I just finished Three Cups of Tea, a great book about Greg Mortenson’s incredible efforts building schools in Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. I’m not going to write an essay right now, but I sense a venting about how the United States has handled Afghanistan coming as a result of reading the book. For tonight, I’ll just post a quote which I think makes the point that we are not solving anything by engaging militarily. The quote came at a speaking opportunity Greg had to a room full of members of Congress and their senior staff. During that speaking engagement, one of the congressman said “Building schools for kids is just fine and dandy. But our primary need as a nation is now security. Without security, what does it all matter?” Greg responded by saying:
I don’t do what I’m doing to fight terror. I do it because I care about the kids. Fighting terror is maybe seventh or eight on my list of priorities. But working over there, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happends because children aren’t offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.
Anyway, for those of you who don’t 
