Afghanistan

My thoughts have turned toward Afghanistan in recent weeks and months, both because our President-Elect has said that he will shift the focus there, and more importantly on a personal note, because my nephew Robbie is there defusing bombs.

So my curiosity was piqued when I saw an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal concerning the US military in Afghanistan and the author of "Three Cups of Tea", Greg Mortenson. Mr. Mortenson authored his book amid his many years of humanitarian work in Afghanistan, building schools and bridges, both figurative and literal.

The article, titled "Military Finds An Unlikely Advisor in School-Building Humanitarian", details how the Pentagon has invited Mr. Mortenson to address the military about ways to fight Islamic extremism.

Judy read Mr. Mortenson's book several years ago and has spoken of it many times and about the author's personal efforts to help the people of Afghanistan after the villagers of an impoverished community there nursed him back to health following a mountain climbing accident.

The fascinating thing, of course, is that the military is seeking out approaches like Mr. Mortenson's. It's not wholly surprising to me. I've long held a great regard for the US military at the same time that I have been ambivalent, at least, and often quite in disagreement with our military adventures. The choice of those adventures, of course, is left to our politicians and the military is there to carry out those commands which it does with dedicated loyalty and with deadly efficiency.

It's true that the military embodies a force of highly intelligent, dedicated individuals and while it's methods are, well, military, it's objectives of course, are to protect the American people, our democracy and American way of life. It's easy for any thinking individual to understand that pursuing those objectives in a military fashion can sometimes be at odds with actually achieving them, especially with respect to fighting the 'global war on terror'.

Mr. Mortenson's premise is that providing a moderate education to impoverished Muslim populations is the best tool for fighting Islamic extremism. General David Petraeus read Mr. Mortenson's book and recommended it to his staff.

In listening to voices such as Mr. Mortenson's, Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, having invited Mr. Mortenson to speak, appears to acknowledge that terror is a tactic, not an enemy. And that using military methods in trying to fight an enemy without a nation, without borders, without uniforms is like trying to hold handfuls of water. While we are engaged in pouring huge resources into our war in Iraq, collateral damages and grave miscalculations like those that led to permission to torture and incidents like Abu Graib, only serve to our enemy's advantage, becoming effective recruitment tools.

Of course I understand the vast and powerful interests who profit from war and who create tremendous pressures to execute our objectives in ways that can line their pockets. They're happy to cynically use the lives of our sons, daughters, brothers, nephews to their own profit.

And then there are those who earnestly and honestly believe that a military solution is the ONLY solution. They have our nation's best interests at heart and feel as I do, that we cannot just retreat into ourselves and hope that problems around the globe will not affect us. We may have to simply agree to disagree, and hope that we can do so in a civil way.

But I'm under no illusions that the threat posed by what Eisenhower called the "military industrial complex" will not do everything in their power to undermine any efforts to bend the instruments of our society toward more peaceful, perhaps less 'profitable' means of conducting the war on terror.

Still, I have the audacity of hope.