What's wrong with THE KITE RUNNER?

Last year, the U.S. studio behind "The Kite Runner," based on the 2003 best-selling novel by U.S.-based Afghan author Khaled Hosseini, had to get its three young stars out of their homeland before the movie debut to protect them from a possible backlash. Why? They claim that it's because of the film's depiction of one boy's rape and other scenes of conflict between members of Pashtun and Hazara tribes.

WP: Tribes? What century are we in?

Ahmad Jaan Mahmoodzada, father of Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada who plays Hassan, has said in media interviews that he was not informed about the rape scene until just before it was shot.

WP: Um...did anyone read the script before signing on? Or perhaps even the book?

Not surprisingly, now Afghanistan has banned the import and exhibition of "The Kite Runner," a film about the troubled friendship of two Afghan boys, on the grounds that it could incite violence.

WP: After seeing the film a couple of weeks ago, I have this observation: the rape scene and portrayal of these "tribes" have nothing to do with why Afghanistan would want to ban the book, film, etc. It has to do with FACTS being shown that over the past few decades, Afghanistan has rapidly declined economically, politically, and socially due to the Taliban takeover. And that, my friends, is why they don't want their peoples to see the film. They don't want to remind their people how fucked up they are because they've reverted to some backwards society out of the BC era.