Taleban Building Schools
The Taleban movement has earmarked $1m to set up schools for children in southern Afghanistan, a senior official of the militant group has said.
You have to admit this is a pretty good idea. It allows them to make the whole "heart and minds" strategy work for them. They build schools to ingratiate themselves with the local population while simultaneously showcasing the inability of the Kabul government or multi-national forces to do the same. The MNF can't destroy the schools without looking like jackasses and turning the population against them, and in the meantime the students can be indoctrinated by the Taleban.
In theory, the Kabul government could possibly co-opt this strategy by agreeing to allow the schools and providing their own textbooks and attempting to build girl's schools alongside them. That way, the government puts the onus on the Taleban to protect the schools they say they want and at least lessens the strategic coup this represents. Of course, that means talking and working with the enemy, so the MNF will veto it, and admittedly there's a good chance it wouldn't work anyway. Still, making the Taleban look less good is better than nothing.
Life would be so much easier if the enemy actually was made up of nutjobs rather than intelligent strategic thinkers.
