The Taliban: War of Ideas
The following story by GlobalPost's Charlie Sennott is part of a special report, "Life, Death and the Taliban," which looks at the U.S.-led war against the Taliban. Sennott recaps the group's rise to power, looks at current political and counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan and in this story, how education is the frontline of the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
On the morning of July 9, boys and girls were walking down a narrow road in the Logar Province on their way to school just as they did every day at that time.
That's when the large bomb packed in a timber truck pulled up at a checkpoint and detonated, killing 25 people, including 13 school children, in the worst bombing in Afghanistan in several years.
It is believed the Taliban carried out the attack in retaliation for the girls' school that had been built in the village in the Mohammed Agha district.
News photos showed that the crater left by the blast cracked the asphalt in the shape of an enormous spider's web. Amid the wreckage of the truck and other vehicles destroyed in the enormous explosion there were blown-apart student backpacks. Pages torn from school books were scattered in the rubble.
Education is on the frontline of the war in Afghanistan.
Almost daily, girls' schools are burned and bombed and teachers, principals, students and their families receive what are known as "night letters," Islamic decrees of death issued by the Taliban and pasted on homes and the walls of villages in the dead of night.
In just two years, more than 640 schools in Afghanistan and more than 350 in Pakistan have been bombed, burned or shut down, according to the education ministries in both countries. Eighty percent of those targeted were girls' schools.
In the Helmand Province in the south of Afghanistan, where the Taliban is effectively in control of most of the province, 75 of the 228 schools have been shut down by Taliban militias that disapprove of the secular teaching and the idea of girls receiving an education.
There are indeed too many bombings and too many funerals for school kids risking their lives in what is literally a war of ideas.
But the July 9 bombing in Logar and the devastating effect the deaths of 13 elementary-school-age boys has had on the village where it happened offers a microcosm of just how bad things are in Afghanistan.
The story really begins on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Peter Goodrich, 32, was among those killed on the second plane that was hijacked and crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
His parents, Don and Sally Goodrich of Vermont, fell into the abyss of despair that lies before any parent who loses a child, as well as the unique trauma experienced by Sept. 11 families.
The light that helped lead them out of the darkness was an idea from a close friend of Peter who served as a Marine in Afghanistan. He thought Sally, a schoolteacher, might want to help Afghan school kids as a way to honor Peter.
Sally headed straight for the light. Eventually, she established the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation, which raised the $200,000 in funds needed to build the impressive, two-story, 26-room, K-8 girls' school in the Mohammed Agha district of Logar. The foundation has taken on other projects as well, from water distribution systems to relief for victims of the Nangarhar earthquake.
Two years ago, I traveled with Sally to Afghanistan to be with her when she saw the school in the Logar Province in session for the first time. The classrooms were overflowing and the hallways were buzzing with the chatter and giggling excitement of elementary school girls.
Sally is a schoolteacher from Vermont and even though the girls' faces were wrapped in the white headscarves of Islamic modesty, they looked up at her with the confidence and the glee that comes with learning.
The story I wrote for Mother's Day 2007 was featured on the cover of The Boston Globe Magazine as a feel good story about reconciliation after Sept. 11. It was titled "The Education of Sally."
Then, in March of this year, Sally and Don received news that the village, about 20 miles outside of Kabul, was overrun by the Taliban.
More from "Life, Death and the Taliban":
Blowback
Counterinsurgency
Funding The Afghan Taliban
Funding The Pakistani Taliban
Life Under the Taliban
On March 9, U.S.-led coalition forces raided the village in the middle of the night and burst into the homes of the two village elders: Haji Malik and Khadel Khan. They were handcuffed and bundled off for questioning as Taliban sympathizers. Sally and Don had bonded with these men - tall, bearded Pashtun brothers who wore all the traditional regalia of silk headscarves and salwar kameez. Sally likes to say they and the community they represent gave her back her life.
Haji Malik was soon released but his son and his brother, Khadel Khan, have been held ever since March in detention at the military prison at Bagram Airbase. They have been detained without charges but are suspected collaborators with Taliban militants, according to the U.S. military.
Sally, who is a brilliant educator, and Don, who is a talented lawyer, were convinced that the U.S. military had been supplied with flawed intelligence. They refused to accept that Haji Malik or Khadel Khan could have been involved with the Taliban. Sally had developed a particularly close bond with Khadel Khan, who had lost his son as well. They had bonded through shared loss, she said. I had gotten to know both men as well on my trip there. There are snapshots of all of us smiling, arm in arm after a big lunch we shared in the village.
GlobalPost On the morning of July 9, boys and girls were walking down a narrow road in the Logar Province on their way to school just as they did every day at that time.
That's when the large bomb packed in a timber truck pulled up at a checkpoint and detonated, killing 25 people, including 13 school children, in the worst bombing in Afghanistan in several years.
It is believed the Taliban carried out the attack in retaliation for the girls' school that had been built in the village in the Mohammed Agha district.
News photos showed that the crater left by the blast cracked the asphalt in the shape of an enormous spider's web. Amid the wreckage of the truck and other vehicles destroyed in the enormous explosion there were blown-apart student backpacks. Pages torn from school books were scattered in the rubble.
Education is on the frontline of the war in Afghanistan.
Almost daily, girls' schools are burned and bombed and teachers, principals, students and their families receive what are known as "night letters," Islamic decrees of death issued by the Taliban and pasted on homes and the walls of villages in the dead of night.
In just two years, more than 640 schools in Afghanistan and more than 350 in Pakistan have been bombed, burned or shut down, according to the education ministries in both countries. Eighty percent of those targeted were girls' schools.
In the Helmand Province in the south of Afghanistan, where the Taliban is effectively in control of most of the province, 75 of the 228 schools have been shut down by Taliban militias that disapprove of the secular teaching and the idea of girls receiving an education.
There are indeed too many bombings and too many funerals for school kids risking their lives in what is literally a war of ideas.
But the July 9 bombing in Logar and the devastating effect the deaths of 13 elementary-school-age boys has had on the village where it happened offers a microcosm of just how bad things are in Afghanistan.
The story really begins on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Peter Goodrich, 32, was among those killed on the second plane that was hijacked and crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
His parents, Don and Sally Goodrich of Vermont, fell into the abyss of despair that lies before any parent who loses a child, as well as the unique trauma experienced by Sept. 11 families.
The light that helped lead them out of the darkness was an idea from a close friend of Peter who served as a Marine in Afghanistan. He thought Sally, a schoolteacher, might want to help Afghan school kids as a way to honor Peter.
Sally headed straight for the light. Eventually, she established the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation, which raised the $200,000 in funds needed to build the impressive, two-story, 26-room, K-8 girls' school in the Mohammed Agha district of Logar. The foundation has taken on other projects as well, from water distribution systems to relief for victims of the Nangarhar earthquake.
Two years ago, I traveled with Sally to Afghanistan to be with her when she saw the school in the Logar Province in session for the first time. The classrooms were overflowing and the hallways were buzzing with the chatter and giggling excitement of elementary school girls.
Sally is a schoolteacher from Vermont and even though the girls' faces were wrapped in the white headscarves of Islamic modesty, they looked up at her with the confidence and the glee that comes with learning.
The story I wrote for Mother's Day 2007 was featured on the cover of The Boston Globe Magazine as a feel good story about reconciliation after Sept. 11. It was titled "The Education of Sally."
Then, in March of this year, Sally and Don received news that the village, about 20 miles outside of Kabul, was overrun by the Taliban.
More from "Life, Death and the Taliban":
Blowback
Counterinsurgency
Funding The Afghan Taliban
Funding The Pakistani Taliban
Life Under the Taliban
On March 9, U.S.-led coalition forces raided the village in the middle of the night and burst into the homes of the two village elders: Haji Malik and Khadel Khan. They were handcuffed and bundled off for questioning as Taliban sympathizers. Sally and Don had bonded with these men - tall, bearded Pashtun brothers who wore all the traditional regalia of silk headscarves and salwar kameez. Sally likes to say they and the community they represent gave her back her life.
Haji Malik was soon released but his son and his brother, Khadel Khan, have been held ever since March in detention at the military prison at Bagram Airbase. They have been detained without charges but are suspected collaborators with Taliban militants, according to the U.S. military.
Sally, who is a brilliant educator, and Don, who is a talented lawyer, were convinced that the U.S. military had been supplied with flawed intelligence. They refused to accept that Haji Malik or Khadel Khan could have been involved with the Taliban. Sally had developed a particularly close bond with Khadel Khan, who had lost his son as well. They had bonded through shared loss, she said. I had gotten to know both men as well on my trip there. There are snapshots of all of us smiling, arm in arm after a big lunch we shared in the village.
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hmmmm...
hmmm...
I mentioned in a different post that I;
Vote for the man not the party.
Should have said man/women, not the party.
Though seeing Michelle Bachman and Hilary Clinton, I would not vote for either:)