1- From where I live, I remember feeling confusion, and worrying.
CNN International began running 24-hour repeat broadcasts. Overnight, the news had turned into
"THE WAR ON AFGHANISTAN", with a flashy visual introduction and special music, a cross between an advert and a popular Saturday evening show ( Now, in December 2007, the hammering is headed " America votes 2008" , associated with a different piece of music.)

If I turned to BBC World, the news content was much the same (minus flashy packaging).


2-Chapter 49.

2001. The characters, now living in Pakistan, are watching the news with Sayeed, a Pakistani.

[A few days after the attacks, Laila and Tariq are in the hotel lobby again. On the TV screen, George Bush is speaking. There is a big American flag behind him. At one point, his voice wavers, and Laila thinks he is going to weep.
Sayeed, who speaks English, explains to them that Bush has just declared war.
"On whom?" says Tariq.
"On your country, to begin with." ]

This is for me one of the best examples in the book of what is so special about Hosseini's writing and what had attracted me to The Kite Runner.
What do you think?

I had two powerful emotional reactions to the book, both of which sound pretty obvious when stated verbally. First, as I mentioned here, being a woman in a Tablian society sucks. Second, war sucks. And both of those reactions have a lot more visceral impact when you see individuals (even fictional) suffering, instead of considering things abstractly.

For example, Laila's mother Fariba supported the war against the Soviets and the Communist Afghan government. However, that war, along with the subsequent Afghan civil war, ended up kill her two sons, her husband, and her. While that's an extreme case, people in a war zone suffer enormously.

The horrors of war are clear to me from my readings and lead to me opposing most wars. However, many people don't seem to appreciate the negative consequences of war, both in terms of the harm it causes and that the subsequent post-war situation is often worse than things were beforehand. During the debate over whether the US should invade Iraq, the awful nature of warfare rarely came up, to my aggravation.

I have a question: are there examples in democracies of voters re-electing a president in the middle of an unpopular war in which the enemy (Saddam Hussein) was not threatening the voters' country to begin with?
The only one I can think of is the UK: Tony Blair was elected three times, but then the number of soldiers involved was small, and the opposition -- the Conservatives-- had lost all credibility long before and could not be thought of an option in favour of peace.

George Bush and John Howard won the 2004 elections in US and Australia, despite the Iraq war being somewhat unpopular in both countries. Richard Nixon was re-elected in 1972, when the Vietnam War faced serious opposition.

Usually, an unpopular war causes electoral difficulties for the party in power, as you would expect.

Thanks Julian.

I don't remember Bush being about to cry.

I do remember being terribly impressed with him at that time - he struck me as a president who would put his money where his mouth is.

At least he's doing something, was the thought I had.

I don't know about now though . . . he seems to be obsessed with war.

Something I did keep thinking and saying aloud, after 911 was this - why don't the US just put their money into defending the homefront from the homefront?

The idea of going over there (Afghanistan) was to catch Bin Laden and his merry little band . . . pointless, really.

People would have been offended to see missiles aimed at the skies at all times and very severe caution in place at the borders - which there oughta' have been from the get go - but Americans and Canadians must understand that our leadership has the responsibility of protecting us.

Anyway, I didn't mean to get into talking politics - I just thought you were looking for a reply.

But if you wanna' talk about it, then by all means, I'm game - I could go on and on and on about what I think.


Carly :-0