Kristof: 30,000 more troops or 30,000 more schools
Nicholas Kristof has a column in today’s New York Times with commentary regarding President Obama’s recent announcement to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. In the column he builds a case for the need to expand education opportunities in the region.
You can read the full piece here, excerpts below:
For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.
Another program that is enjoying great success in undermining the Taliban is the National Solidarity Program, or N.S.P., which helps villages build projects that they choose — typically schools, clinics, irrigation projects, bridges. This is widely regarded as one of the most successful and least corrupt initiatives in Afghanistan.
“It’s a terrific program,” said George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee. “But it’s underfunded. And it takes very little: for the cost of one U.S. soldier for a year, you could have the N.S.P. in 20 more villages.”
These kinds of projects — including girls’ schools — are often possible even in Taliban areas. One aid group says that the Taliban allowed it to build a girls’ school as long as the teachers were women and as long as the textbooks did not include photos of President Hamid Karzai. And the Taliban usually don’t mess with projects that have strong local support. (That’s why they haven’t burned any of Mr. Mortenson’s schools.)
America’s military spending in Afghanistan alone next year will now exceed the entire official military budget of every other country in the world.
Over time, education has been the single greatest force to stabilize societies. It’s no magic bullet, but it reduces birth rates, raises living standards and subdues civil conflict and terrorism. That’s why as a candidate Mr. Obama proposed a $2 billion global education fund — a promise he seems to have forgot.
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December 4, 2009 at 6:58 am
I see your point, although keep in mind that without our soldiers, the children can’t physically attend school. If you look at the acid attacks and the horrible violence that the Taliban have brought forth onto the children (especially girls) who go to school, it might change your mind on that rather bold statement. While it is a valid point that the cost of building a school is very low, your statement assumes that simply replacing a soldier with a school will be a safer option, whereas we might just end up with tons of empty schools and a Taliban-run country.
I’d say lets just stand behind this decision — one that took Obama and our military a long while to make. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see our troops come home tomorrow because my loved ones are currently serving, but I’d have to disagree here — and besides, the global education is certainly important, but US soldiers lives and the next steps in a very difficult decade war seem slightly more urgent. He’ll get to it, just be patient and have faith that Obama has our best interest at heart.
**Mind you, I didn’t even vote for Obama, just have to be supportive or we’ll never get anywhere (much like the countries we have chosen to reconcile).