Afghanistan Analysts Network has new detailed report on the battle for schools in Afghanistan.
It looks a lot like a battle for the Texas School Boards: how much control of curriculum and rules will fundamentalists get?
Here's one side in the curriculum dispute, and guess which one:
- Taleban-approved textbooks;
- Taleban-approved syllabuses with many more hours dedicated to religious subjects;
- removal of teachers hostile to the Taleban;
- hiring of teachers (of religious subjects and Arabic) recommended by the Taleban
- no mixed (male-female) education;
- girls’ education only up to sixth class.
The curriculum battle is a big deal.
Take Ghazni province. It's got a long history as a center of education. Long history meaning, like for a thousand years. Ghazni has the highest literacy rates in Afghanistan. Schools there are important.
And, take Hezb-i Islami. It's the Afghan Association of Revolutionary Schoolteachers and Technocrats. A difficult group, from an American perspective, to be sure.
In the battle for school curriculum, the difficult-from-an-American-perspective Hezb is an important other side in the dispute. It's probably no coincidence that the Afghan minister of education is a Hezb guy.
And, take Wardak province. It has the same battle for schools as in nearby Ghazni.
Going back to the story of the Andar Uprising, it had started with a Hezb schoolteacher, who split off from the local Taliban, to start it. Local school curriculum issues seem to have been a major part of the issues behind the split.
But then, about the school battle, about the Uprising, U.S. Special Forces and Asaduallah Khalid muscled in.
So take Asadullah Khalid. America's favorite sexual torturer. He's originally from Ghazni.
As a way of getting involved in Afghanistan's battle over school curriculum, I'm not sure that our action of sending Asadullah Khalid's death squads up to Wardak was an especially helpful move.
As a general American exit strategy for Afghanistan, as we withdraw our regular forces, I'm not sure that the policy of ramping up the Afghan/U.S. Special Forces death squads, pretty much everywhere in Afghanistan, will be an especially helpful move either.