Missiles versus Schools for Pakistan's Tribal Areas

Taliban's Resurgence

The voices of the critics of Bush administration are being raised again more loudly and clearly as the resurgent Taliban step up their attacks and cause more casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to a BBC report today, nine US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, in one of the biggest losses of American life in a single incident since operations there began in 2001. Another news report said militants in north-west Pakistan have killed at least eight Pakistani soldiers. At least 22 other Pakistani troops were wounded in the attack on their convoy outside Hangu city, near the border with Afghanistan. Three militants were said to have been killed as the soldiers returned fire.

In addition to the killing of military personnel, the Taliban have targeted many civilians and killed a Pakistani medical doctor and a number of Shia citizens last week. Several UNICEF health workers have also been kidnapped.

It Takes Schools, Not Missiles

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff has an Op Ed piece titled "It Takes a School, Not Missiles" in today's newspapers. Reviewing Greg Mortenson's book "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time", Kristoff argues "a lone Montanan (Mortenson) staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration". Kristoff quotes Greg Mortenson, an Army veteran, as saying “Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing some Taliban around the country".

Who is Greg Mortenson?

For those readers unfamiliar with Greg Mortenson and his volunteer efforts in building schools in Pakistan, here is a brief summary:

In 1993, Greg Mortenson, an American from the state of Montana, went to climb K2, the world's second highest mountain, in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan. After more than 70 days on the mountain, Mortenson and three other climbers completed a life-saving rescue of a fifth climber that took more than 75 hours. After the rescue, he began his descent of the mountain and became weak and exhausted. Two local Balti porters took Mortenson to the nearest city, but he took a wrong turn along the way and ended up in Korphe, a small village, where he recovered.

To pay the remote community back for their compassion, Mortenson said he would build a school for the village. After a frustrating time trying to raise money, Mortenson convinced Jean Hoerni, a Silicon Valley pioneer, to found the Central Asia Institute. A non-profit organization, CAI's mission is to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hoerni named Mortenson as CAI's first Executive Director.

In the process of building schools, Mortenson has survived an eight-day armed 1996 kidnapping in the tribal areas of Waziristan in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, escaped a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords, endured a fatwā by an angry Islamic cleric for educating girls, and received hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.

He believes that the best way to "fight" terrorism is to build schools free of the Taliban's oversight (because he believes the Taliban promotes hatred). Because of this, several of the school's Mortenson's group built were destroyed by the Taliban, but the communities rebuilt them.

Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times best selling book Three Cups of Tea. During the serialization of the book on BBC Radio 4 in 2008, the BBC reported that Greg Mortenson had set up over sixty schools and as a result over 25,000 children had been educated. Pennies for Peace is a program Mortenson launched to involve American school-children in fund-raising efforts for the schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What Brought Us Here?

As we criticize the Bush policies and demand the building of more schools rather than launch more missile attacks, I think it’s important to understand the origins of the Taliban and then try to deal with the effects of their ascendancy. Most of the radical madrasahs in Pakistan were built in the 1980s with the support of the CIA, the ISI and the Saudis as a way of finding, recruiting and preparing young men to fight against the Soviet Union. The madrasahs before the 1980s were neither radical nor politicized. Most were focused on feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing an Islamic education to youngsters with normal emphasis on Jihad as a way of rectifying social ills. The pre-1980 madrasahs were not exclusively focused on Jihad against the infidels (Russians in 1980s and Americans in this decade). The Taliban are, in fact, a product of these post-1980 radicalized madrsahs. The Taliban are mostly the children of the Afghan refugees from the war in 1980s who attended the new madrasahs in Pakistan while their home country was under Soviet occupation.

More Schools, Fewer Missiles


I strongly agree with the criticism of the Bush policy of relying excessively on military force to contain the Taliban. I think the efforts of Mr. Mortenson are extremely laudable.

I believe that the efforts like Mr. Mortenson’s should increasingly complement rather than completely replace the efforts of the military in providing security to Pakistani and Afghani people to live normal, peaceful lives. The post-1980 FATA is very different from pre-1980s FATA. The influence of the tribal elders has been completely supplanted by the Taliban leaders. Any peace efforts by peace jirgas lead to the murder of the jirga elders as soon as the military leaves the area. No one is safe from the Taliban’s fire power in the absence of Pakistani military. Not even school children who choose to attend schools not acceptable to the Taliban.

Choose Soft Power

Rather than just choosing between schools and missile, it is important that the US, Afghan and Pakistani authorities use an appropriate mix of sticks and carrots and shift more and more toward the use of soft power as the security situation improves and the people on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border begin to enjoy the fruits of peace in the region.