Last week at the Southwestern Michigan Economic Club, President Musharraf said that Afghanistan may only be made secure by a three-pronged approach: military, governmentaland social-economic.

Military means guns and bombs that negatively change minds.

Any government in Afghanistan historically has been minimal and probably will remain so.
The social-economic approach remains the only way to make Afghanistan secure and favorably disposed to peace.

Social and economic security cannot be supplied from outside.

A healthy economy and favorable attitude must come from people at the local level.
Greg Mortenson and Edmund Hillary have shown us a way of reaching the hearts and minds of Pakistanis and Afghans.

Both men are helping the local residents in these valleys of the Himalayas build schools.
Anyone who has been in the area knows that they have no medical facilities and are desperate to get aspirin and other medications.

Bridges over rivers and wells for potable water are almost non-existent and are needed.
My idea:  The United States, instead of spending more and more on guns and bombs costing millions, should set up a fund or funds to purchase materials for building schools, dispensaries, bridges and to sink wells.

We should furnish the materials and a minimum of supervision and let the people volunteer to use those materials to build schools, to provide the facilities for medical treatment, build the bridges and to sink the wells they so very much want and need.

The United States and the West could provide the funds to Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute (www.ikat.org) and let him and his Pakistani and Afghan helpers supervise the use of those materials.

Other non-governmental organizations could be used.

Will it work? Mortenson set out to do build a school for one town.

Before he had started, others were trying to divert his meager resources to their towns.
All the labor has come from the locals who want the facilities.

While the Taliban has in a few instances attacked the installations, the locals were motivated to fight them off and persisted in seeking education in a land where less than three out of 10 can read.

In these lands medical care does not exist.

Bridges and other infrastructure are either absent or destroyed.

Yes, we will have to provide some troop presence and other help.

This proposal gives local people the motivation to fight the Taliban and protect improvements and institutions they have themselves created.

Thus, the impetus for security would be from the bottom up rather than from the top down.

Herbert Phillipson Jr. lives in Dowagiac.