Book reviews and politics.

Abut a year ago daughter Deb gave me a book named, "Three Cups of Tea, One Man's Mission to Promote Peace" by Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber who had spent time in pre 9-11 Afghanistan. He realized that an entire remote Afghanistani village and thence all of Afghanistan could be transformed by educating the young girls in the villages. I can't summarize the book here but suffice it to say that building schools one at a time worked well enough to cause the Taliban to target these schools and replace the with madrases through terror when they took over. Anyway before 9-11 he spent a lot of time organizing schools in remote villages. All was lost when the Taliban took over after 9-11.
Last week brother Bob gave me a book with a different approach to the problems in Afghanistan called "Horse Soldiers" about the U.S. Special Forces sent into Afghanistan to rout the Taliban after 9-11. While I hold the highest regard for those who risk their lives in the service of our country I disagree with the policies that got them there. And reading both books and watching 1000 years of history convinces me that the Three Cups of Tea approach will get us what we want faster than the use of force. Other than higher technology (which just destroys more) what are we doing different from the British or the Russians before us? We will have a longer list of dead for me to meditate over each Sunday.
The politics of Afghanistan shows that we're all on this flight together.

Dick