(MIP-1) The destruction …show more content…
(STEWE-1) "IT WAS a bonus for the Taliban. Last week, an American air strike aimed at the house of a suspected militant in Ghazni province, deep in the disaffected south of Afghanistan, shredded nine children playing marbles in the earth nearby" (“Making enemies; Afghanistan”). During the novel, we see Najmah experience this loss with her baby brother Habib, who was just born a couple weeks ago. (STEWE-2) "Habib lies motionless a few feet behind her, facedown in the dirt, his little arms flung out to his sides in the way he throws them wide when he lies naked on the cot swimming for joy in the fresh air" (Staples 67). After the strikes, Najmah’s home was left in pieces. She was left alone in this world with no one else, not even her newborn baby brother Habib, to accompany and help her get through this. (STEWE-3) "I turn Habib over. He is lifeless, his small body heavy and still. His eyes are closed, and dust covers every inch of him" (Staples 82). The conflict that she is faced with is unstoppable, she cannot prevent these airstrikes from happening, and cannot even protect her family from it. (SIP-B) But not only just Habib, but even her own mother was taken from her in the airstrike on Golestan. (STEWE-1) "My mother lies on the ground nearby with her legs splayed at odd angles to the rest of her" (Staples 67). Imagine what is going through Najmah’s head, picture yourself coming home after leaving your family for a few days, only to see them along with everything you’ve ever owned and loved, be destroyed in an airstrike sent out by a foreign country. (STEWE-2) “She reaches her hand toward me, and opens her lips to speak. Instead of words, blood pours from her mouth. By the time I reach her she stares with glassy, dead eyes” (Staples 67). And it isn’t until after the strike that you