree is it the Afghan part of American part of the

article. I shall be grateful if you could point out in short.

With appreciatationn,

Abdul

EMAIL #5 [With New Years I didn’t have time to respond thoughtfully to his message, then I get another email from him]

Abdul to me Jan 3

Hello Ken,

I hope you are fine and doing well. As far as kite runner is concerned we Afghans believe I don't mean Afghan American or Afghans employed by westerners in the government or NGOs, particularly Afghan Americans who pretend to be prouder American than real white Americans who rule US, that kite runner is a hate propaganda against Afghan nation to preach hate so that west can easily divide us. I have personally obsvered how much Muslim and Afghan Americans are scared from government even I never observed this in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I have personally not read single book on Afghanistan written by western writers that may reflect the truth or may not biased.

Most of these western writers, as far as I have read all of them suffering from superiority complex and extremely judgmental raccist about Afghanistan and Pashtoons.

Regards,

Abdul

EMAIL #6 [I reread the attachment which is poorly written and uninteresting and as far as I’m concerned without proof or examples and is completely inept. I don’t see what the “Dr.” who wrote it is railing against.]

From: Ken Paprocki To: Abdul

Subject: Re: interesting article on kite runner,

Jan 4

Sayed, I loved the Kiterunner and these are the notes I wrote on that article:

Kiterunner is a novel. It’s not history. It's about class struggle yes, but I didn’t get the ethnic bashing feeling, that all Pashtuns are the bad guys. Hazaras, who are the progeny of the Ghengis Kahn invasion, are more mellow, more Asian, more docile as a people, but that’s not to say all Pashtuns are aggressive and warring. Hosseini’s next book A 1000 splendid suns deals with Pashtuns and they are good and bad in that book. When I read the Kiterunner I couldn’t wait to see Afghanistan! So the Dr’s whole pretext of his article about Pashtun bashing – that people read the book and don’t like Pashtuns – is pretty much ridiculous. He doesn’t show cases in the book and prove they are prejudice. His piece is not well written at all and the argument is so weak it’s comical. Also flying kites is a Pashtun tradition isn’t it? So it's saying something wonderful about Pashtun culture. Also the Dr didn’t read the book till 2009! His view is way too dark and pessimistic of the novel’s reason for coming to being. The bad guy in the book is ½ pashtun and ½ german, so th Dr could say that Hosseini is against Germans with his type of argument. I think energies should be focused at much more important and helpful things like what are ways to alleviate or end the conflict in Afghanistan. Anyway that's what I feel - thanx - Ken

EMAIL #7 [He didn’t take it well.]

From Abdul To me Jan 4

Mr. Ken,

Would mind granting me freedom to say that you sound so typical of some one from your white European American culture. It was me who encouraged Dr. Zirakyar to write about the hate propaganda of west against united Afghan nation

that westerner fanatics want to divide us by the hate propaganda of kite runner using the name of Afghan American. For your information I am not Pashtoon. My dad speaks Dari.

If you do know about Afghanistan like many other ingorant European Americans I don't blame you. It is a part of your culture. Keep on thinking this way,

Abdul

EMAIL #8

From: Ken Paprocki To: Abdul Sent: Mon, January 4, 2010 12:16:00 AM

Abdul, please don't take my opinion as an insult to you. I've been to Afghanistan for a total of 5 months. I didn't see any of the hate you're talking about. I didn't see hate in the book, I saw redemption. Afghanistan is a beautiful country with beautiful people and wonderful cultures. The people there just want to live in peace, it's the people who concentrate and live in hate that make their lives and everybody else's miserable. Ken

EMAIL #9

From Abdul to me Jan 4

Mr. Ken I was born in village. my dad spoke Dari and my mother spoke Pashto I never felt this thing that these westerner fanatic writers talk about our ethnic division. But just wonder why civlized west hate us. I have been seeking the reason.

We dont' hate west. This is a part of my daily routine in US everybody hate us. and kite runner is a huge political propaganda against us. We have millions of interracial marriages in Afghanistan. We dont hate each other the way so-called civilized west talk about our ethnically divided nation.

Please do not send me any other e-mail.

With appreciation, SAR

EMAIL #10 [Of course I don’t heed his Do Not Email Me supplication. This guy, in my mind, has a very distorted view of things and I aim to try to set him straight.]

From: Ken Paprocki To: Abdul Sent: Mon, January 4, 2010 12:34:24 AM

Tell me one person who says he hates a Pashtun? You're concentrating on hate instead of love. May God watch over you. Peace, Ken

EMAIL #11

From Abdul to me Jan 4

Mr. We are Afghans very direct people. The people who believe in hate talk about love.

God bless you, SAR

EMAIL #12 [Now he’s getting under my skin]

From: Ken Paprocki to Abdul Abdul Rahim Sent: Mon, January 4, 2010 12:46:19 AM

i hate hate, you seem to wallow in it, if you're angry, or not happy with something then do something positive about it instead of bitch and cry. and using the "us" against "them" argument is tiring and childish. so god bless us both

EMAIL #13

From Abdul to me 1:31 AM

Mr. Ken,

We are the one who believe in love. I beleive if you are angered about protesting against the hate of west.

I am not angry, Mr.Ken and for your information I learned and and heard the word of "us" and them from white

Eorupean Americians and other Europeans.

I would appreciate if you stop this hate propanganda correspondence. I cannot encourage you to believe in love. I believe you are very stuck to hate us.

So please do not contact me again, SAR

EMAIL #14 [he sends another one as a second thought, OK, I stand corrected]

From Abdul to me Jan 4

also for your information kite running is not even the culture of Afghans. It came from India it Afghanistan less than decades ago It is only played in the cities. In the villages people even do not know about it.

more than 80% percent population lives in rural areas. Get it! SAR

EMAIL #15

From: Ken Paprocki To: Abdul Sent: Mon, January 4, 2010 1:19:02 AM

well i'm sorry that's your experience. life is hard, i admit that, but i hope things turn out better in your life. so i'm thinking you're the one that wrote the kite runner article maybe? if you did write it you should've just told me. anyway don't worry i won't bother you. be well

EMAIL #16

From Abdul to me

The more you write me it makes me think how much you guys do not believe in trust. The one who wrote and finished

writing the article was suffering from cancer and because of my emphasis he finished it a day before he was operated.

Pleasssssssssss do not send me more

AT THIS point I desisted. Admittedly I was enjoying sending further emails when he pleaded for me to stop. (I can be pushy when I feel the need.) But then I saw that this guy was unwavering in his assumptions and views. Below is the article he sent me. If you can get through it, good luck. My point of sending this exchange is to illustrate a few things. When dealing with people from a culture like Afghanistan or Pakistan we need to be aware of their modus operandi and perhaps must incorporate different tactics than usual. In America we shoot straight from the hip. In their culture it seems things are very polite and then you get to the meat of the argument. In our fast-paced society, especially in New York, we normally don’t have time for that. Abdul expected one type of feedback, when he got mine, which was less than rosy, he must have already received other similar “Western” feedback. He wanted to see the argument one way and doesn’t seem open to different arguments. Abdul shows me no examples or clear instances of the hate or bashing he’s talking about. And the article below is almost ludicrous. I see nothing remotely illustrating "Pashtun-bashing." And certainly no evidence about anyone wanting to divide Afghanistan along racial lines. This is a good study on different cultures being alienated once they arrive here and how utterly intractable and bitter some people can become once they’ve lost their faith in our system. These types of people seem perfect candidates for recruitment in organizations that have one goal in mind: terror. I'm not suggesting Abdul would ever think of that, but it's not too difficult to imagine some other person with similar experiences considering membership in such a group.

PASHTUN-BASHING IN KITE RUNNER: A PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION?

By: Dr. Rahmat Rabi Zirakyar

I am of Salarzai-Pashtun/Afghan heritage with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin, Germany; currently independent scholar,U.S.A.

December 9, 2009

An eminent American historian Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes put it: “Truth is always the first war casualty. The emotional disturbances and distortion in historical writing are greatest in wartime.” Quoted in “Zundelsite-A few facts about the Institute of Historical Review”, electronic version [November 1, 2009]. In shadows of aggression, people have been deliberately manipulated by official propaganda and spinning media and experts into an attitude of hating a country, a race, a religion, an ethnic group, etc.

INTRODUCTION

The Kite Runner is a penetrating, absorbing, distressing, emotional, and ideological novel by Afghan-born Dr. Khaled Hosseini which covers the tumultuous period of Afghanistan’s history since early 1970s. I read its first Riverhead paperback edition (2004) in November of 2009. Its hardcover was published a year earlier in 2003. He is culturally a non-Pashtun but ethnically a half-Pashtun: Dr. Hosseini’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother belong to the Mohammadzai nobility of Pashtun heritage. Also, his aunt is the mother of Prince Mostapha Zaher, the grandson of King Zaher Shah( 1914-2007). Dr. Hosseini cleverly organizes the story of his fiction, skillfully builds the suspense, and amazingly patronizes the Western audience by using “hot-button” cultural and political issues in a very traditional Afghan society torn by the ravages of war since 1978. In April of this year the Pashtun-led faction of the Soviet-connected People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power, killed President of the new republic Prince Mohammad Daud and his family, and ended the reign of Mohammadzai nobility. The overwhelming majority of the Afghan people rejected the communist rule and its brutalities. They stood up against the new, leftist regime for national and religious (Islamic) reasons. These events were followed by the CIA operations against the Moscow-connected regime, which rushed the Soviets to invade Afghanistan on December 25, 1979.

Nearly six months before the Soviet invasion, U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) signed the first directive for “secret aid” to the Afghan resistance (Mujahedeen), which “was going to induce a Soviet military intervention,” National Security Advisor Dr. Zbignew Brzezinski wrote to President Carter on July 3, 1979-the same day Carter signed the directive.(See Brzezinski’s interview, “How Jimmy Carter and I started the Mujahedeen”, Le Nouvel Observateur, France, January 15-21,1998/electronic version[November 14, 2009]. Mujahedeen received international support through the context of the Cold War and regional Pakistan-India conflict. U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) called the Mujahedeen “The moral equivalent of our own founding fathers” who were renamed terrorists/extremist Islamists after 911. On October 7, 2001, President George W. Bush’s war on Afghanistan started officially, with which Pashtuns, Afghanistan and its government had nothing to do. According to two internationally renowned scholars Prof. Noam Chomsky and Prof. Gilbert Achcar, Taleban asked the U.S. to submit a “formal extradition request,” along with evidence regarding the alleged criminal. But Washington “just didn’t have any. In June 2002, about eight months after the bombing of Afghanistan, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller…the most he could say is, we believe that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but the planning and the implementation were carried out in the United Arab Emirates and in Germany.” (Chomsky and Achcar, Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, expanded ed., 2009, pp. 71-82) In the general euphoria of Afghanistan’s “liberation”of 2001, Mr. Siddiq Barmak’s award-winning film Osama, and Dr. Hosseini’s widely-acclaimed fiction The Kite Runner emerged in the middle of the same year 2003. What a coincidence!

Dr. Hosseini’s novel is designed to soothe the Western audience’s conscience and to serve as a non-military “psychological operation” in the post-911 U.S. war urge packaged as liberty and democracy. It is a de facto defamation fiction, scapegoating Pashtuns ( who constitute the majority of Afghan population) while the author is exempting the upper stratum of other non-Pashtun minorities. He is touching on the legal conception of “defamation innuendo” (injury to reputation)? Dr. Hosseini does not seem to be thoroughly steeped in the history and culture of Afghanistan, particularly the period he is covering. Is his thinking co-opted?

CAST OF MAJOR ROLES

The defining moment (the rape of Hassan, ethnic Hazara and Shiite) which is integral to the story is introduced in the very first sentence of the book: “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in winter of 1975”(p. 1)

The main character and narrator of the story Amir is the only[“legitimate”] child of a privileged ethnic Pashtun merchant Baba . Amir is the only insecure son of Baba and half brother of Hassan (both Baba’s progeny), as well as adoptive father of Sohrab (orphan son of Hassan). Baba wishes Amir would stand up for himself. Amir often feels jealous of the attention that Hassan receives from Baba. Amir is “the unwitting embodiment of Baba’s guilt” while Hassan is Baba’s “other half. The unentitled, under-privileged half….The half that…Baba had thought of as his true son.”(p. 359)

Hassan’s mother is ethnic Hazara. He is best friend and servant of Amir. Hassan’s supposed father is Ali, an ethnic Hazara, who could not have kids because of Polio, which Amir learns later. Ali is like a brother to Baba for whom he works. “For you, a thousand times over.” (p. 2) This is said by Hassan to Amir as he runs Amir’s last kite.

Rahim Khan is ethnic Pashtun. He is business associate and close friend of Baba. He has a close relationship with Amir, who wishes Rahim Khan was his father. “There is a way to be good again.” This is said by Rahim Khan to Amir to encourage him to help Hassan’s orphan son Sohrab escape Afghanistan under Taleban and this way redeem himself (pp. 1,192, 226).

Assef is ethnic Pashtun. He has blue eyes and blond hair because his mother is German. He is an antagonist, the neighborhood bully, and firm believer in Adolf Hitler’s leadership. He raped Hassan. Assef, who later becomes leader of Taleban, took Sohrab (son of Hassan) from the orphanage in Kabul and forced him to prostitution. Eventually Amir adopted his half nephew Sohrab. They go home to America, but Sohrab remains silent until the two of them kite fight together and win.

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

The Kite Runner is organized around three “tortured souls” Baba (the father) and his two young boys with different ethnic heritages, who are best friends until one fateful act tears their relationship apart-and the quest one of them embark upon to right the wrong, to make up for his wrongdoing in the past, to search for “a way to be good again,” as Rahim Khan suggested to Amir. This quest for doing good to overcome the guilt and shame implies religious element (redemption) although Dr. Hosseini’s novel is addressing secular tangible life.

The Kite Runner shows parallels to previous American novels, for example, Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (1884); Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960); and Madison Jonen’s Nashville 1864: The Dying of Light (1997).

Mark Twain’s novel, which opens with Huck as the lead character, is often recognized as his greatest masterpiece. The book tells about two runaways: a white boy and a black man on their journey. Huck is a poor boy (with a drunken bum for a father) who helps Jim, a runaway slave, to escape up the Mississippi to the free states. Through his novel Mark Twain addresses painful contradiction of racism and segregation in American society claiming freedom and equality.

Nashville 1864 is a short American Civil War (1861-1865) novel in which Steven Moore, the lead character, is a 12-year-old boy who experienced the Civil War. The story of two friends (one white and one black) has its roots in Mark Twain’s Adventure of

Huckleberry Finn. The author of the novel tells of the occupation of Nashville, Tennessee, by Union soldiers. The Confederate army was defeated. The two boys Steven and his family’s slave, Dink, were searching for Jason Moore (Steve’s father) believing that he was in the nearby military unit of the Confederate army. On their journey Dink showed more wisdom than Steven. The death of Steven Moore’s slave, Dink, hunt him for the rest of his life, much as Amir’s memory was haunted by his betrayal: to watch in hiding the rape of his loyal servant and firm friend Hassan by Assef, leader of bullies.

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is based on the author’s observation of her surroundings, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was ten years old: A white woman accused a black man of raping her. He was sentenced to death. But according to some letters that appeared, the black man was falsely accused. So his sentence was commuted to life in prison. The author of the novel challenged the social status quo (racial and gender inequalities, unjust society, and lack of compassion). For religious and comparative literary perspectives, see Judi S. Hayes, In Search of Kite Runner (2007), 104 pages/electronic version.

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

The novel is timely because Afghanistan has become a pivotal point in global arena of imperial ambitions reinvigorated after the 911 catastrophe. It served as a non-military psychological operation. Dr. Hosseini’s novel is a prelude to the idea of “setam’e meli” (national oppression) advanced by Soviet communism and adopted by non-Pashtun Afghan leftists.

Usually a novel is called historical when it replicates a period or event in history, often operates with historical figures as some of its characters, and the event described is at least 50 years old when the fiction is written down. For example, three best novels are worth mentioning here: (1) Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997). The story of this novel starts before World War II in 1929, when a 9-year-old girl was sold to a renowned geisha house in Japan, where a girl’s virginity was auctioned to the highest bidder. Geisha means trophy wife or distinguished mistress. (2) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell(1936) is an American Civil War (1861-1865) story, in which the success and failure of an individual is tested to adjust to the new environment, or fail. (3)The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet(1989). Its story takes place in the middle of the twelfth-century England during a time when social, political and religious conflicts collide. This chaos affects the progress of the exquisite Gothic Cathedral on which the novel centers.

The Kite Runner is written in a way that the reader can easily become caught up in the class struggle between under-privileged Hazaras (minority) and allegedly affluent Pashtuns(majority) and forgets that this is an ideological fiction. Hazaras have distinct Mongoloid features, which makes it easy to distinguish them from the neighboring ethnic groups. They live in Hazarajat (central Afghanistan), capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, and Ghazni. Their overwhelming majority adheres to Imami Shiism, although a few are Ismaeli Shiite, or Sunni. Hazaras move to Kabul to find work. The population of Kabul consisted of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and other ethnic groups. Pashtuns did not give Hazaras the degrading name “tagha” (flat-nosed, narrow-eyed). Those who were ridiculing Pashtun as “Afghan-e ghool” (stupid Pashtuns) were not Hazaras. Pashtuns just ignored that expression. They believe that the term “Afghan-e ghool” (giant Pashtun) signifies “majority Pashtuns.” Some non-Pashtuns used the insulting charge “chiragh kosh”, a Farsi/Dari phrase for “light out!” defaming the (Ismaeli) Shiites for the alleged existence of sexual promiscuity in the very traditional society of Afghanistan!

King Amanullah (an ethnic Pashtun) became a national hero because during the third Anglo-Afghan war he won recognition of Afghanistan’s independence from the British Empire in 1919. U.S. historian and a leading authority on Afghanistan Professor Ludwig Adamec wrote in 1974 that King Amanullah “had been successful because of the assistance he received from Afghan [Pashtun] tribes in the ‘Independent Tribal Belt’ of the [North-West] Frontier.” (Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Relations with the USSR, Germany and Britain. The University of Arizona Press, 1974, p.92). The North-West Frontier Province, a misnomer, was created by the British Empire in 1901 to curb the revolts of the Pashtuns and to destroy their identity with Afghanistan. King Amanullah (1919-1929) banned the practice of slavery and focused on education and development of his country. When a bandit of non-Pashtun heritage Habibullah Bacha Saqaw, who was supported by the British, overthrew King Amanullah in mid-January of 1929 and began his chaotic rule over Afghanistan for 9 months. Hazara population largely supported Amanullah. The late Soviet-Communist historian and a major expert on Afghanistan Reisner published a pamphlet in 1929. Referring to Bacha Saqaw’s movement, Reisner selected the following title of his pamphlet : “Peasant Movement in Afghanistan.” Bacha Saqaw (Son of Water Carrier) was defeated by Pashtun Nader Shah (Hazaras might have been in favor of him, rather than Bacha Saqaw?).

The reigns of power shifted two times in the twentieth century to the advantage of Tajik groups: The first time with Bacha Saqaw (also spelled as Saqao) for just nine months in 1929, and the second time approximately sixty-three years later with Tajik dominated Mujahedeen regime. Allied with pro-Soviet Parchamis and in good terms with the occupying military of the Soviet union, Jehadi forces of Masood-Rabani took power in Afghanistan (April 28,1992 to September 1996). Non-Pashtun groups with anti-Pashtun orientation were dominant in Parcham (Flag) and in Masood and Rabani organization(s). Their “holy” forces unleashed a reign of terror, rape, looting, and destruction. Approximately sixty-five thousand people lost their lives during that “unholy victory”of Mujadedeen. For Ahmad Shah Masood’s connections with the Soviets, see U.S. resourceful, but neglected, researcher and author on Afghanistan, Bruce G. Richardson: Ending the Reign of Soviet Terror (Maverick Publications, first edition 1996); Richardson, “A Perennial Charade,” Afghanistan Mirror, Serial Nr. 116 (November 2009), pp.5-7. This second power shift was called “The Second Reign of Water Carrier[Bacha Saqaw]”, a book of the same title by Samsor Afghan, first publication 1998 (1377 A.H.), second publication 2001(1379 A.H.). Published in Pashto(“Dwema Saqawi”). Publisher: Association for the Promotion of Afghan Culture, Germany. Once again, the anti-Pashtun warlords of the Northern Alliance were propelled to power by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the 911 catastrophe, with a Pashtun “minor tribal leader” Hamid Karzai as CIA described him. This U.S.-imposed “minorito-cracy” is referred to as the “imperialist or third saqawi”. Afflicted by the ongoing turmoil, warlords’ dominance in the state bureaucracy, drug economy, and Pashtun alienation, renowned researcher Ahmed Rashid published his book (Descent into Chaos.Viking Adult, 2008). By supporting the Northern Alliance’s warlords, looters and rapists to marginalize the majority Pashtuns of Afghanistan, the Bush administration in fact became partner in the civil war, which in turn could lead to the territorial disintegration of Afghanistan.

The “terribly terrible” Taleban were a considerable source of stability in the region important to energy battlefield of Eurasia. Taleban’s harsh rule (September 1996-mid November 2001) deserve recognition for four functions: overthrowing Masood-Rabani chaotic rule, bringing law and order-however harsh it may be-to the most parts of society under their rule, preventing Afghanistan from territorial disintegration, and considerably reducing opium cultivation and corruption. After the 911 catastrophe President George Bush wanted Taleban to turn over the “prime suspect” Bin Laden to America. They responded that they would relinquish him to an Islamic country after the U.S. government would submit a formal request along with evidence regarding the alleged criminal. President Bush declared war, and U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Even eight months after that doleful October day, the FBI director Mueller was unable to identify the person responsible for the 911 horrific attacks on America. According to Prof. Chomsky, “The most” the FBI director could deliver was to “believe” that the idea of the plot might have emerged in Afghanistan, but its planning and implementation were done in United Arab Emirates and Germany. Yet, Afghanistan was invaded by the U.S. forces, and to the contrary United Arab Emirates and Germany were exempted from the U.S. military attack!? See, Prof. Noam Chomsky and Prof. Gilbert Achcar, Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice (Paradigm Publishers, expanded edition 2009), pp. 71- 82. Instead of accepting “a carpet of gold” (black gold and blue gold/oil and gas business) before 911 attacks, Taleban received a “carpet of bombs” after the 911 catastrophe. Jean-Charles Brisard co-author of the book Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth (La Verite Interdite), interview with the author on November 15, 2001, see Julio Gody, “U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil”, November 15, 2001, electronic version/Common Dream.org.

The legal note on the copyright page of Dr. Hosseini’s novel reads: “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.” The novel (The Kite Runner) is organized around the confrontation between two ethnic and religious groups: the Pashtuns who adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam and are making up the majority of the Afghan population, and the minority Hazaras, whose overwhelming majority adheres to the Shiite branch of Islam. Thus, Hazaras and Pashtuns are the real names of real ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Besides, the author Dr. Hosseini is culturally of non-Pashtun Afghan heritage. His Afghan background tells us that using real names of the real Afghan ethnic groups (Pashtuns and Hazaras) is neither the “product” of his “imagination” nor is their “resemblance…entirely coincidental.” This method is based on a hidden agenda for blaming the Pashtuns (the majority of Afghanistan’s population) of oppressing the minorities (non-Pashtun ethnic groups). This allegation, known in Afghanistan as “setam-e meli” (national oppression), originated in the former Soviet-Communist literature. This dichotomous conception was boosted during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989). The Soviet-Uzbek historian Nishanov became upset about the term “Afghan” in the Afghan constitution of 1964, which referred to all citizens as Afghans, and , consequently, all Afghans make up the Afghan nation. See, Nishanov, The Constructive Revolution of April [1978] referred to in Zirakyar, National Oppression, Nationality and Khorasan (original in Pashto), Publisher: Association for the Development of Pashtun Culture, Germany. Printed in Melat Press, Lahore, 2001. Unfortunately, Hazaras have long suffered from discrimination in Afghanistan. During the Soviet occupation the term “nationality” was propagated among the Afghan minorities(non-Pashtun tribes). Discrimination is unfair because it ignores the individual merit. In Afghanistan it resulted from different political, social and cultural interests of the elite crossing through all major non-Hazara ethnic and religious groups, not the masses of the people. Let me present a few cases:

(1) When the Soviet-connected People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan was in power (1978-1992), the leader of the government Hafizullah Amin of Pashtun heritage(April 1978-December 1979) gave weapons to Pashtun Wardag tribe to fight against Hazaras. The Wardags did not use them against the neighboring Hazaras , but turned them against the Communist government.

(2) Haji Mula Nasim Akhundzada is of Pashtun heritage. He was deputy commander to late Kandahari Mula Naqib, locally known as Mula-Gwal Akhund. Belonging to Alakozai-Pashtun tribe, Mula Nasim Akhundzada himself was an important Jehadi commander in Kandahar. He was allied with Northern Alliance and Islamic Society of Afghanistan run by commander Ahmad Shah Masood and his mentor Borhanuddin Rabani. [Nasim Akhundzada is currently advisor to a former Northern Alliance warlord in Kabul, personal information]. Abdul Nafe’ Hemat from Kandahar is of Alakozai-Pashtun heritage, as well as a poet and satirist. He learned about the inter-Mujahedeen fighting in Kabul (1992-1996) from other Alakozai-Pashtuns who participated in that distressing occurrence, the “unholy victory.” Abdul Nafe’ Hemat shared this information with a young Afghan journalist Abdul Rahim Shindandiwal. Regarding his information he interviewed Mula Nasim Akhundzada in November of 2009. His descriptions closely corroborated Shindandiwal’s information, which he shared with me as follows: Commander Ahmad Shah Masood complained to commander Mula Naqib that his Mujahedeen( fighters) refrained from attacking Pashtun positions in the Kabul area [Hekmatyar’s fighters]. Masood suggested to him that his deputy commanders should attack Hazaras instead. So under the command of two Kandaharis (Mohammad-Aka and Akhtarjan.), Mula Nasim Akhundzada’s Pashtun forces together with Ahmad Shah Mosood’s sub-commander Asad-e Choor’s brigade attacked the Dasht-e Barchi area up to Marastoon in the vicinity of Kabul and forced Hazara forces to flee [ most probably in 1992/1993= 1371/1372 A.J.] . But they left behind some three hundred women and approximately forty children and old men. Masood’s sub-commander Asad-e Choor (Asad the Looter, Plunderer) put the Hazara women in containers to rape them. They were crying for fear of being raped. When Mula Nasim Akhundzada noticed this misery, he immediately ordered his forces to thwart Assad-e Choor’s undertaking. He encircled the Kandahari Pashtun fighters to force them to hand over the Hazara women to him. The Pashtun commanders told Assad-e Choor that (1) “In our tradition [Pashtunwali=the Pashtun code of conduct]” Pashtuns do not fight against women and children, and (2) accordingly, they will hand over them to the leader of Hazaras, Abdul Ali Mazari. Asad-e Choor attacked Pashtun forces but could not succeed, and consequently Masood ordered his sub-commander Asad-e Choor to withdraw from that area. Kandahari Pashtun fighters relinquished Hazara women and children to Abdul Ali Mazari, who reciprocated this action with sending gifts and releasing many Pashtun war prisoners.

(3) Safya was a non-Pashtun Shiite female teacher in Kandahar (Shiite are a very tiny minority in among Pashtuns in the city of Kandahar.) Kandahari Pashtuns called her “Amajan” (Dear Aunt), and Pashtun women in Kandahar elected her as the head of the provincial women affairs administration during the Karzai period.

(4) Educated in Germany, Engineer Gholam Mohammad Farhad was of Yousufzai-Pashtun heritage. The people of the capital city Kabul gave him the honorary title “Papa” (Father). He was the most prominent leader of Afghan Social Democratic Party (1966=1344 A.H.). Engineer Farhad was the first elected mayor of Kabul. He won the mayoral elections with Hazara vote. Also, in the parliamentary elections he relied on the Hazara vote and won the seat in the House of Representatives. Hazara elders are still in touch with Papa Farhad’s family members, especially with his brother, politician and historian Qodratullah Hadad Farhad.

(5) In cooperation with the Communist faction Parcham (Flag), Masood and Rabani took over the government (April 1992-September 1996). Their rule brought chaos, destruction and civil war to Afghanistan. For this reason, their rule was called “The Second Saqawi”(anarchy, banditry). In early October 1929, the progressive King Amanullah fell victim to the anarchy of a non-Pashtun bandit Habibullah Bacha Saqaw (Son of Water Carrier). Supported by the British, Saqaw forced King Amanullah’s abdication. In his struggle against Saqaw and the British, King Amanullah was supported by Hazaras.

(6) The speech of Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of Hazars’ Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan, in July of 1993 (1372 A.H.) might be quite instructive for those who are beating on the drum of ethnic antagonism. Mazari believed that his people Hazaras have to fight together with other “Persian-speaking” people against the Pashtun domination. But “the issue of Chandawal and Afshar” [the killing of Hazaras in two sections of Kabul by non-Pashtun Masood-Rabani group, 1992] convinced Mazari that during the past 250 years not all Pashtuns, but “a power-hungry family”[yak khanadan-e jahtalab] had oppressed Hazaras. Since the day Masood-Rabani group came to power[April 2,1992] in Kabul, they “waged eight wars in the name of Islam against you[Hazaras],” Mazari emphasized in his speech. Masood and Rabani were referring to Hazaras as “the progeny of Genghis Khan.” ( Genghis Khan or Changes Khan was the Mongolian warrior-ruler [c.1155-1227], who seems to have had controlled a larger territory than any other ruler in the history.) For original Persian text of Mazarin’s speech, see Nada-e Wahdat, No. 13/July 1993, quoted in Rahmat Rabi Zirakyar, X-Ray of Afghan National Consciousness (original in Pashto), Publisher Pashto Yoon, New York, submitted to publisher on 19 February 2001(30 Salwagha 1379 A.H.), printed in Peshawar, Pashtunkhwa, 2003 (1382 A.H.)pp. 79-80, from the facsimile printed in Afghanistan Mirror (Ayena-e Afghanistan, Vol.32/June-July1993=Jauza-Sartan 1372 A.H., pp. 71-72).

(7) Iran-educated Dr. Ali Razawi Ghaznawi is of Hazara heritage, as well as an Afghan scholar. He believed that Afghanistan was dominated by Pashtuns, “qaum-e ma’iyan wa khas”(the distinct and particular tribe). King Mohammad Zaher Shah, who ruled Afghanistan for the longest period (1933-1973), was an important member of that distinct and particular tribe, the Pashtuns. Apparently, the terrible events in Chandawal and Afshar sections of Kabul(see above #6), taught Dr. Ghaznawi to change his mind(most probably in 1992/1993): Under the prevailing circumstances of anarchy, destruction and killing, he “preferred” the leadership of “His Majesty”, the exile King Zaher Shah. For original Persian text, see Zirakyar, ibid., pp. 71-72, quoted from Afghanistan Mirror (Ayena-e Afghanistan, Vol. 29/December 1992-January 1993(1372 A.H.). The 79- year- old King Zaher Shah returned to Afghanistan on April 18, 2002 after 29 years of exile in Rome, Italy. He was the most prominent leader in the harts and souls of his nation, but to CIA he was a “figure head” just to convene the Loya Jirga. He was given the ceremonial title “Father of the Nation” by the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) without being allowed to give in person his opening speech to that extraordinary institution of Afghan political culture and legal credibility. King Zaher Shah could not do but to accept the ceremonial title, and, by implication, he gave legitimacy to the decisions of Loya Jirga in June 2002 (ghbargolai 1381 A.H.). As a non-political symbol of “national unity” under the occupation, he died in Kabul on July 23, 2007.

(8) Kateb Faiz Mohammad (1862-1931) was the son of Sayed Mohammad Moghol of Hazara heritage. This Afghan intellectual served under two kings of Pashtun heritage. Kateb Faiz Mohammad was a member of the royal secretariat and the biographer of the “Iron Emir” Abdul Rahman Khan (1880-1901). In 1888, this Emir conferred on an influential Hazara leader (Mohammad Azim Beg) the title “Sardar” (Lord, Prince). Sardar Mohammad Azim Beg was the son of Ali Zahid Khan, the leader of Sepai-Dezangi Hazaras. On the recommendation of Emir Abdul Rahman Khan, his son Prince Habibullah Khan married the daughter of Sardar Mohammad Azim Beg. According to a very cautious, well educated and resourceful high-ranking Afghan politician, a group of “professional” (maslaki) Hazaras in British India was sent by its government to Quetta, Baluchistan, to instigate unrest in Afghanistan. This way, the British forced the then Afghan Emir/King Abdul Rahman Khan to give in to their colonial demand for the so-called “Durand Line” of 1893, which divided the Pashtuns between Afghanistan and British India (current Pakistan). For more information, see British-educated Afghan historian Prof. Mohammad Hasan Kakar, The Consolidation of Central Authority in Afghanistan under Amir Abd al-Rahman[Abdul Rahman Khan], 1880-96, M.A., School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1968; Afghanistan in the Reign of Amir Abd al-Rahman, 1880-1901, Ph. D., London, 1974. Also, see Afghan historian and politician Mir Gholam Mohammad Ghobar, Afghanistan in the Course of Time (original published in Persian in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1967/1968), pp. 666-671. To forge a unified Afghanistan and a central administration, Amir/Emir Abdul Rahman Khan ruled his country with an “iron fist”: He relentlessly used his power against all rivals and rebelling individuals and tribes alike (Pashtun Shinwaris, Pashtun Ghilzais, non-Pashtun Nuristanis, and non-Pashtun Hazaras who suffered more). Kateb Faiz Mohammad of Hazara heritage was a personal friend and court clerk of Amir (Emir) Habibullah Khan (1901-1919). Encouraged by this king, he authored the three-volume Torch of the Histories (Seraj-al Tawarikh) and worked for the ministries of education and foreign affairs. In his Torch of the Histories, Kateb Faiz Mohammad wrote regarding the name Afghanistan: “This country…” became “more” known during “the period of His Majesty Ahmad Shah [of Pashtun heritage,1747-1773/1160-1186 A.H.]”(zyadtar mausoom ba Afghanistan shod). Quoted by Professor of History Azam Sistani (Barakzai) in his book: Is Afghanistan a Fake Name? A Collection of 20 Articles,Sweden,2006. Original in Persian, printed by Danesh Book Center, Peshawar, [Pashtunkhwa], 2007(1386 A.H.), 418 pages, here p. 410. The reformist, progressive and anti-British King Amanullah Khan (1919-1929) did not like his father Amir Habibullah Khan because he was pro-British. Since Kateb Faiz Mohammad was close to Amir Habibullah Khan, King Amanullah Khan may not have used his services. Kateb Faiz Mohammad was firmly tortured by the non-Pashtun bandit ruler Bacha Saqaw (January-October 1929). U.S. historian and prominent authority on Afghanistan Prof. Ludwig W. Adamec writes regarding the cause of death of Kateb Faiz Mohammad: He died in 1931 “purportedly from the complications of severe beating by Habibullah Kalakani [Bacha Saqaw from the Kalakan area] who had sent him to bring a document of submission from Hazarajat [central Afghanistan, where the majority of Hazaras lived].” Adamec, “Katib Author of Monumental History Books,” electronic version/Katib Cultural Association, Denmark, [November 25, 2009]. Also, see Jafar Razai, “The Father of Modern History of Afghanistan (Padar-e Tarikh-e Moa’ser-e Afghanistan”, electronic version/Kateb-e –hazara.blogfa.com, [November 25, 2009].

(9) Prof. Abdul Wahab Sorabi of Hazara heritage was member of the Advisory Constitutional Commission (1964). He was the first Hazara cabinet member with portfolio (1967-69) under King Zaher Shah (1933-1973). Thereupon Prof. Sorabi became the cabinet minister, 1969-1971, Secretary of Planning( de plan wazir). Engineer Mohammad Yaqub Lali was also a Hazara and cabinet minister, 1967-69, Secretary of Public Affairs (de ama shegano wazir). Abdullah Khan, who was like a prince (sardar-e Hazaras) in his community, was chosen by King Zaher Shah as a member of the Senate. He was in fact close to the King. Barat-Ali Khan was also Hazara and quite influential in the National Bank. Let’s take a look at U.S.: The first black U.S. cabinet minister was Robert C. Weaver, 1966-1968, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Linden Johnson. The first black female cabinet minister was Patricia Harris, 1977, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Jimmy Carter.

(10) In mid-1990s (most probably in December of 1995) the Afghan “royal Shiites” (tashayo-e darbari), namely the Tajik Shiites Mohseni, Akbari, and Sayed Fazel, had launched a campaign to incite Afghan refugees (mostly Shiite Hazaras) in Iranian cities (Qom and Mashhed) against the “Giant Pashtun” (Ghool Pashtun). A declaration by Mohseni in Qom and Mashhed reads: “The strategic alliance with Pashtunism and Communism was an irreparable mistake in the history which pushed Hazaras backward for one hundred years.” This is reported by an honest and concerned Afghan Shiite (most probably Hazara) who condemned the Iranian involvement in Afghan affairs. He also rejected Mohseni’s hate campaign against “Pashtun brothers.” For original Persian text, see Zirakyar, X-Ray of Afghan National Consciousness, op. cit., pp.74-78.

STEREOTYPING PASHTUNS

Two things may contribute to the creation of a poor historical novel: (First) the oversimplification of historical issues (ignoring essential details of historical subjects), and (second) a perceived or broad generalization about a particular social or racial group (a stereotyping of the “good” and “bad” guys). In contrast to this, a good historical novel usually depends on the author’s ability to thoroughly understand the history of the period he/she is covering. The following passages from the novel will illustrate that Pashtuns are singled out and negatively impacted, which do cause injury to their reputation (defamation innuendo). Amir is the lead character and narrator of the story. King Zaher Shah and Amir’s father, both Pashtuns “got behind the wheel of their father’s Ford roadster. High on Hashish and mast on French wine, they struck and killed a Hazara husband and wife on the road.” (p. 24) The character Assef is Pashtun and a bully, who raped the Hazara boy Hassan. “Born to a German mother and Afghan father, the blond, blue-eyed Assef towered over the other kids.” He admires Hitler: “About Hitler. Now, there was a leader. A great leader. A man of vision.” Assef’s “blue eyes flicked to Hassan [the Hazara boy]” and said: “Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.” Assef “will ask the president [Prince Mohammad Daud, the founder of the Republic of Afghanistan in 1973] to do what the king[Mohammad Zaher Shah, 1933-1973] didn’t have the quwat [power] to do. To rid Afghanistan of al the dirty, kaseef Hazaras.” (pp. 38-40) Assef brought Amir a birthday gift. “It was a biography of Hitler.”(pp.96-97) Assef, who became leader of Taleban, took Sohrab (son of Hassan) from orphanage in Kabul and forced him to prostitution: “How is that whore these days?” While Assef was present in his office, “One of the guards pressed a button and Pashtu[or Pashto is the language of Pashtuns] music filled the room” and Sohrab “danced in a circle.”(pp. 278-280) The Taleb with the whip “shouted something in Pashtu.”(p.272) Or the guard said “something in Pashtu, in a hard voice”( p.279). Or “One of the guards said something in Pashtu”(p.291). The tribe of the Taleban is Taleban. But the author tries to connect Taleban and Pashtuns through their language Pashto and this way diminish and discredit the majority Pashtuns, succinctly to dehumanize them. Soon after the 911 catastrophe, “America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance [a collection of non-Pashtun warlords who collected U.S. $70 millions within the first few weeks of the war] moved in, and the Taliban scurried like rats into the caves.”(p. 362) Dr. Hosseini’s statements are embedded in social discrimination based on basic psychological impulses of fear and Pashtun-bashing. “…the kind of thinking which presents any ethnic or national group in terms of a crude, unflattering caricature is undesirable and sloppy at best.” Dr. Michael F. Connors, Dealing in Hate: Anti-German Propaganda. Institute of Historical Review, Newport Beach, CA, 1996, 48 pages. Electronic version [Nov. 11, 2009].

CONCLUSIONS Why is Dr. Hosseini, who belongs to a well educated family, involved in Pashtun-bashing? He is originally a “Sayed” (honorific title used for male descendants of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad.) However, his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are members of the ruling lineage of nobility (Mohammadzai-Pashtuns). So he is half Pashtun (Mohammadzai nobility) and half non-Pashtun. Besides, Dr. Hosseini’s aunt is the mother of Prince Mostapha Zaher, the grandson of King Zaher Shah (he died in Kabul in 2007). But culturally Dr. Hosseini is a non-Pashtun, or apparently an anti-Pashtun non-Pashtun. In 1973 Prince Mohammad Daud overthrew his nephew King Mohammad Zaher Shah (1914-2007), declared Republic and proclaimed himself president. The Pashtun faction of the leftist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew Daud and thereby ended once and for all the reign of the Mohammadzai nobility. This might be one of the reasons why Dr. Hosseini (as the privileged half) has taken revenge on Pashtuns as collectivity. Culturally non-Pashtun Dr. Khaled Hosseini’s biography reveals that he had limited opportunity to expand his knowledge of Afghan history. He “feel[s] like a tourist in my own country” (p.231). Farid (a character) who escorted Dr. Hosseini to Afghanistan, told him: “Agha Saheb[Sir]….You? You’ve always been a tourist here” in Afghanistan (p.232). To transcribe Afghan terms, Dr. Hosseini uses in his novel Iranian Persian (Farsi) pronunciation rather than Dari (Afghan version of Farsi) phonetic transcription. For example, “Ghargha”Lake (p.13), “Sabzi challow” (p. 173), “Maghbool” (p.178), and “Topeh chasht” (p. 245).Their Dari-Farsi pronunciations are: “Qargha” Lake, “Sabzi chalau”, “Maqbool”, and “Tope chast”. Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965. In the early 1970s he lived with his family in Teheran, Iran, where his father worked for the Afghan embassy. In 1973, he and his family returned to Kabul, and in 1976, Hosseini and his family moved to Paris, France, where his father was assigned to the Afghan embassy. The Hosseinis were still in Paris when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 25, 1979. The 15-year old Hosseini, along with his family, left Paris for the United States of America, where they arrived in the fall of 1980. From this, I can assume that Dr. Hosseini is a victim of his superficial knowledge of the Afghan history. I am assuming that “Setam-e meli” ideology was influential in his political socialization. Setam-e meli (national oppression) looks like a class struggle, which is based on the alleged oppression of non-Pashtun minorities by the Pashtun majority. The concept of Setam-e meli originated in the former Soviet-Communist literature, and it influenced the outlook of non-Pashtun leftists. The Soviet Union needed this ideology to divide Afghanistan into north and south regions. The Soviet design was to integrate ten Northern provinces into a “submissive, civilized” Socialist Republic of Afghanistan and to merge the southern provinces into a “resistant, less civilized” Democratic Republic of Afghanistan as a buffer zone for the defense of the civilized North. Who would think that U.S. strategist Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski cannot learn from Soviet Arbatov?! The idea of dividing Afghanistan was also appealing to non-Pashtun Ahmad Shah Masood, the leader of the Northern Alliance, who might have been interested in establishing “Masoodistan” in Northern Afghanistan. This anti-Pashtun mutation became intensified during the Soviet occupation (1979-1989), Parcham rule (1980-1992) and during Masood-Rabani chaotic “unholy victory” (1992-1996). Dr. Hosseini may have been influenced by the opinions, suggestions and/or guidance of other Afghans. They could have used his historical-political inexperience and his excellent writing skills for their own political-ideological orientation. Or presumably, someone has co-opted his thinking? The Kite Runner by Dr. Hosseini is a biased book. It is patronizing the Western audience and plays into war mongering. It is a common feeling among Pashtuns that this novel participated in dancing to the drum of Bush’s war which was a virtue of supreme importance in the post-911 political and cultural climate. The war party will move heaven and earth to make sure the war, propaganda, collapse of mainstream media integrity, and the proliferation of doublespeak are working harmoniously. (See Cold War Fantasies: Film, Fiction, and Foreign Policy by Prof. of Political Science Ronnie D. Lipschutz. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, October 2001).

The World Factbook by CIA is published in the middle of each year. Until 1991, this type of “finished intelligence” registered Pashtuns as majority of the Afghan population (50% as ethnic group and as language group). Almost a year later in April 1992, the Northern Alliance (Masood-Rabani group) took over the power in Kabul. The World Factbook 1992, considerably lowered the statistical significance of the Pashtun ethnic group and their language (Pashto): 38% as ethnic group, and 35% as language group. In World Factbook 2009, statistical data for Pashtuns shows improvement as ethnic group (42%) but remained the same as language group (35%). For the record, a six-year survey and research project (1991-1996) was conducted by WAK-Foundation for Afghanistan, the results of which was published in 1998 (1377 A.H.). According to this source, from the total population of Afghanistan, Pashtuns make up 62.73 percent as ethnic group and 55 percent as language group. (See The Ethnic Composition of Afghanistan by Wak-Foundation for Afghanistan. Published by Sapi’s Center for Pashto Research and Development, Peshawar, Pashtunkhwa, 1998=1377 A.H., 250 pages). An eminent U.S. expert on Afghanistan Bruce G. Richardson took notice of this phenomenon shortly after 911 catastrophe: “Of late, we have been subjected to a variety of published ethnographic data in the broadcast and print media in which we are assured that the Pashtun majority is barely a majority at all and that the time has come to end ‘Pashtun domination of Afghanistan.’ The source for much of this data is reported as ‘taken from CIA analysis.’ But is this data reliable? Or is this data self-serving, a cover for U.S. support for minority rule in Afghanistan?”(Richardson, “Post-Taliban Afghanistan”, Afghanistan Mirror, Serial Nr. 87/ January 2002, pp. 10-12; Dawat,Vol. 134-135). Dr. Hosseini’s novel has functioned successfully as a non-military psychological operation in the service of U.S. “Congress-Military-Industrial Complex’s” war on Afghanistan (October 7, 2001). Soon after the U.S. troops conquered the city of Kabul, I saw the then Secretary of State Colin Powell on TV talking enthusiastically about a boy whose kite was flying in the sky of that city. Powell might have been implying that kite flying was symbolizing the independence of Afghanistan under the occupation of foreign troops?

Night Hike | Modern Love | Op-Ed Response

2009-07-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

A Nocturnal Hike in Taliban-Infested Mountains

Reading for Mr Beller's Neighborhood, fall 2008

I hear explosions so loud that the plywood B-hut I’m in shakes. I’m scrambling to collect my gear: my flak jacket, my helmet, my camera, my notepad and pen, and a couple of granola bars to nibble on during the night. I curse myself for being disorganized and missing tonight’s pre-mission briefing as I throw my shit into a bag and run outside.

The only light illuminating this small American base is lunar and stellar. The almost full moon is so bright that you can discern the shadows of boulders, mud brick houses, and small trees on the mountains that surround this camp.

Something in the corner of my eye grabs my attention and I turn around. Across the fast-flowing Pech River which rumbles along one end of camp I see a mountainside engulfed in brilliant red flames.

I start cussing again.

Not only am I late, in danger of missing tonight’s mission up a mountain, but now I have to pull out my damn camera and take pictures. This is too amazing a sight to leave unrecorded.

While setting my camera for a nighttime exposure, I’m suddenly jolted. The 120mm canon – as wide as a cantaloupe – roars back to life in the mortar pit. It’s pumping 50-pound mortars to the other side of the Pech Valley, lighting up mountaintops.

Puffy white clouds appear above the mountains and release Fourth-of-July-bright tentacles of silvery flames. There is a delay in hearing the concussion blast since the mortars are exploding 4 kilometers away. Again, the crimson and tangerine fires that dance across the mountainsides are mesmerizing.

According to Lt. Col. Brett Jenkinson, the Commanding Officer of the Kunar Province in this volatile Eastern Regional Command area, me and a reporter colleague I’m traveling with are in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan, in one of the most hazardous places on earth for an American.

As we sat in the Lt. Colonel’s office a few days earlier at Camp Blessing near the border of Pakistan, I inspected a cutting-board sized curio on a windowsill. It was s a six-inch-thick pane of glass from a Humvee that took a hit from a rocket-propelled grenade. The explosion cracked the window and made a crater, but did not destroy it. I imagine the blast must’ve scared the shit out of the driver.

Most people assume that you’re scared when you’re in a war zone. In my case, I can say I’ve never been frightened. Concerned yes, but scared, no.

I think living in New York City for the past 15 years has done a lot in mitigating my fear. New York is the only city I know of where all people move fast, even when they use canes or are in wheelchairs. I’ve never seen a city where mothers push their baby carriages like aggressive lawnmowers into busy intersections to make traffic stop so they can cross. We live in a bold city, and you got to be brave to live here.

I will admit that when I left Kuwait this past August and our military plane crossed over Afghan airspace I was thinking, I’m actually in a frickin’ war zone! A place where people you don’t know are trying to kill you. It was my second time in Afghanistan, but still I found the thought amusing, that in the span of a day I’d gone from taxis and hot dog vendors to uparmored Humvees and thick-bearded insurgents.

The moment you enter Afghanistan you got to retool your thought-process and enter a combative mindset. Although cautious and ever vigilant, I look forward to conflict. There’s no other way as a war photojournalist. And I was going to be spending 10 weeks all over the country.

On the night of the scheduled hike up a Taliban-infested mountain in the Pech Valley my colleague Doug and I find ourselves at a Forward Operating Base, AKA a FOB, called Able Main. As with most bases in Afghanistan, the base started out with a generic name, like Cobra or Blackhorse, then took the names of a pair of soldiers on base who were killed.

When I arrived at Able-Main, my first thought was, Could they have located this camp in a worse location? Towering mountains, covered with boulders, gullies and trees, all great hiding places, surround the FOB. Attacking the base, located at the foothills of the valley, between a road and the Pech River, is like shooting fish in a barrel.

My second thought when we drove into camp was that it looked like something out of Planet of the Apes. All structures and supplies were low and covered in camouflage netting. ‘This place is hardcore,’ I said to myself. I later discovered that although primitive-looking, the base had functioning showers, a computer room, even a gym and mobile kitchen.

When Doug and I spoke with the commanders of Able Main they explained that this base was purposely placed in an exposed position. U.S. forces wanted to prove to the locals that we were there to offer them help and to hinder insurgent movements between nearby Pakistan and the Kunar Province.

While the success of the base is debatable, one thing is for sure: it is the sweetheart of Taliban attacks.

Soldiers told me about a night in early Fall they refer to as “Vietnam.” At 3AM on September 15 Able-Main was fired upon from four sides of the valley.

The five gunners who man the mortar pit told me how they had to dodge bullets whizzing past them to get to their 120mm gun. The mortar pit is the main target for insurgents. Take out the 120mm gun and you take away the principal firing power of the base, making it vulnerable. There is a portable 60mm back-up gun but that isn’t very effective in comparison. The soldiers, who at the time had only been on the base for six weeks, were able to successfully repel the four-pronged attack, but it was a warning that they would have to remain on their toes.

Able Main, in fact, is attacked by rockets, mortars, small arms fire, on average two times a week, three to four times a week during high season, which runs from late April, after the poppies have been harvested until early November, when snow makes high mountain corridors impassable. At that point most insurgents bury their ammo and weapons in underground caches and return to Pakistan to their families for the winter.

Able Main had been attacked a few hours before we arrived. The insurgents had fired from an uninhabited mountain the soldiers call “Redskins.” In retaliation, Able Main shot off three dozen mortars. Because of the rocky landscape and all the boulders and draws to hide behind and in, actually killing insurgents is very difficult. Even if you did kill one or more you’d never find the bodies because the insurgents always remove the corpses so that they may be given honorable funerals, well within the 24-hour time limit that Muslims require for burial.

Once the big mortars start raining down on them, the insurgents stop fighting and recede into the high mountains, deep valleys, and remote villages. By clandestine operations in the ultra-sensitive Tactical Operation Center (AKA TOC) soldiers are able to listen in on radio communications between insurgents.

On the night of our planned mountain hike up Redskins Mountain, the “chatter” between insurgents was intense. Soldiers know the insurgents are always watching them. No matter how remote a base is or how deserted the terrain seems, there is always someone monitoring the movements of troops. It can be anyone from a local goat-herder who’s paid $10 for information to professional scouts whose job it is to keep track of the comings and goings of soldiers.

The commanders of Able Main feared the insurgents may have known we were planning a nocturnal foot patrol. Walking into an ambush at night wouldn’t be pretty. Thus in order to rout out any insurgents and pre-empt a possible attack, the base shot off explosive mortars and “Willy P”, the nickname they give to White Phosphorous mortars.

Incendiary bombs are very lethal. They explode 150 feet above ground and burn at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. They suck up all oxygen within a 200-foot radius and according to the Geneva Convention are considered too inhumane to be used as weapons. But, this is war, and these soldiers have had it with the Taliban so they blow off a lot of Willy P.

I scurry to the front gate in the darkness and, relieved, find the soldiers still mounting their weapons. I throw on my 25-pound flak jacket and my oversized English helmet that Doug lent me then follow the group to the gate.

The soldiers slowly and methodically exit the wide gate of cortina wire one at a time. They clench their weapons ready to shoot, look around then proceed to either the right or left side of the road, trying to keep near walls and structures in case they need to quickly find cover.

As a photojournalist I get a lot of free reign to do as I please. I can exit with the first soldier or with the 20th one. We have no set rules, but logic dictates that you not be a pain, not get in the way, nor be a liability. Therefore I prudently exit the gate with the fifth soldier, a sturdy 23-year-old from Iowa, then follow closely behind him.

The soldiers walk in silence. They stop in unison every 25 steps, survey the area, then continue. During the pauses I snap pictures in the darkness. I know they’ll be blurry but hope it’ll add drama to the photos.

I’m happy after we cross a bridge and take a dirt path through some trees to begin our ascent. On the road we’re targets. By these trees, rocks and empty buildings I feel like we have more of a chance if we’re attacked.

The idea tonight is to check on nocturnal insurgent activities. We have no idea who might be out here and what they might be carrying. I try to be quiet but even though I’m pretty fit, I’m no spring chicken. The helmet rolls all over my head. The flak jacket is backbreakingly heavy. I do my utmost not to slip off a rock, trip on a log or fall down a cliff. The thought of these soldiers allowing me to go on their mission then me doing something to fuck it up is so abominable that I traipse up the mountain like a mountain goat, albeit a winded, sweaty and aching mountain goat.

The soldiers are very spread out -- clustering together isn’t a good idea in case of an attack. Once we’re high up in the mountain where we can overlook the Pech and adjoining Waterpor Valleys, the soldiers quietly take their positions.

I clamber up a trail past my friend Doug and take a position under a thorn tree below the commander and another soldier.

And there we sit and watch.

The soldiers look vaguely extraterrestrial with the dim green lights glowing on their night-vision goggles. Across the valley, on a ridge, is a small village of mudbrick houses. Dogs are barking. Even though it’s a kilometer or two away, I’m sure the dogs are barking because they sense our presence. I worry that this could tip off the Taliban that we’re in the neighborhood.

I also hear the eerie yips of jackals and some odd crowing coming from the other side of the valley as I take pictures of the soldiers above me and the valley below me. I want to view the pictures but am scared that insurgents might see the light from my LCD screen and either shoot or head in our direction. Doug and I have no idea what, if anything, the soldiers are seeing, so we just sit and observe.

After three hours I pull up a rock for a pillow and remove the Afghan scarf from around my neck for a little blanket. It’s chilly but not cold. The beauty of Eastern Afghanistan is that, opposed to most of the country, this place has trees, vegetation and a sizable river, ergo there is humidity in the air, which holds in the day’s heat to some degree. So the temperature doesn’t sink like a lead weight.

I drift into a light sleep. I think about New York City and figure that by now, in mid-October, most of the leaves have turned and fallen off the trees and that it’s probably gray and rainy. If I were back home I’d be worrying about bills, how to make ends meet and what my next job should be.

But here I am, lying underneath the stars and the silhouette of a thorn tree, listening to crickets like an overaged boy scout. I rest peacefully pondering that at this moment the only concerns I have in my life are getting a few good shots and not being killed by insurgents. I do love New York -- no other city in the world comes close to it in terms of people and things to do -- but right now, I’m happy to be with a bunch of U.S. soldiers out in the open in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan.

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Modern Love: Loving The Soldiers | 30.VI.09, Unpublished

You know you’re in trouble when you enter an Afghan village and the children stay put and scowl instead of running excitedly behind the military vehicles, hoping to get candy, pens or stuffed animals from the soldiers. During my two embeds and accumulated five months in Afghanistan as a freelance photojournalist, I’ve learned children are a good thermometer for registering local sentiment towards soldiers. This Pashtun village of Al-asay was clearly not celebrating our arrival.

I was in an MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) armored vehicle manned by Pennsylvania National Guardsmen. We’d just driven three jolting miles from their small base, Morales-Frazier, on top a dusty bluff, down to the mouth of the luxuriously verdant and notoriously hostile Afghanya Valley, 90 kilometers from Kabul. Things might get ugly, but these soldiers remained calm. They’d already completed a hundred missions.

I wasn’t worried. I trusted them. Although we’d known each other only days, they’d risk their lives to protect me. For that, not only do I give them my respect, but my love. This love has nothing to do with sex, and it’s not a pat-on-the-back love ya thing, but a serious, I-want-to-hug-you-until-I’ve-squeezed-all-the-air-out-of-your-lungs type love.

These soldiers, normal Joes who joined the Guard for financial or patriotic reasons, are among hundreds I met. Befriending people in a war zone happens mousetrap fast. These friendships, forged deep by dire situations, don’t always happen. Sometimes you meet duds or find yourself on a base with a strange vibe where things don’t click. But most soldiers I met were pretty remarkable.

Brave, caring and unselfish they daily put their lives on the line for our country when many Americans can’t explain why we’re in Afghanistan.

But I’m not pointing fingers.

Before arriving in Kabul in 2006 I knew little about Afghanistan. Poppies, Taliban and mountains were the extent of my knowledge. And when it came to the military, I wasn’t a fan.

A child during the hippy era, I picked up on the popular current that flickered across the country. Subliminal messages floated around me: pictures such as the girl sticking daisies in rifle barrels, movie characters like the one-armed ultra-military uncle Victor in Harold and Maude, song lyrics: “how many times must the cannon balls fly, before they’re forever banned?” As a seven-year-old the message was clear: the Vietnam war and the military are bad.

A decade later, in 1983, the year the nuclear holocaust film, “The Day After,” came out and the height of the Cold War, I graduated high school. Mankind’s fate seemed to be held by a few generals who couldn’t get enough missiles. A couple primitive bombs did a pretty thorough job in Japan, did we really need 30,000 high-tech nuclear devices?

In Frankfurt, where I was an exchange student, irate students verbally attacked me in school. I stammered that I had nothing to do with the arms race. I was interested in the latest New Wave albums and haircuts, not in Armageddon with the Soviets. I realized for the first time foreigners might not like me, thinking me a war-mongering American. My German experience further lowered my opinion of the military.

Then in 1996, the year the Taliban took over Afghanistan, I became a flight attendant for a charter that did military flights. My notion of dimwitted soldiers was bolstered when one soldier, drinking prohibited liquor during a flight, vomited somehow into a Coke bottle then handed it to me for disposal.

9/11 changed my views. I was patriotic but had issues with unilaterally invading Iraq.

Then in 2006, I got a call.

A friend from graduate school asked if I wanted to join him in Afghanistan. Doug, a reporter in Boston, knew I was trying to break into photojournalism. If I helped with some video camera work I could photograph and write my stuff on the side.

War, bullets, mortars? Sure, why not. There was nothing better going on in my life, unless you counted my tourist photographer job on board a Manhattan Circle Line yacht.

It seemed odd to be on a commercial flight bound for a war zone. During the taxi ride from the airport to Camp Eggers, in the heart of Kabul, it was hard to imagine this vibrant, exotic country, teeming with life, at war. That is until we reached the concrete barriers and multiple checkpoints of the U.S. base. Doug, a seasoned veteran who’d been to Iraq and Afghanistan 20 times, knew what to do. Everything seemed uptight. I expected the officer meeting us to be some stiff, dour disciplinarian with a crewcut.

Instead Geoff, our military media contact, was a handsome, articulate, college graduate who proved very helpful in getting us started.

In the next few months Doug and I flew all over Afghanistan. I kept on expecting to meet Rambo’s and Patton’s. Instead I met endearing, amazing soldiers. Eventually after quitting a base I’d feel odd pangs of sorrow, like when leaving beloved relatives or friends. Later I realized these pangs were love. I missed these soldiers and their stories: where they’re from, why they joined, who they left behind, what they thought of Afghanistan and its people, what they considered the main problems and possible solutions to be.

Back in New York I couldn’t wait to get back. Two years later I returned, again with Doug, this time for three months.

It was strange to be back at familiar Bagram Airbase with everybody I knew gone.

After three days I wasn’t feeling the vibe. Was my first time a fluke? Would this embed would be fraught with frosty personalities and tight-lipped automatons.

Then, after a three-hour convoy that wound through a vertiginous mountain pass, we arrived in Sorubi where we stayed a week with 10 marines. There was no running water, plumbing, or electricity in their Russian building and we slept on cots in a communal tent, but I savored every moment because these marines were fully welcoming, giving and extremely funny. (Everything you ever heard about marines and their penchant for telling lurid stories about sex and bodily functions is true.)

Major Dan and his men, who drove us to a monthly outdoor U.S. medical clinic in a primitive village of mudbrick buildings and pomegranate orchards, were a great beginning to this embed.

It was only the beginning of a continuous chain of outstanding soldiers: stout Major Katherine at Camp Phoenix who brought us pillows, Joe in Khowst who nightly invited us to watch movies on a big screen TV, Alex and Josh in Herat who took me to the high-tech Afghan military hospital, and fellow Nebraskan Sgt. Jacob at Camp Salerno near Pakistan who actually knew some of my relatives.

I loved them all, and this time I realized it.

When Doug and I arrived at Morales-Frazier, I figured my luck meeting great soldiers couldn’t continue.

Then I spotted the Mohawk.

These Pennsylvanian Guards billeted us in a large tent then invited us for dinner in their concrete building, divided into rooms with plywood. I accompanied brawny Ben and mohawked Andy to an off-base shop to get meat, potatoes and onions. They joked how the young shopkeeper was the biggest crook in Kapisa Province with his exorbitant prices.

After dinner the soldiers started disappearing. Soon I found myself alone with freckled, Mayberry-friendly Sully.

“Boy, you guys sure go to bed early around here,” I mentioned, looking around the empty commons area.

“They’re at the bar, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Sully said.

20 minutes later, stumbling through the darkness, I entered the “bar,” a tent with some tables and a beer cooler, on the French side of camp, and found the Pennsylvanians. They looked up sheepishly, some with worried expressions.

I quickly allied fears I might report them.

“You jerks! I can’t believe you ditched me!” I complained, then started smiling. They apologized, saying they’d been unsure. A consolation Heineken was offered.

I said their disappearing act reminded me of that “Sound of Music” scene when the von Trapp’s sing, “So long, Farewell,” for the Nazis then escape one by one off stage.” They laughed.

By the time we entered the unwelcoming village of Al-asay to consult with village elders about building a girl’s school, I had bonded with this group.

We ate all our meals together. They invited me to the shooting range and let me fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and .50 caliber Humvee-mounted machine gun. At night, after the French had barred Americans from their pub, we hung out in the bone-dry chilly night around a campfire composed of old pallets lit with magnesium incendiary grenades designed to burn through engine blocks at 4000° Fahrenheit.

We chatted for hours sitting in fold-and-carry camping chairs. They explained before arriving in Afghanistan they were told they’d be at a large base, but instead were sent to this isolated base manned by French legionnaires. They also related the harrowing tale of a four-hour gun battle they were engaged in days after their arrival. They became nervous when men were wounded and ammunition was running low.

We laughed when Ben mentioned the time a girl offered him a pair of socks if he’d drop his pants. And I cried when cherubic-looking, brown-eyed Anthony recounted that when he met his wife in Iraq, it was just sex, but after being severely injured in an explosion and sent to Germany in critical condition, he woke up in the hospital with the same woman holding his hand with tears in her eyes.

The upside of being a roving photojournalist is you meet a lot of incredible soldiers. The downside is often you’re not in a place long enough to get to know the soldiers well. At Morales-Frazier, due to difficulties with leaving base, I had time to understand these 15 soldiers.

It was Saturday and seemed unlikely we’d leave. The Pennsylvanians decided on a barbeque that evening. Anthony was going to score beer from the French. I couldn’t wait.

The sun was setting. I was in a fantastic mood, readying my camera. Then Doug rushed into the tent. “Ken pack your bags, we’re flying out in 30 minutes.”

Disorganization plays a big role in the military. You never know when a flight or convoy might materialize.

My heart sunk. I muttered while packing my bags. I ran to the compound to notify them of our departure. The mood immediately deflated.

“Aren’t photojournalists supposed to hang with soldiers to see what their lives are like?” Anthony asked, frowning. We were grasping at straws. We hugged. I left.

I was angry as a scorpion inside a boot and didn’t talk. I reveled in the darkness of the helicopter ride. My red eyes were unseen. I cry after leaving a base of newly made friends, unsure if we’ll ever meet again. I’ll often regret ever having considered soldiers as hicks. Most are indelibly mature, well-mannered and caring. They treated me with respect. Sure, having no sex is difficult, but eventually the simple camaraderie of the soldiers suffices for intimacy.

We arrived in Bagram before the media office closed. The lieutenant there said a flight to Asadabad was leaving at 5 AM, in six hours. Doug said we’d be on it. Visions of machine guns and Doug’s head entered my brain. Then the lieutenant mentioned the name of a photographer I’ve admired for years who was confirmed on the flight.

While walking to our B-hut, Doug, knowing I was excited about meeting this idolized photographer, turned to me, “Are you done being mad at me?” I chuckled.

We flew out the next morning and I met the famous photographer. A few days later we were in the dangerous Pech Valley and I found a whole new group of soldiers to befriend and love.

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Upod Response to Pat Saperstein's Op-ed Piece in LA Times

As a photojournalist who has met hundreds of soldiers during five total months of traveling all over Afghanistan, I’d like to comment on fellow Upoder Pat Saperstein’s July 15th op-ed piece about her son joining the marines.

I found her article insightful and thought-provoking. My first thought was that after making his difficult decision her son deserved full support from family and peers.

As a staunch democrat I can understand a “liberal, antiwar sphere,” but not hostility towards somebody enlisting. Ask a soldier in Afghanistan why the U.S. is there and most will say to improve the lives of Afghans and rid the country of terrorists. These soldiers don’t deserve hostility.

Hesitations about supporting people joining the military are understandable. Before entering the war theater, my view of the military was distorted. Culprits: I grew up as a child during the make-love-not-war anti-Vietnam era, I graduated high school at the height of the Evil Empire Cold War when the military seemed poised to launch an A-bomb at any moment, and I didn’t realize that the mass media is a terrible source to base assumptions about soldiers due to the media’s inherent taste for violence and negative reportage.

Unlike Pat who didn’t know a single soldier, I come from the Republican stronghold of hawkish Nebraska and knew several soldiers growing up. I never thought to ask them about their experiences or thoughts about their service. And often I saw them as not smart enough to get jobs in the “real” world, people who liked shooting and killing things, or who were simply misguided.

I changed my tune when I arrived in Afghanistan. I kept expecting to meet Rambos and Pattons, instead I met some of the most endearing, self-sacrificing, courageous and giving people I’d ever come across. Interviewing these soldiers, taking their pictures during their daily life on base or out on patrols, and observing them during battle, I became fascinated by them.

I learned there was no standard template for people joining the military and that often the decision came down to straightforward things like patriotism, adventure, seeking direction or the simple economics of needing money. Soldiers I met ranged in ages from 18 to nearly 60 and were from every type of background, from trailer parks to Ivy League schools. There were marines who were 18 and looked as innocent and sweet as Pokémon cartoon characters, and other soldiers who were shoe-ins for Buzz Lightyear and Captain America. I met a few soldiers who admitted not liking the military or Afghanistan. Others I encountered suffered from exhaustion because they couldn’t participate in enough programs to help Afghans.

So being “not-terribly-athletic” and “bookish” doesn’t make Pat’s son an unusual enlistee. The only “unconventional Marine” is one who’s cowardly.

As for risks her son may face: the intense camaraderie between soldiers once they enter into a unit cannot be overstated. Soldiers become brothers and will do whatever it takes to protect each other, noncombatives fighting alongside combative if need be. Her son will be in good company.

Lastly, when I read about the mother who feels it’s “her job as a parent to raise her daughter so that there would be no chance she would ever join the military,” I admit feeling indignation. That mother should repeat her words to Kate S., an Air Force nurse I met, who was doing check-ups and distributing medicine to women and children in an isolated dusty village 50 miles west of Kabul, or Katherine O. who organized a program whereby pictures that Afghan children had drawn and painted could be sold to soldiers on her base. This woman makes me recall the words my uncle Bill, a Korean War veteran, told me when as a young boy I asked why we needed a military. “Look at all this!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide as he swept his arm in a broad arc. “You think this is all free and just happens? You’ve got to fight for freedom and then fight to protect it.”

I applaud Pat Saperstein’s son and his brave decision.

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Response to Op-Ed L.A. Times Article

L.A. Times OPINION My son, the Marine At first, we resisted his decision to join the Corps. We still have doubts, but there's also some pride in his choice. By Pat Saperstein July 15, 2009

After we celebrated the Fourth of July with a family barbecue, my 18-year-old son, Sam, shipped out for Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego. The idea of having a son in the military still seems strange, but I'm starting to get used to it.

When Sam first announced his decision, it seemed mystifying that my not-terribly-athletic, bookish son would decide that what he wanted most of all was to be a Marine.

My friends were shocked and offered plenty of advice -- he should see a psychologist; he should consider the Navy; did I realize how underhanded the recruiters could be?

But Sam never had an easy time at school, and he wasn't interested in college, at least straight out of high school. He wanted to be a Marine, period. Since he was a toddler, he's been fiercely stubborn, a child who did exactly what he wanted without much interest in the approval of teachers or parents.

For years, he read up on World War II and the Vietnam War and devoured war novels and fighter plane encyclopedias, though he had little use for history classes at school. It didn't occur to me what his hobby might lead to. We didn't know a single person who served in any branch of the military, other than the grandfathers who fought in World War II.

In some circles, Sam's decision might have seemed practical, even heroic. But in our liberal, antiwar sphere, his desire to enlist was met with shock -- even hostility. I wasn't really surprised at our friends' reactions -- after all, Sam's dad and I were initially opposed. We talked to him over and over about the risks he would face, the unyielding obedience he would need to summon. We spent the last year trying to inject some reality into his somewhat idealized vision of the military, but true to form, his mind would not be changed.

As the parent of a high-schooler, I had to answer the same question at every social event or Trader Joe's encounter: "What is your son doing about college?" That was a hard question, because though I didn't agree with him, it was still his choice, one he felt strongly about.

Often the reaction was pity or even anger. A friend with anarchist leanings pleaded with me to get him counseling. One mother stated firmly that she felt her job as a parent was to raise her daughter so that there would be no chance she would ever join the military. A few people warned that even though he had selected a noncombat job category, the Marines might still require him to face combat. Was that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn't.

Once I got over my initial reticence and started talking to other parents about his choice, I found out that Sam wasn't the only kid we knew who was interested in the military. One boy had nearly joined up but was derailed when he got a mononucleosis-like illness. A colleague's nephew -- a British citizen -- was accepted into the Marines. Another friend's son decided to become an Army medic even though he was nearly finished with college.

My son passed his high school equivalency exam last summer and signed his enlistment papers in the fall, with the understanding that he would be inducted after completing a year of community college. The decision seemed to agree with him. After years of never really getting with the program, years of endless struggles over toothbrushing and homework, he changed in the months after enlisting.

The bedroom that had been the typical teen vortex of dirty plates glued to gaming magazines was suddenly organized and vacuumed. For the first time ever, homework was getting done and chores accomplished, at least some of the time. Despite weekly karate classes, he had started the year with the typical gamer's pudge. Now he woke early on Saturdays for physical training with the recruiter. He watched his diet, joined the Y and got the highest score in his bodybuilding class.

It seemed like he was ready for basic training, but we were still worried about what would come after.

Sam selected aircraft information systems as his job (which, thankfully, involves an entire year of training in mellow Athens, Ga.), and he says if the Marines need him to go into combat, he'll do what is asked of him. Of course I'm worried about Afghanistan, tanks, injuries, psychological scars ... but worrying hardly seems productive.

So he'll be an unconventional Marine -- full of historical facts but short on street smarts, a noncombatant in a branch known for its combat prowess, a kid from a liberal family who's going to really miss Zankou chicken and the taco trucks when he gets to the Marine mess hall.

It wasn't until I started chatting online with a childhood friend just a week before Sam's ship date that I started to make peace with my son's decision to face war. My friend's 20-year-old son recently decided to emigrate to Israel, where he will be required to serve in the Israeli army. "College is a joke if you're not into it," my friend wrote. "Just an expensive waystation for bored kids."

"It's the first lesson in learning to release them," he typed. "To let them do what they feel passionate about."

And then: "Entering the military and serving your country is a lost art among us privileged Angelenos."

I closed the little message box on the computer feeling a little less guilty that I should have done more to stop Sam, and maybe even a little proud of my son for being willing to try something that is completely foreign to us privileged Angelenos.

Pat Saperstein is a senior editor at Variety and editor of the blog EatingLA.com.