Books not bombs

This is almost encouraging - Nicholas Kristof's column in Sunday's NY Times where he discusses the sucess of Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, who has built schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in operation. His focus is educating girls. Below is an excerpt and an link to the full essay.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13kristof.html

July 13, 2008
NY Times
Op-Ed Columnist
It Takes a School, Not Missiles
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[ . . . ]
“Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing some Taliban around the country,” says Mr. Mortenson, who is an Army veteran.

Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.

The Pentagon, which has a much better appreciation for the limits of military power than the Bush administration as a whole, placed large orders for “Three Cups of Tea” and invited Mr. Mortenson to speak.

“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. ... The thirst for education here is palpable.”