{"id":162,"date":"2009-10-29T12:52:37","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T16:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/10\/29\/afghanistan-trade-offs\/"},"modified":"2009-10-29T12:52:37","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T16:52:37","slug":"afghanistan-trade-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/10\/29\/afghanistan-trade-offs\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan Trade-Offs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not all trade-offs are logical, and certainly this one<\/a> can be argued.<\/p>\n

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In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Could be naive. But, <\/p>\n

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\u2026Greg Mortenson, author of \u201cThree Cups of Tea,\u201d has now built<\/a> 39 schools in Afghanistan and 92 in Pakistan \u2014 and not one has been burned down or closed. The aid organization CARE<\/a> has 295 schools educating 50,000 girls in Afghanistan, and not a single one has been closed or burned by the Taliban. The Afghan Institute of Learning<\/a>, another aid group, has 32 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with none closed by the Taliban (although local communities have temporarily suspended three for security reasons). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Before you conclude that education is not the answer, consider one group that does.<\/p>\n

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When I travel in Pakistan, I see evidence that one group \u2014 Islamic extremists \u2014 believes in the transformative power of education. They pay for madrassas that provide free schooling and often free meals for students. They then offer scholarships for the best pupils to study abroad in Wahhabi madrassas before returning to become leaders of their communities. What I don\u2019t see on my trips is similar numbers of American-backed schools. It breaks my heart that we don\u2019t invest in schools as much as medieval, misogynist extremists.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It might not be a panacea, but we need to ensure we are making an investment in educating Afghans and Pakistanis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all trade-offs are logical, and certainly this one can be argued. In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there. Could be naive. But, \u2026Greg Mortenson,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[62,38,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}