Kite Runner

1. Kite Runner Notes

2. Hosseini • Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. • In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. • They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army. • The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini's family moved to San Jose, California.

3. Khaled discusses http://www.khaledhosseini.com/hosseini-bookgroupdiscussion.html • Exile • Conditions in Afghanistan

4. Capital: Kabul (Current local time) Government Type: Islamic republic Chief of State: President HamidKarzai Population: 33.609 million Area: 249,935 square miles; slightly smaller than Texas GDP Per Capita: $800`

5. Overview of US- Afghan relations • The United States has been militarily involved in Afghanistan since 2001, when it led an invasion after the Sept. 11 attacks by Al Qaeda. • The group had been given safe haven in the country by the Taliban, the extremist Islamic group that had seized control in 1996 after years of civil war. • The 2001 invasion succeeded in dislodging Al Qaeda and removing the Taliban from power, but not in eradicating either group. • Fueled by profits from the opium trade and dissatisfaction with the weak and often corrupt new Afghan government, the Taliban has made a steady comeback, particularly in the Pashtun regions of the south and east where the group originated.

6. Soviet Invasion (from the NY times) http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.html • THE SOVIET INVASION • Three decades ago, Afghanistan was a stable, relatively prosperous and relatively secular country. The turmoil and extremism that have dominated its history since then can be traced to the 1979 invasion by the Soviet Union and the reaction both by Afghans and by their allies in the United States and Pakistan. • But it was almost a century later that Moscow's role in Afghan affairs reached its peak, when the Soviet invasion descended into a prolonged and bloody occupation that was in many ways comparable to the American experience in Vietnam. • The first Soviet troops parachuted into Kabul on Dec. 27, 1979, to assist BabrakKarmal, who had become president in a coup within the Afghan Communist leadership. Moscow insisted that the troops came in response to a plea for help from a legitimately constituted Karmal Government. But most Western analysts say the Soviets engineered the coup as a pretext to replace HafizullahAmin, the Afghan leader, who had lost their trust.

7. Conflict in Afghanistan • 1979The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. Mujahedeen — Islamic fighters — from across the globe, including Osama bin Laden, come to fight Soviet forces. • 1989 Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan. • 1996 The Taliban take control of Afghanistan, imposing fundamentalist Islamic law. Osama bin Laden takes refuge in the country. • Sept. 2001 After the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush gives the Taliban an ultimatum to hand over bin Laden; the Taliban refuse, and in October the U.S. leads a campaign that drives the Taliban out of major Afghan cities by the end of the year. • 2002HamidKarzai becomes interim president of Afghanistan. The Taliban continue to wage guerrilla warfare near the border with Pakistan. • 2004 New constitution is ratified, making Afghanistan an Islamic state with a strong president. Later, Mr. Karzai wins the country’s first presidential election. • Feb. 2009 President Obama orders 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. • Aug. 2009 President Karzai wins re-election in a vote marred by fraud. • Dec. 2009 President Obama issues orders to send 30,000 troops in 2010, bringing the total American force to about 100,000. • Recent: * A review of President Obama’s strategy for the war in Afghanistan concludes that American forces can begin withdrawing on schedule in July 2011, despite finding uneven signs of progress in the year since the president announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops.

8. Soviet invasion cont • Soviet troops stayed in the country for more than nine years, fighting a conflict that cost them roughly 15,000 lives and undisclosed billions of rubles, while undermining the cherished image of an invincible Soviet Army. • The Kabul Government generally kept a firm grip on the cities, but throughout the war was unable to rout the rebels in the countryside, where the conservative populace was antagonized at the outset by changes in social and land policies that offended Muslim tradition. • After 1986, the Soviet Air Force was also rendered largely useless by advanced Stinger antiaircraft missiles supplied by the United States to the rebels. • Eventually, after peace talks moderated by the United Nations, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989, in what was in effect a unilateral withdrawal. • They left behind a country that was not only devastated by the war but that had become a beacon to Islamic extremists from across the globe who had come to assist in the fighting, including Osama bin Laden and the group he helped found, Al Qaeda.

9. THE TALIBAN TAKEOVER • After Soviet forces departed, Afghanistan descended into vicious internecine strife; by the summer of 1994, power was anarchically divided among competing warlords and individual fiefdoms. But one group would eventually gain control. • The Taliban grew out of a student movement dedicated to purifying the country, based in the southeast, the home of the dominant ethnic group, the Pashtun. • In a story that is now part of Afghan folklore, the group's first action occurred when Mullah Omar, a Pashtun who had lost an eye fighting the Soviets, gathered a small band of men and attacked a group of warlords who had raped a girl and shaved her head.

10. Yet even with popular support, the Taliban might have withered were it not for the intervention of Pakistan, the neighbor to the east. As early as 1994, Pakistani intelligence officers began funneling arms, money and supplies to Mullah Omar's men, as well as military advisers to help guide them in battle. • Buoyed by Pakistani aid, the Taliban by 1996 had taken control of Afghanistan, imposing strict enforcement of fundamentalist Islamic law, banning movies and music and forcing women out of schools and into all-enveloping burqa clothing. • The Taliban also provided a haven for Mr. bin Laden, who arrived by chartered jet at Jalalabad Airport in May 1996, and for Al Qaeda. Western diplomats say Al Qaeda helped persuade Mullah Omar to order the destruction of the 800-year-old Buddha statues at Bamiyan, an act condemned around the world. International criticism of the Taliban's harsh measures had little effect on the regime, which seemed almost to welcome pariah status.