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Some people have said that our government's response to the Al Qaeda attacks was like trying to shoot down mosquitoes with
artillery when what you really need is to drain the swamp that is creating the mosquitoes.
After the September 11 attacks, I remember seeing news clips of children in Pakistani schools run by the Sunni fundamentalist
Wahhabi sect. Because the Pakistani government has failed to provide schools for these children, Saudi Arabians are underwriting
their education into radicalism. They are indoctrinating the next generation of recruits for terrorist organizations.
I wondered then how much more effective it might have been for the U.S. to team with moderate Moslem leaders to replace
those schools with something more benign. In order to defeat terrorism we will have to offer people a more attractive alternative
and a more hopeful future. This is a struggle for hearts. You don't win this struggle with bombs. Some observers are now
concluding that we have lost the war in Iraq because we have alienated and lost the hearts of its people.
I like better the strategy of Greg Mortenson who says he is fighting the war on terror the way he thinks it should be
conducted.
Back in 1993 Greg Mortenson was fulfilling a lifelong interest in mountain climbing by ascending to the world's second-tallest
peak, a mountain called K2 in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalayas. His attempt failed. He never made it to the top. Exhausted
and disoriented during the descent, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan.
Alone, without food, water, or shelter he eventually stumbled emaciated into the impoverished Pakistani village of Korphe
where for seven weeks he was sheltered and nursed back to health.
While recovering he watched the village's 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching lessons in the dirt with sticks. The
village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. As he left the village, in thanksgiving
for their kindness, he promised that he would return to build them a school.
He had no experience in fund raising. In one early effort, he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen and other
prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC's Tom Brokaw. So, Mortenson sold everything he owned. That
netted him $2,000. The big turnaround came when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin had a penny
drive. The children collected 62,300 pennies and donated $623 to Mortenson's effort. The story had legs. The children's
gift became a tipping point, catching the attention of adults, and Mortenson began to attract larger donations. Jean Horni,
a Swiss physicist gave the first large gift of $1 million in 1996 to build a bridge and a school in the village where Mortenson
had been cared for.
Patiently enduring the subterfuge of corrupt officials and hostility from locals whose leaders had long memories of unfulfilled
American promises of such help in exchange for their services during the war against Russia and Afghanistan, he persevered.
Under the auspices of the Central Asia Institute he has built 55 schools in twelve years. He's helped create fourteen other
Women's Vocational Centers and more than 25 potable water stations. He did this in a region where Americans are feared and
hated, in a region that is a breeding ground for the Taliban. He has survived fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated
death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and two children to spend up to half of his year in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mortenson has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders and tribal chiefs for his tireless effort to champion
education, especially for girls. This year the schools will educate 24,000 children. He is being called a one-man mission
to counteract extremism and terrorism with books, not bombs, by replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading. "We
had no problem flying in bags of cash to pay the warlords to fight against the Taliban," he says. "I wondered why
we couldn't to the same things to build roads and sewers and schools." (Sources: Spirituality & Health, June 2006
"Reviews", p. 75 and web sites about Greg Mortenson and David O. Relin's book Three Cups of Tea)
It seems like the Bush White House strategy has been to cry, "Be afraid! Be very, very afraid! Be so afraid that
you'll think shooting artillery at mosquitoes makes sense." Being fearful and violent are absolutely contrary to the
teachings of Jesus and to the spirit of scripture. Sadly, our government's strategy of torture, bombing and violence is only
driving more angry people into the arms of extremism. How different things might be if our leaders would exercise a little
bit of faith, imaginat
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