are we really rebuilding schools in iraq??

or are we just pretending to? ok, i was trying to find an article on line that my brother got a columnist for the sacremento bee to run about my nephew's efforts to collect and deliver school supplies for iraqi kids. (posted below, i could not find it online.) the thing is, when i google this, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=U.S.+troops+deliver+gifts+to+Iraq+-+school+supplies&btnG=Google+Search
i get a jillion hits, a bunch of web sites, etc. i smell bullshit. now, my nephew is pretty up there in the military. he would not allow his name to be used in an army times story about his heroic deeds in afganistan, but now he is happy to go along with being a part of this pr campaign. hmmm. i do not doubt that he would be doing this kind of thing, he was raised to be a good person. but i have to doubt the numbers in the story, and the whole whitewash.
anyone have opinions about this?


U.S. troops deliver gifts to Iraq - school supplies
By Walter Yost -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, January 5, 2006
Pencils, erasers, chalk.

The simplest of classroom supplies are luxuries in many Iraqi schools devastated by war and official neglect.

On Nov. 7, members of an Army special operations battalion showed up in a village north of Mosul, not to hunt down insurgents, but to deliver box loads of much-needed school supplies.

It was part of a less publicized mission by many U.S. troops, including those from this region, to help Iraq's youngest generation receive an education and perhaps foster an appreciation for democracy.

"The reaction of the children is like that of children the world over who have just received an unexpected gift - simple joy," Lt. Col. Mark Mitchell, commander of the special ops battalion, said in an e-mail to The Bee.

Jim Cahill, Mitchell's uncle and a special education teacher at El Dorado High School in Placerville, said, "The education of the new generation in Iraq will make more difference than any military action."

Among the supplies delivered by Mitchell's battalion Nov. 7 were more than 60 pounds of items collected by Cahill from friends and local educators and high school students. Cahill paid for their delivery to Iraq.

"They don't read or see things like this when watching the news," Dale Kasnic, a special ed teacher at El Dorado High, said of the students in his Advancement Via Individual Determination program and the school's Key Club, who donated several large boxes of binders, notebooks, pencils and backpacks.

The materials brought smiles to children and teachers at schools in the predominately Assyrian Christian village of Tal Usquf, where they were delivered by Mitchell's soldiers. The village is near Mosul in northern Iraq.

In a letter Mitchell sent to Cahill, the special ops commander enclosed photos of kindergarten children at a school recently renovated by the U.S. government based on a recommendation from soldiers.

Children and teachers are shown inside the bare-bones classrooms gratefully receiving the most basic school supplies.

"There is simply no comparison to a school in the United States," Mitchell said in an e-mail. "In some cases, the schools were damaged during combat operations."

Insurgents and terrorists, he said, frequently make use of schools and mosques to conduct their attacks and store supplies.

"Many schools," Mitchell continued, "are simply dilapidated as a result of deliberate neglect by the Ba'ath Party under the (former dictator Saddam) Hussein regime, which misappropriated oil revenues for the benefit of the predominately Sunni party members."

United Nations economic sanctions imposed in 1991 also are blamed by some for the demise of Iraq's education system.

Mitchell said that even in schools with sound infrastructure, "the classrooms are very simple - often just a room with some desks and a blackboard. There are no computers and often very few books."

Throughout Iraq, coalition forces have renovated hundreds of schools, and Mitchell said his soldiers have delivered classroom supplies and stuffed animals to three schools in Tal Usquf.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development Web site, the agency is spending millions of dollars to resurrect Iraq's education system by increasing enrollment, ensuring that classrooms have sufficient supplies, training teachers and implementing accelerated learning programs.

The agency said it has rehabilitated more than 2,500 schools.

Cahill believes the key to Iraq's reconstruction is the country's children. "Education is something you can give that lasts a lifetime," he said. "Iraqi schools in the past taught kids to hate Western culture."

While it may be too late to "win the hearts" of the country's teenagers, there's still hope for the youngest children, Cahill said.

A veteran of the Vietnam War, Cahill said soldiers like those in Mitchell's battalion are fulfilling another, more personal, need by helping Iraqi schoolchildren.

Separated from their own families by the war, Cahill said, "A lot of these soldiers have a need to interact with children."

So, where's the value? :shrug:

let the peace corps deliver the books, ferchissakes, is what i say. do they expect a medal for cleaning up after themselves?
i just suspect that the whole story is 99% bullshit.

There are many good reasosn why the military would do this. It's good for the troops to be able to do something other than kill. (They are people, mothers and fathers too.) And it's good PR. Although it would be better if we didn't blow people up in between trying to help them.

i'm just wondering how much they are actually doing.

Well building schools is the kind of stuff the military likes to talk about.
You could look in the militry press or on their webpages. I think the USARMY 3rd Infanty Division has spent alot of time in Iraq. Maybe they have something on it. As a start anyway.

Create a need and then be the source correcting it.

Religion too...