Abstract
It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate that by treating all "detainees" from Afghanistan under rules governing terrorists rather than those of Prisoners Of War as defined under the Geneva Conventions, the United States is effectively making null rules that help to make the inhumane human, to make the damages of war a little less brutal. The United States is making a mistake, one that it cannot afford.

Tags:afghani, prisoners, war

Abstract
This paper analyzes the theme of loyalty and betrayal in these two Afghani novels by Yasmina Khadra and Khaled Houseini. The paper discusses the terrible tyranny of Taliban society over the friendship of Amir and Hassan, and so must Mohsen and his wife struggle with the dire consequences of their eventual betrayal of one another. In this manner, the paper shows how Atiq and the other marriages involved in Khadra's novel reflect a similar sense of loyalty and betrayal through relationships that Houseini provides on the strict conditions of life under the Taliban.

Tags:aghani, literature, kabul

Abstract
Situation of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Afghani women as victims of "gender apartheid." Taliban regulations based on the Quran. Bans including wearing the burka, speaking loudly, education, leaving home unaccompanied. Violation of women including beatings, stonings, hanging, rape, inadequate health care. Some changes brought about by the Northern Alliance.

From the Paper
"Afghani Women Under The Taliban

Long before September 11, 2001, the world community was aware that under the rule of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the situation of women was at best dire and at worst intolerable. Deborah Ellis (10) reported in March 2001 in a series of interviews she conducted with women living under the oppressive and brutal Taliban regime, that what was revealed was a story so horrifying and so terrible that it is difficult to understand why the civilized world allowed the Taliban to remain in power. This report will examine the conditions imposed upon women by the Taliban during their tenure thankfully ended and will argue that the distorted version of Islam practiced by this group was focused in many ways upon the containment and abuse of women, who were victims of what Noy Thrupkaew (18) calls gender ..."

Abstract
A comparison and contrast of the thought of Jamal al-Afghani and Muhammad al-Abudh, who were both reformers and modernists in Islam but whose approach to the actual project of reform was different in emphasis.

From the Paper
"What must be understood about Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad al-Abduh first of all is that they were Islamists but also versions of Islamist reformers whose career successes can be measured against their ability to inculcate an appreciation of the irrevocability of the modernist juggernaut and whose frustrations and failures as exponents of Muslim partisans can be attributed as much to Islamist orthodoxy with which they were completely familiar and that they could never quite relinquish as to the Western culture that they tended to despise and oppose."

Tags:al-Afghani, Islam, al-Abduh, Islam, reformism, modernization

Abstract
This paper argues that the education of women in Afghanistan should become an important national policy goal, further citing why education is beneficial to the nation overall. According to the paper, the education of Afghani women will provide three significant advantages. First, education will improve the economic performance of the nation, allowing women to serve more actively within the nation's workforce. Second, education will allow mothers to better educate their children in the home. Finally, education is needed to overcome the oppression of women and to combat discrimination based upon sex. Additionally, the paper examines the current status of education in Afghanistan, showing how access is often based on gender. The paper also notes that educating women will help end poverty in this country. The paper cites Pakistan as a nation that has encouraged education of its women in certain professions. The paper concludes by stating that the nation of Afghanistan will enjoy many benefits from the widespread practice of educating its female citizens.

Outline:
Introduction
The Status of Education in Afghanistan
The Advantages of Educating Women in Afghanistan
Barriers to Change
The Example of Pakistan
Conclusion and Recommendations

From the Paper
"The nation cannot thrive by concentrating upon the education of men only. The educational progress of women is very important to the nation as well. Women, like men, can also work outside of the home. The greater number of workers creates a more diverse labor pool. This helps companies find the employees that they need to expand their operations, enabling economic growth.
"The economic advantage of education is not the only reason to support the education of women. Education serves as the gateway for improved rights for women. "Education has been the stumbling block keeping women from attaining equal status in society, separating them from their male counterparts. It has also been the door to this elusive dream" (Horany and Urich 1). Education serves as the gateway to improved economic opportunities. Financial independence is necessary if women are to gain equal status within society."

Tags:Pakistan, Islam, literacy, work force

Abstract
This paper reviews Khaled Hosseini's novel, "The Kite Runner" with an emphasis on how women were portrayed in the work. The paper notes that this portrayal is actually in the absence of women in the book. Additionally, the review explores how Afghani culture is described in the work and introduced to Western readers. The paper concludes by stating that in "The Kite Runner", Hosseini not only presents the reader with an intriguing tale of Afghanistan, friendship, and redemption, but he also involves two themes regarding women--their absence and their understanding.

From the Paper
"Probably the strongest of the two themes that Hosseini involves in his novel is the theme of women's absence. In the first few pages of the book, the reader learns that both Amir and Hassan are motherless, and that they both had the same wet nurse. While Amir's mother dies giving birth to him, Hassan's mother runs away with what is described as a performing circus. Known to be a rather promiscuous woman, Sanaubar's decision to leave her family was "a fate worse than death," in Afghan society (Hosseini 6). But even though their mothers left them in very different ways, both Amir and Hassan are profoundly impacted by their absence. Hassan's mother's absence causes him to be the butt of even more jokes than his Hazara ethnicity."

Tags:Afghanistan, Hazara, friendship, mothers

Abstract
This paper examines how terrorism is a global problem that most Americans only vaguely recognized prior to September 11th. It looks at the changes in American policy regarding terrorism and what has become known as President Bush's "War on Terror." It examines initiatives undertaken such as freezing terrorist funding and "Operation Enduring Freedom" which dismantled the Al-Qaeda center of operations in Afghani capital city Kabul by expelling the Taliban and taking Qaeda combatants into custody. It evaluates the problems in dismantling international terrorist groups due to networking coordination and implication that the war on terror may be too big to fight in the fashion with which we have thus far pursued it.

From the Paper
"After his expulsion from Saudi Arabia in the early 1980's, bin Laden found a bastion for his views in the arms of the Taliban, hardcore Islamic governing body of Afghanistan. Bin Laden contributed largely to an Afghani resistance of Soviet incursion both from his own inheritance, an amount disputed to be anywhere between thirty and three hundred million, and with Reagan administration assistance, both in terms of finance and arms. Since that time, Al Qaeda has steadily grown in influence and economic strength. A rising Third-World disenfranchisement from and distaste for imperialist Western foreign policies has incited a healthy dose of international animosity, which in many ways is centered in the oft slighted Moslem populations of the world."

Tags:bin, laden, al, qaeda, taliban

Abstract
This paper explains that the redefinition of Islam relates to the socio-economic environment, political factors and the key personalities that shape the religion's character and direction. Next, the author relates the traditional, Islamic and modern frameworks and the key figures including Afghani, Abduh, Raziq and Khomeini that guide the Islamic reform. The paper concludes that, although Islam is open to empowering its members to question the rationality of its leaders' very often unilateral decision-making, these challenges always must be made within the basic tenets of the Qur'an.

From the Paper
"Within the process of introspection, one would ask as to how receptive is Islam when it comes to change. Mernissi (1992) noted that the receptiveness of the west as seen in the practice of democracy is the key its success. A demand for the ideals emerged in the slogans of the masses who marched in the streets of Algiers, Tunis and Rabat to protest the gulf War and bombing of Baghdad. When the masses shout their desire for democracy, fear enters the corridors of entrenched power. Those who have control over decision making will naturally try to transfer the ancestral fear of the West into the idea of democracy itself."

Tags:communities authenticity, civil society, empowerment, decision making

Abstract
This paper examines how "The Kite Runner" is a novel of irony and in particular, the irony of the immigrant experience in America, focusing on the experience of Afghani Muslim-Americans. In particular, it looks at how America acts as a place for the character of Amir to bury his memories and a place for the character of Baba to mourn his.

From the Paper
"The novel's narrative structure circularity also gives it an additional level of irony, as Amir and Baba came to the United States for escape, yet they are pursued by their past nationality, religion, and in Amir's case, by a past of memories. Baba often seeks to immerse himself in memories of a past long gone, despite the potential for a new life in America. But Amir, even with his intense desire to cast off the memories of the old world of Afghanistan and his cruelties as a child cannot fully embrace the new life of an immigrant experience. "

Tags:amir, immigrant, baba

Abstract
This is a question of perspective and of side. Depending upon the side you find yourself upon, your ideology, and your religion, determining who is fighting for the greater good and who is simply a terrorist is an impossibility of perception. Culturally, there is a great deal of support for freedom fighters. They are associated with the development of anti-oppression movements that we most closely associate with the American Revolution. To the British, the Boston Massacre was the suppression of terrorists, to the Americans, it was the massacre of innocents seeking nothing more than personal and communal freedom. This is how the world perceives Afghanis, members of Al Qaeda, and the combatants in Chechnya - as either terrorists or freedom fighters. It is the purpose of this paper to examine differences in perspectives on terrorism and how each group is perceived.

Tags:POLITICAL SCIENCE / TERRORISM, terrorists or fighters