Two recent NY Times stories mention Greg Mortenson, the former mountain climber who found his calling building schools in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
An article published July 7 2010 describes Mortenson’s deepening relationship with the US military. This news is both encouraging and scary. Encouraging, because it indicates that Mortenson is stepping up his efforts to convince the military that building schools with local involvement is a more productive way to win Afghan hearts and minds than military force is. Also encouraging, because it suggests that military leaders are growing more receptive to Mortenson’s ideas. However, Mortenson’s relationship with the military is also scary because it could reduce Afgan and Pakistani trust in “Dr. Greg” and his organization, and increase the likelihood that some will view him, his co-workers, and the schools they build as targets. It is also scary because of the possibility that Mortenson is being used by the military to learn more about “the enemy” for combat purposes. [Read article]
An op-ed article by Pulizer-prize-winning author Nicolas Kristof, published July 29, points out — as Mortenson also has — that about 20 schools can be built for the cost of putting one US soldier in Afghanistan for a year. Kristof offers the opinion that spending US taxpayer dollars on the schools would do far more to neutralize the Central Asian breeding ground for terrorists than does spending it on sending additional combat troops, as President Obama is doing. [Read article]
July 31, 2010 at 6:08 pm |
For more insight, watch Greg Mortenson on Charlie Rose:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11140
He makes it clear there is no military solution in Afghanistan; and that he favors more dissemination of more information from the field to the public, as in the recent Wikileaks disclosure of civilian casualties.
In the interview, he also states that the Afghan elders asked him to be a conduit to coordinate meetings with the U.S. commanders. He also meets with the Taliban, of which he receives criticism in the U.S. How many people in the entire U.S. government have ever met with the Taliban? Only through dialogue and debate, and not bombs and bullets can there be peace.
August 2, 2010 at 11:47 am |
What would you make of the notion of the President encouraging U.S. citizens to “help the war effort” by investing in schools in Afghanistan (e.g., via the Central Asia Institute), in much the same way citizens were encouraged to invest in War Bonds during WWII? As has been pointed out many, many times, only military families (and the national debt) are currently bearing the burden of this war. If the Afghans felt a significant portion of the American electorate cared about their way of life, perhaps our troops’ efforts would seem more genuine. Or does “seem” read as a Freudian slip?