Ooo, Fred beat me to it!
I also received a copy of Three Cups of Tea- generously sent to me here in Canada by Jill. What a wonderful person!
I'm nearly finished the book and at about half way I was thinking... ok what more could there be to write about here... but then you reach the point in time when the Sept 11 attacks happened. Whew! What an amazing story to hear first hand the reaction of some of the locals who literally wept for the victims in 'New York Village'. It really brought tears to my eyes. It also makes me so angry at how the media manages to portray the whole Islamic community as anti-American or that they are all extremists, which just isn't true.
Greg Mortenson's work has done more to fight terrorism than the whole ridiculous 'war on terror'. Let's see.... $12,000 schools vs. $1,000,000 bombs. Yup, the US government could have built 83 schools in the middle east for each one of those bombs it dropped on targets that it wasn't positive were Al-Qaeda bases.
*sigh*
Anyway, I find this is one of the more inspirational, and educational books I've ever read. I've learned more about that area through this book than by anything else. This should be made into a movie and released on a Sept 11th anniversary.
Thank you Jill from the bottom of my heart!
On a side note, a friend of a friend knows a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces who is/was stationed in Afghanistan. He says he has seen the media video tape a family who's house was just mistakenly destroyed via the Canadian Forces' activities and the family is obviously upset and cursing the Canadian soldiers and the media portrays it that everyone there hates the soldiers. But he says just out of line of sight of the camera is many, many locals who are happy that the forces are there and for the protection they provide and for getting Al-Qaeda out. Sheesh. What happened to REAL journalism? And why do we sit on our couches and watch this junk? Maybe we're more to blame than the media is- for giving us what we supposedly want.
