[bailaviborita]

Don't get me wrong- I think educating women is important and possibly could be a part of change. What sparked my "antennas", however, were phrases such as: "...Because Afghanistan, without the participation of women, will remain a failed and dangerous state..." and "...I have seen profound change in the villages when girls learn to read and write..."

I don't understand how one could make the first statement without at least one reference- if not reams of references, empirical data, and case studies. I would argue there are plenty of examples throughout history of successful states that didn't include women in an equal manner- especially during their "developmental" eras.

Likewise, the second phrase seems very anecdotal. What kind of change? Has it been replicated? Has it been logically traced directly to the education of women? Or were there fundamentals already in place/changing that both contributed to women getting educated AND the "profound change" witnessed? I think one must be on the lookout for unilateral prescriptions that sound like panaceas for complex problems.

And I 100% agree with your statement that the example of the USA will not parallel Afghanistan. If anything, it will be 180 degrees out. Because of that it makes me more doubtful of an "education of women" solution to current problems.

To me this smacks terribly of a US-centric approach to the problem. Shoving women's rights (to include education) down rural, illiterate Afghan men's throats will be tough for them to swallow- this in a "nation" that doesn't like other tribes much less outsiders telling them what to do.

Which makes me wonder how any Westerner would approach trying to do what Sidiqi (or insert any Afghan elite) advises: teach "other" views of Islam to include Bangladeshi, etc. views. They don't like Tajiks from MES in Kandahar- how would they accept a program from Bangladesh or an "enlightened" Imam from Kabul?

Regardless, I submit all of this is fine for NGOs and "Af-Pak" internal organizations, but I think the U.S. government and armed forces should stick to clear and attainable objectives like denying AQ bases. When we start talking doing more than that (and calling it COIN), I think we are getting into the dangerously touchy-feely junk of "nation-building".

Another reason my inner-cynic rises up wrt this issue is that we've long asserted the same for our inner cities: if we just educate the kids better, they'll stop gang-banging and dealing/using drugs. Shame that it isn't so simple. When kids spend less than 9.4% of their time around teachers, why do we think they will change their "culture" if we just improve education?

It would seem obvious to me that there are some systemic underlying fundamentals that are undermining our best efforts at educating kids and that we have to address those prior to addressing education- and that maybe government can't address them directly.

Likewise I think there are possibly some systemic underlying fundamentals at work in Af-Pak undermining our best intentions at improving society there- to include women's education- and that maybe the government- both ours and theirs- can't address it directly, but that until it changes no amount of schools built for girls will change anything.