Fourteen year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban because she wanted to go to school. A few years ago she became an activist for girls’ education and became a target. Today she has done more to turn people against the Taliban than 10,000 troops.

The Taliban thrives on conflict, violence and ignorance. They are particularly difficult to negotiate or reason with and difficult to fight. Afghanistan is known as the land where empires go to die. It’s terrain broke the armies of Alexander the Great and the back of the Soviet empire and some say is eroding the economy and reputation of the US.

How do you beat such a vile foe? You follow the simple and basic rule of warfare: you do exactly the OPPOSITE of what the enemy wants. They don’t want schools? You build 10,000 schools. They blow up one, you build 100 to take its place.

The Taliban have integrated themselves into Afghanistan and at times in some parts of the Swat region of Northern Pakistan. The shooting of this schoolgirl, like many of their barbaric and criminal actions, has been condemned universally in the region, with over 50 local imams issuing condemnations of the act and fatwas against the perpetrators.

I have good friends in Pakistan and Afghanistan: soldiers, contractors, citizens and Razia Jan. Razia is an Afghan native who moved to Duxbury Massachusetts, started a small dry cleaning business and then returned to Afghanistan to open schools for girls. Razia faces amazing hardship and daily threat of violence and death with her work. Her schools have been targeted for bombings and something as simple as getting crayons is an ordeal. While the US can move tanks and troops by the tens of thousands, Razia must use smugglers to get books and pencils.

Another friend in Afghanistan, I’ll call John, is one of several contractors I know. I’m not referring to engineers but mercenary soldiers paid for by American taxpayers who occupy Afghanistan (and yes, Pakistan) by the tens of thousands. Like many government contractors, John is a hard-working guy who is mainly doing the job for the money. John is a decent guy but his co workers are not all so decent and neither is his mission. His work costs US taxpayers upwards of $500,000 per year and I can’t honestly figure out our ROI on that investment or what good it does. Some contractors are known for causing trouble and their lack of a formal military chain of command structure can lead to problems. In Pakistan I used to watch contractors speed down the road in unmarked F-250 pickups filled with guys with AR-15s in the back, once they ran over an elderly woman at a cross walk. I could not help but wonder how I would have felt if it had been North Korean troops doing the same in Boston.

“Al Qaida” is a generic term given to one semi-organized movement, blankety applied to hundreds of others and adopted by hundreds more who have nothing in common other than dislike of America. Unlike Al Qaida, the Taliban is a more identifiable, tangible organization and enemy. While Al Qaida has been used to describe everyone from misguided teenagers in upstate New York to people who did not even know they were called such a thing, the Taliban is clear and defined. The Taliban are among the worst people in our world, they are the real version of the evil portrayed in mass media. When I asked one of my hosts in Pakistan how we can deal with such a group, she said simply “They have no reason, they have no logic. There is nothing that can be done but to kill them.”

For the cost of my mercenary friend, Razia could build 10 schools for girls. For the cost of a fraction of the troops we have deployed, we could build 10,000 schools. The Taliban thrives on providing to those in villages who are not provided for, on giving hope to those who have none. Perhaps a better use of our efforts would be in helping the people we are supposed to be helping rather than fueling more conflict and making drone campaigns which by some counts kill 49 innocents for every suspected terrorist. Those innocents killed, the collateral damage, in turn creates more terrorists and more Taliban far more effectively than any recruiting campaign the enemy could create. Kill a man’s child and we transform a mild-mannered bookkeeper or pharmacist into a tireless and motivated enemy of America until he draws his last breath. How many such enemies have we created with our continued bombings and attacks?

It’s not about trying to kill the Taliban with kindness, bullets are just fine in many cases, starting with those who shot 14 year old Malala. But we should recognize that the Taliban wants war, they thrive on war. They know that America’s appetite for war is waning, they want violence and they believe it serves them. They know that more people hate America today than 11 years ago. Based on this conflict, now the longest war in US history, and their results with the USSR and others, they believe they can win.
It’s about not doing what our enemy wants. Aside from the fact that our presence does little to serve us and we should bring our troops home, if we are to be there, why not take a fraction of our budget and fight these guys in a different way? Why not cover the nation with new schools? Will some be bombed? Yes. They are being bombed anyway. The father who’s child is killed in that bombing, becomes not an enemy of America but an enemy of the Taliban.

The worthless thugs who shot Malala do not fear death and they will not cave to our bombs. Their worst fear is 1000 more young women just like her, they fear less a squadron if F-15s than 100 more Raiza Jans. They do not fear our guns and Marines, they fear a little girl from their own nation. She and those like her are the greatest weapon toward their defeat. Their fear is not death by firebomb but death by fizzling away into irrelevance. If we must be there, lets fund that which they fear most. By taking overwhelming action to do the opposite of what the Taliban wants, we help the people, make our troops safer and save money. By taking actions opposite of what the Taliban wants, we can destroy them.

By Bruce Fenton