I have been enrapt on many levels for the past two nights with the memoir, "Come Back To Afghanistan; Trying to Rebuild a Coutry wih My Father, My Brother, My One Eyed Uncle, Bearded Tribesmen, and President Karzai". This memoir is personally moving during this election as we recall that Obama had called for entering Afghanistan and NOT Iraq, and how the boy's tale mirrors somewhat Obama's story of longing for a foreign father. it is the tale of an Afghani teenager who lives in a California subburb loves, U2, and is totally American but perceived as Afghani. I am forced to realize this is a similar story for all Americans in a sense, unless they are native. He beautifully explains the awkward moments his parents have in California as they try to adjust to American life. He then takes us to the Soviet invasion through his parents eyes. His father was the head of the government run Kabul radio when the Soviets take over the city. The family snuck across the Pakistani border in the darkness to escape persecution. He then explains the power vacume that emerged with the Sovivet withdrawal and the end of the Cold War, which opened the door to warlord battles and the rise of the Taliban.
This young man with spectacular filial piety and love of his motherland, oins his father as he is asked by the newly appointed President Karzai to help rebuild the country. He was often answering a cell phone with the New Yok Times, or Washington Post on the line while mayhem reigned outside his bombed out hotel rooom. Amazingly he can make you laugh and feel like the whole tale is a long interview with Jon Stuart. You will laugh at his teenage vantage points, you will cry at US complicity, bungling and ignorance on the ground in Afghanistan. You will also, I believe come away with a sense that this is indeed where the terrorist attacks originated, and indeed they were plotted in a cave, by a group of dirty, bearded, sick but persistent fanatics. If we could STOP and THINK and PLAN using the leading minds and tactitians, not just high tech weapons, we would have rebuilt every school in Afghanistan and made them so happy the Soviets were gone for good and they could go back to the sophisticated, eggalitarian lifestyleee that was Kabul before the war.
The amazing thing about both the author and the story is his age. I turned the bok over and realized e is a senior at Yale University, where I live right now. I am looking for a way to contact him. His father now works for President Karzai. I hope one day to speak with this inspiring young man. If you read the book, you will feel more convinced that Obama was so right about the need to focus aide and attention in this war ravaged country.
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