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The U.S. base in Grafenwoehr is currently situated where the training camp for the infamous Flossenburg Concentration Camps nearby in WWII. The Grafenwoehr Base is where special commandos were trained to abuse, control and kill detainees during the last five years of the Nazi Reich.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truppen%C3%BCbungsplatz_Grafenw%C3%B6hr
http://www.thirdreichruins.com/flossenburg.htm
Similarly, wherever U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan, they will land in the footprints or at ex-military bases of Taliban forces, Northern Front forces, Soviet Occupiers or other local or global imperialists, from Genghis Kahn to the British forces of the 19th centuries have fought their wars and left their genocidal marks. It is no accident of history that this very week, the most popular political magazine in Germany--DER SPIEGEL's--cover story is called the "Cemetery of Empires" and the title refers, of course, to Afghanistan.
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,ausg-4655,00.html
The subtitle for the "CEMETERY OF EMPIRES" is "Afghanistan: 200 Year War".
The aim of that headline article is to attempts to explain why the Great Powers always collapse in the Hindu Kush highlands. In contrast, Hosseini's novel, THE KITE RUNNER, ends more optimistically because, like Hosseini's own life, the main protagonist, Amir, has become a bit Americanized and is hopeful in the year 2002 that 30 years of war in Afghanistan can be recovered from--"albeit slowly" [Amir recognizes this].
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113265255
Now, we readers are almost ten years further down the line in the 21st Century and most Germans this cold winter do not believe that either in the middle or long term, the mission of NATO forces in Afghanistan will succeed. Similarly, Americans are not so sure either. Nonetheless, NATO and America are readying to go several more rounds with their enemies in the Hindu Kush.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673790,00.html
Do the American soldiers and their NATO leaders really understand what Hosseini has shared in THE KITE RUNNER is that piece-by-piece the past can be overcome--however--such recovery takes decades and more importantly a will (or a strong desire) to change by all the hundreds of political and religious factions in Afghanistan?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,674081,00.html
Amir had the will to change and to do good. But do the thousands of other tribes, factions, victims, and perpetrators of violence in Afghanistan?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,674080,00.html
Perhaps NATO and the American military want or desire to do good, but if the other participants don't play, perhaps it is time to go home--like the other Great Powers before them.
