This paper describes the threat posed to U.S.national security by militant schools in less-developed nations, evaluates current policies fordealing with that threat, and suggests an alterna-tive set of policies that would likely be moreeffective and also more consistent with the lawsand principles of the United States.

In dozens of countries from Pakistan toIndonesia, militant Islamist schools are inculcat-ing scores of thousands of students with an ide-ology of intolerance, violence, and hate. In thepast, the United States abetted such schools aspart of its strategy for containing Soviet expan-sionism. After a gradual about-face in the yearsleading up to September 11, 2001, the Americangovernment is now funding and cajoling the gov-ernments of several majority-Muslim nations torein in their more militant schools.

On the basis of contemporary and historical

evidence, both past and present U.S. policies arefaulty. Any U.S. strategic gains from funding mil-itant Islamist education during the 1980s werenegligible compared to the long-term harmwrought by that policy. The present strategy ofsubsidizing or pressuring foreign governments todraw more children into undemocratic stateschools is ill-conceived and incompatible withAmerican ideals.

Based on the consistent and multifacetedsuperiority of fee-charging private schools overtheir government-run and -funded counterparts,Americans should adopt a two-pronged strategyas an alternative to current policy: liberalize U.S.trade policy to foster a “virtuous circle” of eco-nomic and educational growth in developingcountries, and redirect private U.S. aid (whichdwarfs official development aid) toward expand-ing access to fee-charging private schools.

Education and Indoctrination in the Muslim World

Is There a Problem? What Can We Do about It?by Andrew Coulson

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Andrew Coulson is senior fellow in education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (www.mackinac.org)and the author of Market Education: The Unknown History.

Executive Summary

No. 511 March 11, 2004

Introduction

American taxpayers have underwrittenthe construction of schools in Afghanistanand the publication of textbooks incitingholy war on Soviet troops. They have tried toarm girls in poor countries with the skillsthey need to succeed, and to arm young menwith Kalashnikovs and an ideology of hate.The U.S. government has offered aid to theeducation ministries of poor countries whileimposing trade barriers that depress both thevalue of education and families’ ability to payfor it. Private individuals, corporations, foun-dations, and other groups have also under-taken myriad education-related projects indeveloping nations all over the globe.

In other words, the United States is anactive player in the international educationscene. Unlike U.S. diplomatic and militarypolicies, however, its educational activitiesare not widely debated in the media or evenwidely studied within the scholarly commu-nity. That will have to change if we are to haveany hope of realizing our aspirations for sta-ble, friendly, and productive internationalrelations.

The threat of international terrorism inparticular must be addressed on an educa-tional as well as a diplomatic and militaryfront. Eliminating currently active terroristorganizations is a necessary but short-termsolution. Cutting off current sources of ter-rorist funding is at best a medium-term solu-tion. As you read this paper, scores of thou-sands of children are being indoctrinatedinto militant ideologies in extremist schoolsaround the world. Unless we can do some-thing to alter that fact, the ranks of terroristorganizations will be endlessly replenished.

American actions affect the education sys-tems of less-developed countries in numerousways. Sometimes our actions are deliberatelyintended to have an educational impact (e.g.,programs of the United States Agency forInternational Development), and sometimestheir educational impact is accidental (e.g.,U.S. trade policy). Some U.S. actions impact-ing foreign education are undertaken by the

federal government (as in the preceding twoexamples), whereas others are nongovernmen-tal in nature (such as the efforts of private vol-untary organizations or the remittances of for-eign-born Americans to their home countries).The discussion that follows touches on all ofthese actions. Readers should thus keep inmind that U.S. actions often affect foreigneducation systems unintentionally (for goodor ill) and that nongovernmental activities canhave as significant an impact on education asofficial ones.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate themerits of various strategies for mitigatingextremist indoctrination in developing coun-tries. It begins by providing an overview ofschooling in less-developed nations. How,why, where, and by whom are ideologies ofhatred and violence being promoted? Whatsorts of school systems do the most effectiveand efficient job of serving families and ofeschewing indoctrination? Following thatoverview is a summary and critical analysis ofthe U.S. government’s most high-profileefforts to influence foreign education sys-tems. Has U.S. government involvement inthe education systems of foreign nations beenconsistent with U.S. law and principles? Has itbeen effective in mitigating the disseminationof militant ideologies? Are there alternativestrategies that would be more effective andconsistent with American ideals?

Weapons of Mass Instruction

Countless religious and political factionshave used schools as tools of indoctrinationover the past two and a half millennia, but thekeenest threat to the modern United Statescomes from militant Islamism. Islamistsadhere to an intolerant form of Islam thatregards moderate Muslims and all non-Muslims with contempt, and considers theonly acceptable form of government to be atheocracy that strictly implements Sharia(Islamic law). Militant Islamists believe that itis legitimate (if not compulsory) for this form

2

The keenestthreat to the

modern UnitedStates comes

from militantIslamism.

of government to be imposed on one or morenations through violence. Islamism repre-sents an extreme view within the Muslimscommunity, and only a minority of Islamistsactually choose the path of violence.

U.S. diplomatic and military policies cur-rently strive to identify and thwart the effortsof militant Islamist terrorists by cutting offtheir funding, restricting their movements,and capturing or killing them. Howevereffective it may be at diffusing immediatethreats, this is a purely short- to medium-term strategy. As long as new generations ofmilitant Islamists appear to replace thosekilled or captured, the war on terror willremain unwinnable. As it happens, thosefuture generations of potential terrorists arebeing educated today in tens of thousands ofIslamist schools around the world.

Most Americans received their firstglimpse inside an Islamist madrasa (Muslimreligious school) in the wake of 9/11. Westerntelevision reporters and journalists descend-ed upon the Northwest Frontier Province(NWFP) of Pakistan, sending back footage ofSpartan classrooms in which children rockedback and forth reciting passages from theKoran. Common to most of the schools visit-ed by the media were students’ and teachers’unwavering support for Osama bin Laden,and their hostility toward the West, Jews,Hindus, and particularly the United States.One madrasa, the 2,800 student DarulUloom Haqqania, received enough mediacoverage to launch a successful political cam-paign. In a sense, it already had, having grad-uated many influential figures within theTaliban regime, including its leader, MullahMohammed Omar.1 Students of the school,whose name means “Center of All RighteousKnowledge,” told reporters how they had runabout celebrating upon hearing the news ofthe 9/11 attacks.2

It would be a mistake, however, to con-clude that all madrasas are as narrow andradical as Darul Uloom Haqqania. It wouldalso be a mistake to conclude that radicalmadrasas are the only schools that fomenthatred and militancy. The sections that fol-

low describe the full spectrum of militantIslamist schools that put U.S. national secu-rity at risk.

Pakistani MadrasasPakistan’s Muslim schools are privately

run institutions that charge no fees and evenprovide free room and board in many cases.Their funding comes from varying combina-tions of donations from the local faithfuland contributions from Muslim organiza-tions based in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, andelsewhere. Alex Alexiev, a fellow at the Centerfor Security Policy, suggests that as much asthree-quarters of all madrasa funding comesfrom abroad, and points to Saudi Arabia asby far the largest foreign contributor.3 A 2002study by the International Crisis Group alsoasserts that foreign contributions make upthe majority of madrasa income, and addsthat Pakistani expatriates are another signifi-cant source of cash.4

Madrasas attract large numbers of poorchildren whose parents cannot afford alter-native private schooling, and who either donot have access to, or think poorly of, gov-ernment schools. While the very poorestmadrasa students are not likely to attendother schools, some families send their chil-dren to madrasas for a few years to learn thebasic tenets and practice of Islam, in additionto sending them to academically oriented ele-mentary and secondary schools for a broadereducational experience.

The impact of financial expediency onboosting madrasa enrollment cannot beoverestimated. For poor families with manychildren, the offer of free room and boardalone is persuasive. One nine-year-old ma-drasa student, the seventh of nine children,emphasized this point to a visiting journalist,telling him, “I could have been like others inthe refugee camp, with no clothes and nofood.”5

Madrasas have successfully resisted all ofthe central government’s attempts at impos-ing comprehensive regulation and mandatoryregistration. Statistics on their numbers andenrollment are thus educated guesses rather

3

Potential terrorists arebeing educatedtoday in tens ofthousands ofIslamist schoolsaround theworld.

than hard facts, and the guesses vary dramati-cally from one source to another. Publishedfigures on the number of madrasas inPakistan have ranged from a low of 7,500 to aprobably exaggerated 39,000 or 45,000 overthe past few years.6 Most estimates hoveraround 10,000.7 The number of studentsenrolled in these schools has been variouslyestimated as 600,000 to 700,000, under onemillion, 1.5 million, 1.7 million, and as “athird” of Pakistan ‘s total student population.8

The one-third estimate would imply that thereare 7.5 million madrasa students, given theapproximately 25 million Pakistani childrenenrolled in primary through secondaryschools. This unusually high figure is mostlikely an error caused by a misunderstandingof official Pakistani enrollment data,9 andboth the overall consensus and the most reli-able individual sources put the figure some-where between one and two million.

Determining the percentage of madrasasthat promote an ideology of violent jihadinvolves yet more guesswork. Recent specula-tion puts that number roughly 1 in 10—sug-gesting that there could be one hundredthousand to two hundred thousand poten-tial recruits for Islamist terrorist organiza-tions in Pakistan’s madrasas alone.10

The core of all madrasa education isrecitation of the Koran in the original Arabicand learning the Sunnah and Hadith (a col-lection of sayings attributed to, and tradi-tions relating to, Mohammed). The typicalcurriculum deviates little from the Dars-i-Nizami syllabus set down by the Islamic reli-gious scholar Nizamuddin Sehalvi in themid-1700s, and most of the texts had been inuse long before that. Students who remainfor more than a few years are taught medievalArabic grammar, syntax, and pronunciation,and classic works of Arabic literature. Olderstudents are introduced to more advancedsubjects such as Islamic jurisprudence.

According to Tariq Rahman, professor oflinguistics at Quaid-i-Azam University,Islamabad, Pakistani madrasas do not teachArabic as a living language, but as a historicspecimen, frozen in time. Few students

emerge from madrasas able to converse flu-ently in Arabic. The majority of students,who leave after just a few years, do not under-stand the Arabic passages from the Koranthat they have memorized. In addition topurely Koranic studies, some (but by nomeans all) madrasas also teach Urdu (theofficial language of Pakistan) or one of theregional languages such as Panjabi, Pashto,or Sindhi, for a few years at the primary level.A very small minority of madrasas also teachmodern subjects using modern textbooks.

Though the sight of automatic weapons isnot unheard of at militant madrasas,11 theschools themselves do not generally providetraining in physical combat, the use offirearms, or military tactics.12 Instead, theyarm their students with an ideology that jus-tifies and endorses violence against all whofall short of the Islamist ideal. Interpreting apopular Koranic lesson for the visiting jour-nalist, the nine-year-old mentioned aboveexplained:

The Muslim community of believers isthe best in the eyes of God, and wemust make it the same in the eyes ofmen by force. . . . We must fight theunbelievers and that includes thosewho carry Muslim names but haveadopted the ways of unbelievers. WhenI grow up I intend to carry out jihad inevery possible way.13

To understand why some madrasas aremore likely than others to glorify militantIslamism, it is necessary to have at least a cur-sory understanding of the divisions withinthe Islamic faith. Modern Islam has twomain branches: Shiism and Sunnism. Shiaand Sunni Muslims initially split over whoshould succeed Mohammed as leader of theIslamic world.14 Today, apart from this con-tinuing disagreement, the Shia venerate andcreate shrines at the graves of key figuressuch as Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law. Suchshrines are seen as improper at best andheretical at worst by orthodox SunniMuslims.

4

Militantmadrasas armtheir students

with an ideologythat justifies and

endorses violenceagainst all who

fall short of theIslamist ideal.

Sunni Muslims substantially outnumberShiites, accounting for 85 to 90 percent of allthe Islamic faithful (closer to 75 percent inPakistan). Both branches, in turn, are made upof multiple sects, of which two Sunni sects ofthe Indian subcontinent, Barelvism andDeobandism, are the most relevant to this dis-cussion. Barelvis make up a substantial major-ity of the Pakistani population, whereasDeobandis make up perhaps 15 percent.15 Themost important difference between these sectsis that Deobandis hold to a strict and histori-cally orthodox view of Islam, while Barelvishave allowed local traditions and mysticism tointermingle with Islamic doctrine. MilitantIslamist Deobandis initiated a war againsttheir Shia fellow citizens in the early 1980s,sparking sectarian skirmishes that took thelives of 411 Shias and 212 Sunnis in theprovince of Punjab alone between 1990 and1999.16 Barelvis are typically more tolerant ofreligious diversity and place comparatively lit-tle emphasis on the Sunni/Shia schism.Militant Deobandis, however, are less and lesseasily distinguishable from militant Wah-habis, given the substantial funding theyreceive from Saudi Arabia.

Despite their majority position in the pop-ulation at large, Barelvis operate only aboutone-quarter of the country’s madrasas. Thebulk of religious schools, up to two-thirds ofthe total, are run by Deobandis.17 It is themore militant among these Deobandi institu-tions that sent many of their graduates off towage jihad on the Soviets during the 1980s,that preach violence and hate against all whodo not share their views, that are associatedwith both domestic and international terroristorganizations,18 and that provide refuge inPakistan to Afghan Taliban fighters who arecurrently trying to bring down the govern-ment of Hamid Karzai.19 Militant Deobandimadrasas are most conspicuous in andaround the Federally Administered TribalAreas, which border Afghanistan, but they canbe found all across Pakistan.

The scope and severity of the militantIslamist threat was well known international-ly even before 9/11, and Pervez Musharraf’s

government has been under considerablepressure from Western countries (and India)to either close down or moderate radicalmadrasas. In response, Musharraf has under-taken several regulatory and reform effortsover the past three years. The initial proposalshave usually included mandatory measuressuch as government registration of allmadrasas and public disclosure of their fund-ing sources. All such proposals have rousedfierce opposition from religious groups andpolitical parties, and they have been quicklymodified into voluntary programs. Subse-quently, these reforms have been allowed todie altogether given the recognition that vol-untary participation would be minimal.

During the summer of 2003 the govern-ment skipped any preliminary flirtation withcompulsion, jumping directly to a voluntaryoffer to provide textbooks and teachers formodern secular subjects at governmentexpense to any madrasa that chooses to par-ticipate. Leaders of all five of the nationalmadrasa boards (which together oversee vir-tually all of Pakistan’s Islamic schools)immediately declared their opposition to theprogram, their intention not to participate,and their determination to fight any futurestate pressure to make them participate.

The only significant result of Pakistan’smadrasa policy pageant has been to spur theleadership of the previously factionalizedmadrasa boards to unite under a singleumbrella organization: the Ittehad TanzimatMadaris-e-Deenia (ITMD). Since the forma-tion of the ITMD in 2000, the five board rep-resentatives have spoken with a single voicein defiance of all regulatory and reformefforts. Even Sarfraz Naeemi, secretary-gener-al of the less militant Barelvi madrasa board,opposes the current legislation, arguing thathis board’s schools already cover modern sec-ular subjects. Also underlying Naeemi’sopposition is his belief that

this project has not been initiated by thePakistan government and the U.S. isbehind this move to suppress the grow-ing Islamic influence which is resiliently

5

During the 1980s and 1990s,“Pakistan studies” text-books were primarily concerned withthe Islamizationof the studentsand, throughthem, the nation.

rising after the U.S. aggression onAfghanistan and has now gained mo-mentum after the recent war in Iraq.20

Echoing Naeemi’s assertion of foreigninvolvement, a recent Pakistani press reportstates that “the madrassa reforms being pro-posed now directly involve the western coun-tries.”21

Given the precedents of the past few years,it seems unlikely that militant Islamistmadrasas will be deflected from their chosenpath by curriculum reform. The only previ-ous voluntary madrasa reform that was actu-ally implemented by the government attract-ed just 300 schools (or perhaps 3 percent ofall madrasas), and these are unlikely to haveincluded any of the more extreme institu-tions. Hussain Haqqani, a visiting scholar atthe Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace and former Pakistani ambassador toSri Lanka, contends that even if some radicalmadrasas did adopt modern secular subjectsit would not deter them from promoting anideology of intolerance and violent jihad.During a visit to the Darul Uloom Haqqaniamadrasa in the weeks after 9/11, Haqqaniasked one of the talibs (students) if he wouldlike to learn mathematics. The studentreplied, “In hadith there are many referencesto how many times Allah has multiplied thereward of jihad. If I knew how to multiply, Iwould be able to calculate the reward I willearn in the hereafter.”22

Haqqani is not only pessimistic about theprospect of reforming radical madrasas bybroadening their curriculum, he argues thatPervez Musharraf does not want to eliminatethe militant Islamist threat. Haqqani con-tends that Musharraf is using the upsurge inIslamism to justify his continued militarydictatorship. The choice Musharraf is pre-senting to the world, according to Haqqani,is between himself and a nuclear-armedIslamist state, a choice that has all butsilenced U.S. pressure for Musharraf to rein-state democracy.

A second contention put forward byHaqqani and others is that Musharraf delib-

erately treats the Islamist parties with kidgloves because they have historically beensupportive of military dictatorships in returnfor complete autonomy in operating theirmadrasas and other institutions. By givingthem free rein, Musharraf thus adds to hisdomestic support base.23

Pakistani Government Schools This paper generally uses the terms “gov-

ernment school” and “state school” ratherthan “public school” to refer to tax-funded,state-run educational institutions. This isbecause many of the countries being dis-cussed, Pakistan included, do not have elect-ed governments but rather dictatorships ofone form or another, and so the term “publicschool” is unsuitable.

Several Western observers have suggestedshoring up the faltering Pakistani govern-ment school system as a way to lure familiesaway from militant madrasas. P. W. Singer ofthe Brookings Institution made this case in2001,24 for example, and it was reiterated bythe Brussels-based International Crisis Groupin 2002.25

For Singer, the proliferation of madrasasover the past two decades stems chiefly fromthe inexorable decay of government services,particularly education. Improving and expand-ing Pakistan’s government school network, heargues, should therefore draw students awayfrom the madrasas and into the presumablymoderate and tolerant state schools.

The presumption that Pakistan’s stateschools promote tolerance is mistaken.Whenever a new nation is formed, it is com-mon for its state schools to vigorously, if notstridently, advance a sense of nationalism—toembellish its own record and villanize its realor perceived rivals. Nevertheless, over Paki-stan’s 50-plus year history, the state schoolshave actually grown more jingoistic and intol-erant, not less so.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s firstleader and the central figure in its founding,advocated religious harmony and a demo-cratic, secular state. In a famous 1947 speechhe declared, “You may belong to any religion

6

The message ofhate, suspicion,and intolerance

delivered bySaudi Arabia’s

schools appearsto have been

internalized by aconsiderable

segment of thepopulation.

or caste or creed—that has nothing to do withthe business of the State.”26 His commitmentto the separation of church and state was notalways so absolute, but he was not anIslamist, and did not see it as the role of thestate to Islamize the Pakistani people—whether through the schools or by othermeans.

Subsequent leaders took a different view,and the state schools were increasingly seizedupon as indoctrination factories. Under mili-tary dictator Zia ul Haq, who took power in1979 and actively sought the support ofIslamist parties, textbooks were rewritten tofulfill a clearly stated mission:

To demonstrate that the basis ofPakistan is not to be found in racial,linguistic, or geographical factors, but,rather, in the shared experience of acommon religion. To get students toknow and appreciate the Ideology ofPakistan, and to popularize it with slo-gans. To guide students towards theultimate goal of Pakistan—the creationof a completely Islamised State.27

During the 1980s and 1990s, “Pakistanstudies” textbooks were primarily concernedwith the Islamization of the students, andthrough them, the nation. Non-Muslims,especially Hindus, were portrayed as wickedand treacherous, and science and secularknowledge were viewed with deep suspi-cion.28 Ironically, Jinnah was mischaracter-ized in these textbooks as a devout orthodoxMuslim who sought to implement anIslamist theocracy.

The state schools would likely have becomeeven more extreme and thoroughly Islamizedunder the elected government of NawazSharif, whose party was on the verge of imple-menting Sharia law when it was ousted byMusharraf’s military coup in 1999. Musharrafhimself has often spoken on the virtues of amore moderate and tolerant society, and moremodern, enlightened schooling. In March2002 he directed the Curriculum Wing of theMinistry of Education to embark on a major

reform program aiming to eliminate theexcesses of jingoism and religious extremismfrom state schools.

According to a report released by theIslamabad-based Sustainable DevelopmentPolicy Institute in July 2003, that effort hasfailed.29 The report, titled “The Subtle Sub-version: The State of Curricula and Text-books in Pakistan,” is unequivocal. “The post-reform curricula and textbooks continue tohave the same problems as the earlier ones.Reform has not been substantive.” Theauthors of the report describe the severity ofthe problem in these stark terms:

Madrassas are not the only institutionsbreeding hate, intolerance, a distortedworldview, etc. The educational materi-al in the government run schools domuch more than madrassas. The text-books tell lies, create hate, incite forjehad [sic] and shahadat [martyrdom inthe name of Allah], and much more.30

Both the curriculum and the textbooksreviewed by the SDPI were also found to per-petuate, by name, the Islamist “Ideology ofPakistan” introduced to the schools by Zia ulHaq.

The present state of affairs in Pakistanigovernment education did not come about byaccident. It arose because the Ministry ofEducation’s Curriculum Wing bureaucracywas captured by the group that places thehighest value on dictating what other people’schildren will learn.31 In the case of Pakistan,that constituency appears to be DeobandiIslamists, the same group that operates up totwo-thirds of the country’s madrasas whileconstituting only 15 percent of its popula-tion.32 Acknowledging this situation, theSDPI has recommended that Musharraf abol-ish the Curriculum Wing and appoint a newquasi-governmental board to assume itsresponsibilities.

This is a dubious proposition. First, it pre-supposes that Musharraf really is committedto weaning his government from its jingois-tic and religiously extremist educational

7

The Saudi education threatis substantiallymagnified by the country’saggressive campaign toexport it aroundthe world.

apparatus, and introducing a more liberaland pro-democratic school system. Such amove would run directly counter to thebehavior of Pakistan’s previous militarystrongmen, and would undermine supportfor his own regime’s suppression of democ-racy and suspension of the constitution. Thefact that Musharraf entrusted the currentCurriculum Wing to implement his 2002reform initiative in the first place calls intoquestion either his sincerity or his wisdom.

Second, the SDPI proposal ignores thefact that the same forces that helpedIslamists to become influential within theCurriculum Wing would presumably leadthem to eventual prominence on the SDPI’snew board as well. Even if Musharraf chose tokick the Pakistani government habit of cur-rying favor with Islamists and appointed anew, moderate curriculum board tomorrow,there would be nothing to prevent his even-tual successors from reconstituting theboard with religious radicals in the majority.

Schools in Saudi Arabia The international security threat posed by

Saudi education policy can only be under-stood in the broader context of the country’slinks to Islamist militancy and of its state reli-gion: the Wahhabi sect of Islam. Saudi Arabiamade headlines in the summer of 2003 whena congressional report on the 9/11 terroristattacks was published with 27 pages missing.Leaks to the media quickly identified theexpurgated passage as an account of Saudi pri-vate and governmental aid to several of thehijackers. One explanation for the censorshipof these pages is that U.S. intelligence agenciescould not agree on whether the ties were delib-erate efforts to abet terrorism or were simplyunfortunate accidents.

The answer to that particular questionmay indeed be in doubt, but it is widelyaccepted that the Saudi Arabian governmentconsciously supports terrorist organizations.This support is often given, according toexperts, because Saudi Arabia wishes to seemilitant Islamist groups around the worldturn their attention away from the Saudi

royal family.Saudi Arabia’s active proselytization of

Wahhabism poses a threat to U.S. nationalsecurity because of the nature of Wahhabibeliefs and the ease with which those beliefs canbe used to defend and endorse terrorist acts.The central tenet of Wahhabism is the seem-ingly innocuous tawhid, or belief in the onenessof God. For ibn Wahhab, all prayers and shrinesto any object or person other than his singulardeity represented shirk (polytheism), as did theelevation of prophets, saints, or clerics to a sta-tus he reserved for his deity. By this unusuallystrict definition, Jews, Christians, ShiiteMuslims, and many Barelvi Sunni Muslims,among others, are polytheists.

Shirk can be a serious offense even underless orthodox interpretations of Islam, butWahhabis regard it with a special antipathy.There are several historical cases in whichWahhabi armies razed Shiite shrines and mas-sacred villagers in other countries (notably,Iraq) in the name of stamping out shirk.33 Jewsand Christians, who are traditionally affordedspecific protection by the Koran under thedesignation “people of the book,” have beenstripped of this protection by extremist Saudiclerics on the grounds that they have becomepolytheistic in modern times.34

This Wahhabi interpretation of shirk,taught in Saudi schools (and those funded bythe kingdom abroad), has become a centraljustification for violent, international jihad.Osama bin Laden’s former deputy, al-Zawahiri, once wrote that commitment totawhid (the opposite of shirk) “was the sparkthat ignited the Islamic revolution againstthe enemies of Islam at home and abroad.”35

With the doctrinal context established, wecan now focus on Saudi schooling. SaudiArabia has one of the most comprehensivegovernment school systems in the Arabworld, consuming roughly 30 percent of thekingdom’s budget. A third of the school dayis taken up by instruction in Wahhabism.Private schools exist but must follow thesame Wahhabi religious curriculum as thegovernment schools. All books entering orleaving the kingdom are subject to scrutiny

8

Recent terroristactivity withinSaudi Arabia,

particularlyamong youths,

has been the keyfactor spurring

government callsfor a kinder,

gentler Saudichildhood.

by the state and can be rejected if they arefound to conflict with Wahhabist Islam. Alltextbooks are commissioned or selected bythe central government.

Consider some examples from recent orstill-current textbooks: A text titled “Picturesfrom the Lives of the [Mohammed’s] Com-panions” describes how Jews and Christianswere cursed by Allah for accepting polytheismand were turned into apes and pigs. An eighthgrade textbook explains that the most impor-tant duties for a Muslim are jihad for the sakeof Allah and the spread of Allah’s religion onearth. Fifth graders are put on notice that “thewhole world should convert to Islam andleave its false religions lest their fate will behell.”36

Geography of the Muslim World, for eighth-grade students, makes the following observa-tions about non-Wahhabis and currentevents:

There is no doubt that the Muslims’power irritates the infidels and spreadsenvy in the hearts of the enemies ofIslam—Christians, Jews, and others—sothey plot against them, gather [their]force against them, harass them andseize every opportunity in order to elim-inate the Muslims. Examples of thisenmity are innumerable, beginningwith the plot of the Jews against theMessenger and the Muslims at the firstappearance of the light of Islam andending with what is happening toMuslims today—a malicious Crusader-Jewish alliance striving to eliminateIslam from all the continents. Thosemassacres that were directed against theMuslim people of Bosnia-Herzegovina,the Muslims of Burma and thePhilippines, and in Africa, are the great-est proof of the malice and hatred har-bored by the enemies of Islam to thisreligion.37

A Saudi ninth-grade text teaches children:

The hour [day of judgment] will not

arrive until Muslims fight Jews, andMuslims will kill Jews until the Jew hidesbehind a tree or a stone. A Jew will [then]hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rockor tree will call upon the Muslim: ‘OMuslim, O slave of Allah! there is a Jewbehind me, come and kill him!’38

A middle-school textbook published in2000 and titled Explanations (of the Koran)informs its adolescent readers:

It’s allowed to demolish, burn ordestroy the bastions of the Kufar (infi-dels)—and all what [sic] constitutestheir shield from Muslims if that wasfor the sake of victory for the Muslimsand the defeat for the Kufar.39

Wahhabis not only categorize Jews,Christians, and other non-Muslims as kufar,but also place in this category Muslims whodo not follow the Wahhabi interpretation oftawhid.40

Not all Saudis emerge from school with adesire to wage an international holy war, butthe government schools’ official hatred andcontempt for non-Wahhabis clearly fomentIslamist militancy. That militancy is furtherencouraged in many of the country’s mosques.In the Suleiman Bin Muqiran mosque inRiyadh, Sheikh Majed ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Firian stated in late 2002:

Muslims must . . . educate their chil-dren to Jihad. This is the greatest bene-fit of the situation: educating the chil-dren to Jihad and to hatred of the Jews,the Christians, and the infidels; edu-cating the children to Jihad and torevival of the embers of Jihad in theirsouls. This is what is needed now.41

The message of hate, suspicion, and intol-erance delivered by Saudi Arabia’s schools—amessage reinforced by much of the nation’sestablished clergy—appears to have beeninternalized by a considerable segment of thepopulation. A poll conducted by the Saudi

9

The convictedfield commanderof the Bali bomb-ing recruited terrorist operatives fromKoran studygroups held atgovernment-runIslamic highschools in western Java.

internal intelligence agency allegedly foundthat 95 percent of Saudi men between 25 and41 approved of Osama bin Laden’s cause.42

One out of every three of the original Afghandetainees sent to Guantanamo Bay wereSaudis,43 as were most of the 9/11 hijackers.By mid-August 2003, thousands of youngSaudi men were reportedly “flooding intoIraq” and “preparing for jihad” against coali-tion forces and any Iraqis aiding the democ-ratic state-building effort.44

The Saudi education threat is substantiallymagnified by the country’s aggressive cam-paign to export it around the world. An onlinemagazine published by the Saudi royal familystates, “The cost of King Fahd’s efforts in thisfield has been astronomical, amounting tomany billions of Saudi riyals.”45 The magazinementions “2,000 schools for educatingMuslim children in non-Islamic countries inEurope, North and South America, Australia,and Asia” that have been funded wholly or inpart by the Saudi government.46

Saudi Arabia has not restricted its largessto proselytizing children in non-Muslimcountries. The Saudis have built or subsidizedWahhabi schools in some 47 Muslim andnon-Muslim nations around the world.47

These schools are among the most radicalIslamist outposts in their host countries. Asnoted earlier, Saudi Arabia is thought to be thelargest foreign source of funding for Pakistanimadrasas, and has been tied to the mostunabashedly militant among them. On thewall of a classroom at Darul Uloom Haqqania,Mullah Omar’s Pakistani alma mater, aplaque announces that the room was “a gift ofthe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”48 The govern-ment of Cambodia shut down a Saudi-fundedIslamic school at the end of May 2003, arrest-ed three individuals associated with it, andexpelled 28 of its teachers for suspected ties tothe terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah.49 TheSaudis have also funded pesantren (madrasas)all across Indonesia, and their Office ofReligious Affairs in Jakarta distributes a mil-lion copies of Wahhabi texts every year to filltheir libraries.50

Saudi documents summarizing govern-

ment spending on missionary and foreignaid operations put the total outlay between1975 and 2002 at roughly $70 billion (that’sU.S. dollars, not Saudi riyals).51

It is impossible to say if the Saudi govern-ment will choose to moderate these extremisteducation policies. Official statements onthis front have been contradictory and evi-dence for promised reforms is so far lacking.

In a September 9, 2002, interview, Saudiforeign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal statedthat an investigation he had initiatedrevealed 10 percent of the material in Sauditextbooks to be “questionable” and another 5percent to be “abhorrent.” During that sameinterview he indicated that this material hadalready been changed.52 No proof of suchchanges was forthcoming at that time, how-ever, despite the fact that there are a numberof organizations both willing and able toreview any newly revised Saudi textbooks.53

Two days later, on the first anniversary ofthe 2001 terrorist attacks, interior ministerPrince Naif Ibn Abdul Aziz was less com-pelling, seeming to leave the door open to the“development” of Saudi curricula, but find-ing no fault with it and advocating nochanges. He concluded: “We strongly believein the correctness of our education systemand its objectives. We don’t change our sys-tems on the demands of others.”54

The only concrete news to come out ofSaudi Arabia with regard to curriculumreform is that a war is being waged on thesubject between Minister of EducationMuhammad al-Rashid and hard-liners with-in the government and the Council of SeniorUlama (official religious scholars). In thespring of 2002, al-Rashid is reported to havecriticized Saudi schooling as “parrot-like” forits emphasis on rote memorization of theKoran. A leader of the CSU, Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan, responded:

Some of our own people want us tobecome like the infidels who want us torenounce our religious beliefs and fol-low in their footsteps by changing oureducation curricula that are based on

10

Although privateschools were not

up to the standards of

those in wealthycountries, they

were vastly bettermaintained and

equipped thantheir government

counterparts.

the Koran and the teachings of theProphet. . . . a parrot is he who repeatsthe demands of the enemies of Islamthat we should stop teaching the Koran,in order that we abandon our faith.55

In the wake of this opposition, al-Rashidappears to have backed off. In an interviewon October 22, 2002, with the London-basedArabic daily Al-Hayat, his deputy educationminister, Khaled al-Awad, back-pedaled furi-ously from Prince Saud al-Faisal’s promisesof the previous month. He told Al-Hayat thatmeetings between U.S. and Saudi officials onthe Saudi education system resulted in anunderstanding that the

Saudi curriculum is fine and does notencourage or boost terrorism andhatred of a member of another religionor faith. This follows attacks on theSaudi curriculum, according to whichit was claimed that the curricula nour-ished the [ideas] of terrorism in thesouls of the pupils following the eventsof September 11. . . . These meetingsyielded positive results, and since mostof those present realized that the Saudicurricula were fine, they retracted theirbaseless accusations.56

Notice that contrary to Saud al-Faisal’sacknowledgement that the curriculum con-tained some “abhorrent” elements, al-Awaddescribed it as “fine.” Just five days later, fol-lowing a meeting with his French counter-part, Saudi minister of defense Prince Sultandeclared, “We do not plan to change our edu-cational policy and no one asked us to do so,”adding that “we are not extremists, and thereis no such thing as a Wahhabi sect.”57

In June 2003, the Saudi press reportedthat curriculum reform was under way, butthat it was restricted to mathematics and sci-ence58—not among the subjects that mostegregiously incite hatred or violence.

More promising signs arose around thesecond anniversary of 9/11, with statementsto the Western media that 35 textbooks had

been revised for the new school year, includ-ing some religious texts dealing with tawhid(monotheism). Few details are available onthe nature or extent of the announcedchanges, and the new books have yet to bereviewed by independent organizations. It isthus too early to tell how much of animprovement, if any, has been wrought.

One thing that does seem likely is that theKingdom’s apparent renewed interest inmoderating its domestic educational prac-tices has been driven at least as much byinternal concerns as by criticism from theWest. Numerous commentators in the Arabworld have argued that criticism in theWestern media has served only to angerSaudi hardliners, making them less willing togo along with curriculum reform.59 Whetheror not that is the case, recent terrorist activitywithin Saudi Arabia, particularly amongyouths, has been the key factor spurring gov-ernment calls for a kinder, gentler Saudichildhood.

During the summer of 2003 Saudi author-ities arrested some 200 suspected terrorists onSaudi soil, many of them under the age of 18.The involvement of so many young people inviolent activity within the Kingdom has pro-vided the royal family with both a personalincentive (self-preservation) and a public justi-fication (maintaining public order) for toningdown the schools’ hostile rhetoric. The minis-ter of information has asked journalists to tellyoung people not to associate with terrorists,and the minister of education, al-Rashid, haspleaded with students to shun violence.60

Only time will tell if al-Rashid’s promisedreforms are genuine and successful.

In contrast to the steady (if contradictory)flow of Saudi statements on the domesticeducation front, the Kingdom has been quietregarding its policy of building and subsidiz-ing hard-line Wahhabist schools internation-ally. There is no sign that this policy will bechanged in the foreseeable future.

Schools in Indonesia Indonesia had, until recently, been consid-

ered the world’s most tolerant Muslim-major-

11

Until the late20th century itwas unusual for agovernment toharness theschools of another sovereign nationto achieve its ownends.

ity nation. The nearly 90 percent of Indo-nesians who practice Islam tended, likePakistani Barelvis, to be relaxed toward reli-gious minorities and fellow Muslims of differ-ent sects. Just as the Barelvis incorporatedsome indigenous religious practices into theirfaith, so did Indonesian Muslims absorbBuddhist, Hindu, and other influences.Indonesian women have historically beenaccorded the same rights and freedoms asmen, and until recently, the state seldom inter-fered in matters of religion. AlthoughIndonesia has always had a small minority ofultra-orthodox Islamists, from which a num-ber of violent splinter groups have formed,that minority was generally held in check bysecular authorities through the mid-1990s.

That traditional religious liberalism hasbeen challenged over the past decade by thespread and increasing militancy of severalIslamist groups. The Islamic Defenders Front(Front Pembela Islam or FPI) regularly stagesviolent mass protests outside of nightclubsand gambling parlors, which they see as unac-ceptable outposts of vice. Their rampages havebeen sufficiently violent and destructive thatVice President Hamza Haz publicly pleadedwith the group not to carry weapons duringtheir demonstrations.61 Laskar Jihad, thelargest domestic terrorist organization, in-flamed preexisting tensions between Chris-tians and Muslims in the Maluku Islands in2000 by sending thousands of its members toeradicate the Christians.62 Before reportedlydisbanding in 2002 after the arrest of itsleader, Jaffar Talib, Laskar Jihad also partici-pated in sectarian conflict in Sulawesi.63

Indonesia has also been the principal home toJemaah Islamiyah, a loose-knit South Asianterror network responsible for scores of bomb-ings claiming hundreds of lives in the pastthree years alone. JI’s most notable attack wasthe Bali nightclub bombing of 2002 thatkilled more than 200 people.64 JI’s goal is tocreate an international Islamist theocracy inSouth Asia.

The methods of militant Islamist groupsenjoy little support among the majority ofIndonesians, but their goals increasingly

strike a chord. According to a recent poll, 60percent of Indonesians would not object tothe imposition of Sharia (Islamic law). WithIndonesians facing the highest unemploy-ment rate in the region, discontent is rife.65

The United States, which was favorablyregarded by 70 percent of Indonesians in2000, is now regarded unfavorably by 85 per-cent (due in large part to widespread hostili-ty toward U.S. action in Afghanistan). At aSeptember 2003 meeting of pesantren(Islamic boarding school) leaders in CentralJava, Vice President Hamzah Haz called theUnited States the “terrorist king,” laterexplaining to reporters that America waswaging an international war of terror. Oncehis comments had made international head-lines and jeopardized U.S.-Indonesian rela-tions, Haz retracted them claiming that theyhad been taken out of context.66

Given this combination of anti-Americansentiment, economic frustration, rising Islamicorthodoxy, and active terrorist organ-izations,Indonesia should figure prominently on U.S.foreign policy’s radar. The International CrisisGroup believes there are only a handful ofschools in Indonesia directly tied to terroristgroups like Jemaah Islamiyah,67 but radicalIslamist ideology and conspiracy theories aremore widely preached—and learned. The con-victed field commander of the Bali bombing,Imam Samudra, recruited terrorist operativesfrom Koran study groups held at government-run Islamic high schools in western Java. A sur-vey conducted in the late summer of 2003revealed that most students at pesantren asso-ciated with Muhammadiyah (one of Indonesia’stwo largest Islamic organizations), “viewAmerica as an enemy, believe the Bali attack wasorganized by the U.S. to ‘damage the image ofIslam,’ and say that they are eager to join ajihad.”68

As noted in the preceding section, theSaudi government is actively abetting the rad-icalization of Islamic education in Indonesia,annually distributing a million copies ofWahhabi texts to the nation’s school librariesthrough its embassy’s Office of ReligiousAffairs in Jakarta.69

12

Between 1986 and 1992, USAID

underwrote theprinting of

explicitly violentIslamist

textbooks forAfghani

elementaryschool children.

The Indonesian government has made atleast one limited effort to curtail the militantideology and dispel the conspiracy theoriesprevalent in extremist schools. With funding(and most likely encouragement) from the U.S.government, about 50 pesantren students perweek will be offered anti-terrorism classes inthe fall of 2003. The students will be selectedfrom 141 pesantren viewed to be sympatheticto Jemaah Islamiyah. Most students will neverreceive this instruction. Among the schoolswhose students will not be offered theselessons in tolerance are Indonesia’s publicschools and pesantren associated withMuhammadiyah. Notwithstanding the surveyresults mentioned above, Muhammadiyah isregarded as a moderate organization by thegovernment, and anti-terrorism courses in itsschools are apparently viewed as unnecessary.70

The U.S. administration is not, however,the only constituency Indonesian politicianswould like to please. The Indonesian govern-ment has also actively solicited the support oforthodox Muslims in the run-up to the 2004elections, by imposing a new legal require-ment on private schools. Article 13 of theNational Education System Bill, passed inJune 2003, states that every private school stu-dent must be provided religious instruction inhis or her own faith, along with a place of wor-ship. The law will apply whenever a school has10 or more students of a given religion.

Because Indonesia’s private Christianschools teach a full range of academic subjectsand are generally highly regarded, most enrollat least some Muslim students.71 Muslimenrollments of between 60 and 75 percent arenot unheard of in Christian schools. Sincemost pesantren, by contrast, focus on Arabic,the Koran, and Islamic law, their non-Muslimenrollment is low. An inevitable (and widelyunderstood) result of Article 13 will thus be tooblige Christian schools to hire Muslim ulemaand perhaps even build mosques, whereas fewof the nation’s pesantren will be affected inany way.72

Another effect of Article 13, so far unmen-tioned in the press, will be to force thenation’s secular private schools to raise

tuition to pay for religious teachers and facil-ities—unless they decide to risk ignoring thelaw. Any such additional costs will no doubtpush these schools out of the financial reachof more low-income families, leaving parentswith few options but to turn to the tuition-free pesantren. (Indonesian state-run high-schools are academically selective and havelimited places, and so the private sectorserves many students who fail to gainentrance to government schools.) Researchon the comparative merits of Indonesianschools has found that secular privateschools provide the greatest return on a par-ent’s educational investment after control-ling for student background and characteris-tics.73 Raising the tuition at these schools willthus have a negative impact on both the indi-vidual families affected and the nation’seconomy as a whole, while potentiallyswelling pesantren enrollment.

Escaping Poverty andIndoctrination through Fee-

Charging Private SchoolsThe education systems of the developing

world are astonishingly diverse. Though vir-tually all developing countries operate tax-funded, state-run education systems, privateschools in many of these countries also enrolla substantial share of students. In Pakistan,for example, well over a quarter of all stu-dents are enrolled in fee-charging privateschools, twice as high a percentage as in theUnited States. Some state-run systems chargeparents fees, while others do not. Privateschools are sometimes financed entirelythrough tuition, sometimes through a com-bination of tuition and state subsidies, andsometimes entirely by the state. Althoughelite private schools usually exist to servewealthier families, most private schools servemiddle- and lower-income families. The cur-ricula of some government schools includedevotional religious instruction, whereasothers are purely secular. Most developingnations have both secular and denomina-

13

As recently as thesummer of 2003,USAID had notpublicly ruled outpublishing reli-gious textbooksin Iraq.

tional private schools. Some larger nations,such as India and Indonesia, have schools invirtually all of the above categories, and oth-ers besides.

Despite this tremendous diversity, somepatterns are evident across developingnations. The most obvious of these patternsis that overall educational conditions andoutcomes are grossly deficient. Academicachievement, enrollment, and attainment(highest grade completed) levels are low,basic school facilities such as clean drinkingwater and toilets are frequently defective orabsent altogether, many school buildings arein need of major repair, and curricula areunresponsive to parental demand.

Across developing countries, privateschools that are highly autonomous and arepaid for directly by parents usually outper-form both private and government schoolsthat are more heavily regulated and statefunded. This is true from India to Chile toIndonesia. The Indonesian evidence is partic-ularly interesting, as it suggests that there is aconsistent but gradually diminishing efficiencyreturn to parental tuition payment. In otherwords, school efficiency rises most dramati-cally when parents go from paying no fees topaying some fraction of the school’s cost. Asthe parental share of school financingincreases further, so does school efficiency,but it does so to a smaller and smaller degree.

Government schools in Indonesia alsoreceive some direct parental funding, andtheir efficiency also goes up with the portionof their budgets paid for by parents.Nevertheless, private schools outperformgovernment schools for a given level ofparental funding.74

Access, Attainment, and EquityBy even the most conservative estimates,

there are well over 100 million children not inschool in developing countries, and educa-tion is often unevenly distributed by sex,social group, or economic status.

In addressing these problems, the privatesector shows considerable promise. Over thepast decade, private-sector enrollment growth

has generally outstripped that of the publicsector. The vigor of private-sector educationcan be seen across Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa,and the Indian subcontinent. China hadroughly 25,000 private schools in 1996, andthe number more than doubled to 54,000 by2000. The Chinese government recognizes thevalue of its private-sector growth potential,acknowledging that “government-run schoolscan’t meet the needs of the public due to thelarge population of China.”75

Even some of the developing world’s mostintractable education problems are beingeffectively addressed by private schools, fromlowering the gender gap to bringing educa-tion to rural areas and urban slums. InPakistan, girls make up 43 percent of privateschool enrollment, but only 37 percent ofgovernment school enrollment, and mostprivate schools are coeducational.76 A WorldBank project called the Quetta FellowshipProgram, discussed in the conclusion of thispaper, was able to narrow the gender gap stillfurther, raising both girls’ and boys’ enroll-ment with a remarkably small investment.77

Current statistics also show that most newprivate schools in Pakistan are being createdoutside the major cities, and rural schoolsnow make up 45 percent of the total supply.78

These schools aim chiefly at the middle andlower economic classes. A study of schoolingin Lahore found that a slight majority offamilies earning less than one dollar per per-son per day sent their children to privaterather than government schools. Similarresults were reported for Karachi in 1995.79

One of the most pervasive internationalpatterns in education, whether in the richworld or the poor, is that schools funded atleast in part through tuition are moreresponsive to parents when it comes to set-ting their curricula.

School Facilities The condition of schools in developing

countries is often tragically poor. Hygiene,building repair, drinking water, and toiletfacilities are all too often inadequate.Researchers in India found that 84 percent of

14

Even nonmilitantmadrasas cancontribute to

economic hardship and

political instability.

the government schools they inspected were inneed of major repair, while a third neededcompletely new buildings. Only 44 percenthad waterproof structures, 41 percent haddrinking water, 11 percent had toilets, and 3percent had electricity. Although privateschools were not up to the standards of thosein wealthy countries, they were vastly bettermaintained and equipped in these areas thantheir government counterparts. Half of all pri-vate schools needed no major repairs of anykind, 59 percent had waterproof structures, 78percent had drinking water, 34 percent hadtoilets, and 27 percent had electricity.80

The chief causes of the inferior governmentschool facilities were shoddy construction anda lack of care and routine maintenance. “Forthose in charge of construction,” the research-ers wrote, “there is often money to be made byusing substandard materials and taking othershortcuts.”81 It is also “difficult to upgrade theschool environment by providing better furni-ture,” and so on, the researchers add, because“a large proportion of these items becomenonfunctional within a short period oftime.”82 This of course makes traditional for-eign aid a problematic endeavor.

Pakistan’s situation is comparable. MostPakistani government schools do not havetoilet facilities, whereas 84 percent of privateschools do. The country’s private schools aretwice as likely to have classrooms equippedwith desks and half as likely to have unusableclassrooms as government schools.83

Deterioration in the infrastructure of stateschools is not limited to the Indian subconti-nent, but stretches from Africa84 to the Pacificatoll of Kiribati.85 As in India, the most fre-quently cited causes include the failure ofschool managers to feel a personal ownershipresponsibility for their facilities, corruption,and budgetary shortsightedness (regular main-tenance is the first thing to be cut when moneyis tight, causing classrooms and whole schoolsto gradually become unusable over time).

Taking together all of these findings, we areleft with a bleak picture. Despite the fact thatprivate, fee-charging schools are generally themost desirable option in developing countries,

they are also the most expensive option sinceparents shoulder the entire cost. Governmentschools usually have lower out-of-pocketexpenses for parents but offer curricula cho-sen by the state rather than families, some-times engage in blatant indoctrination, arepedagogically inferior, and are often physical-ly decrepit. The least expensive schools inmany countries are the fully subsidizedmadrasas, which impose curricula of theirown rather than catering to the demands ofparents, seldom teach marketable skills, andcan be among the most effective institutionsat filling children with antipathy for theUnited States. Any effort to draw parents awayfrom militant Islamist education and intoschools teaching practical academic and jobskills must respond to these realities.

Current and Historical Educational Policies

The goals of U.S. government policy in theinternational educational arena have under-gone a dramatic change over the past decade.Though current efforts aim to simultaneous-ly improve basic education and discouragemilitancy, the strategy of the late 1970sthrough the late 1980s was quite different.

How We Helped Militarize ModernIslamism

Schools have repeatedly been used as toolsof indoctrination throughout human histo-ry—from the military boarding schools ofancient Sparta to the war-glorifying acade-mies of Hitler’s Germany.86 Until the late20th century, however, it was unusual, per-haps even unprecedented, for a governmentto harness the schools of another sovereignnation to achieve its own ends. During the1980s, the United States became a pioneer inthis area through its manipulation ofPakistan’s Islamist madrasas.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in1979, the Carter administration decided tomake “the costs to the Soviet Union of [theAfghan] operation high enough so that Soviet

15

The USAID commitmentrests on a falseassumption: thatPakistani publicschools do notpromote intolerance,hatred, andIslamist extremism.

leaders [would] be deterred from thoughts ofsimilar adventures in the future.”87 A top intel-ligence official later put the U.S. goal in plain-er terms: “The aim of the program was tocause pain. It was revenge after the series ofU.S. defeats in Vietnam, Angola, the Horn ofAfrica, etc. It was payback time.”88

The program in question covertly armedanti-Soviet fighters (mostly of Afghan origin)through the intermediary of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Zbig-niew Brzezinski, Carter’s national securityadviser, negotiated a funding deal withIslamabad in February 1980 to bankroll theprogram, and then convinced Saudi Arabiato match it dollar for dollar.89 During the1980s, covert Central Intelligence Agencyfunding rose from $30 million to $630 mil-lion annually, totaling roughly $3 billionover the life of the program. The Saudis arebelieved to have matched this rising spend-ing level, largely for their own reasons (i.e.,checking the perceived threat of post-revolu-tionary Shia Iran, spreading Saudi/Wahhabiinfluence, and deflecting militant Islamistviolence away from the Saudi royal family),but with ongoing U.S. encouragement.90

At Pakistan’s behest, the United Statesagreed not to interact directly with the muja-heddin (Arabic for “holy warriors”), as theanti-Soviet fighters called themselves. Thismeant that the ISI had to assume the elabo-rate task of marshalling fighters, deliveringU.S. weap-ons, and training the insurgents touse them. To secure Pakistan’s firm commit-ment to that task, some serious inducementwas in order. Jimmy Carter offered Pakistan’smilitary dictator, Zia ul Haq, $400 millionover two years for his cooperation in January1980. Ul Haq rejected it as “peanuts.” He wasmore receptive a year later, however, when thenewly inaugurated Reagan administrationproposed a $3.2 billion, five-year package(over and above the ongoing covert funding).Half of that package was in the form of mili-tary assistance and the rest was conventionaleconomic aid. Pakistan got decisively on-board.

During the early 1980s, the CIA was

extremely careful in selecting the weaponswith which it equipped its proxy warriors.Only Soviet Bloc arms, or vintage (and henceinternationally available) U.S. items were deliv-ered to the ISI. This permitted the UnitedStates to maintain plausible deniability—whilethere were many smoking guns in Afghanis-tan, none of them could be traced back to thecontemporary U.S. arsenal.91

This level of selectivity was not applied inrecruiting mujaheddin. The White Houseseemed to have only one simple rule in decid-ing on the beneficiaries of its anti-Sovietlargess: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.America’s best friend, by this definition,turned out to be ultra-orthodox Islam. Toensure that the United States had a large andconstantly replenished supply of mujaheddin,Zia ul Haq turned to his country’s madrasas.Shia, Barelvi, and Sufi madrasa leaders gener-ally took a pass. They resented the occupationof Muslim Afghanistan by communist athe-ists but decided that indoctrinating studentsto become jihadi cannon fodder did not fitwell with their teachings. Many Deobandimadrasa leaders saw things differently. Theywere not averse to molding boys into holy war-riors, and so leapt at the chance to receive gov-ernment aid and assistance in expanding theiroperations.

The majority of children groomed byDeobandi madrasas to fight in Afghanistanwere themselves Afghan refugees. It is esti-mated that Pakistan had already taken in400,000 refugees by the start of 1980, and thenumber climbed to between three and fivemillion over the ensuing decade.92 Most ofthese displaced Afghanis lived in campsalong Pakistan’s northern border. At Zia ulHaq’s behest and with his government’sfunding, Deobandi Islamists populated theserefugee camps with militant madrasas.93

In addition to this local ideological pipeline,the ranks of the mujaheddin were also swelledby Islamist militants from all over the world.Some came on their own initiative, whereasothers were enlisted by itinerant talent scoutsfrom Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Both U.S./Pakistani involvement and the

16

By helping toshore up the gov-ernment schools

of Pakistan’s military dictator-

ship, we are notonly failing to

promote toler-ance, freedom,

and democracy,we are contri-buting to the

suppression ofthese ideals.

influx of foreign fighters shifted the natureof the war. In the immediate wake of theSoviet invasion, the leading anti-Sovietgroups had been organized and driven moreby tribal allegiances than by Islamism. Thishome-grown guerrilla opposition was alsohighly factionalized. The ISI decided toimpose order on the chaos by insisting thatany insurgent group wishing to receive U.S.arms must set up offices in the Pakistani cityof Peshawar. Only seven of the factions didso, four of which happened to be ardentIslamists. This was to have a profound effecton the ideological balance of power in theregion. Journalist Ahmed Rashid, author ofthe book Taliban, notes,

Prior to the war the Islamicists barelyhad a base in Afghan society, but withmoney and arms from the CIA pipelineand support from Pakistan, they builtone and wielded tremendous clout.94

This reality was readily apparent at thetime. The Cato Institute’s Ted Carpenterobserved in 1986 that Gubiddin Hekmaktyar,leader of the Hesbiz organization (one of theseven CIA/ISI beneficiaries), was “an admirerof Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini,” who regularlyreferred to the United States as the “GreatSatan.” According to Carpenter, Hekmaktyarspurned “capitalism and democracy, as socialpoisons,” vowing to “create a ‘pure’ Islamicrepublic in Afghanistan.”95

In addition to arming such groups for hi-tech jihad, the United States became directlyinvolved in their indoctrination process.Between 1986 and 1992, USAID underwrotethe printing of explicitly violent Islamist text-books for elementary school children. TheUniversity of Nebraska, Omaha (UNO), over-saw this $50 million contract with theEducation Center for Afghanistan (ECA), agroup jointly appointed by the seven muja-heddin organizations that the ISI and CIAhad taken under their wing.96

With this money, the Peshawar-basedECA published a series of first- throughsixth-grade textbooks whose recurrent theme

was the promotion of Islam through vio-lence. Taking rather a different tack than Dr.Seuss, these USAID-funded books instructedchildren that, in the Persian alphabet, Alif isfor Allah, Jim is for Jihad, and Shin is forShakir, adding that “Shakir conducts jihadwith the sword. God becomes happy with thedefeat of the Russians.” Third- and fifth-grade books depicted automatic rifles, rock-et-propelled grenades, and tanks. A fourth-grade mathematics text noted that “thespeed of a Kalashnikov bullet is 800 metersper second,” and then asked students,

If a Russian is at a distance of 3,200meters from a mujahid, and thatmujahid aims at the Russian’s head,calculate how many seconds it will takefor the bullet to strike the Russian inthe forehead.97

According to Craig Davis, a doctoral stu-dent who studied Afghan education for histhesis, UNO staff “chose to ignore the imagesof Islamic militancy in the children’s text-books,” until well after the Soviets had with-drawn from Afghanistan. In fact, revised,expurgated versions of the books were notreleased until 1992 (three years after theSoviet pull-out). The putative rationale fortheir acceptance of the jihadi imagery wasconcern for the mujaheddin’s “religious andcultural sensitivities,” and a desire not to beseen as imposing American values.98

A somewhat different picture is paintedby Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Centerfor Afghanistan Studies at UNO since 1974.Gouttierre told conference attendees at theBrookings Institution in December 2001:

There was a mandate from Congressthat said that the Afghans were goingto be in charge of the content of theircurriculum. This was passed on to theState Department and to USAID andany of those organizations of the gov-ernment that were helping variousorganizations, institutions like UNO.99

17

Although therepair of schoolbuildings is com-mendable, theU.S. governmentshould not beencouragingIraqis to returnto a centralizedstate-run education system.

Chris Brown, head of book revision forUSAID’s Central Asia Task Force, toldreporters in 2002, “I think we were perfectlyhappy to see these books trashing the SovietUnion.”100

Pragmatists argue that temporaryalliances with unsavory parties are unavoid-able in wars both hot and cold. There are cer-tainly some cases that support this view. Wesupplied Stalin, arguably the most successfulmass murderer of the 20th century, withhundreds of thousands of trucks, radios,tanks, and so on, during the Second WorldWar because that made it easier to defeat theimmediate existential threat posed by theAxis powers. But whether or not the arming ofthe mujaheddin can be similarly justified, thefunding by USAID of violent Islamist text-books was clearly wrong on moral, legal, andpragmatic grounds.

The moral argument is self-evident. Where-as adult mujaheddin could freely chosewhether or not to fight the Soviets, we helpedthem rob their children of that free will, mold-ing them into jihadis before they were oldenough to think for themselves. This put us inthe company of the most wicked dictators inhistory, and it should have been anathema toa country whose most touted virtue is respectfor human liberty and self-determination.

The mujaheddin textbooks also flagrantlyviolated the religious neutrality required ofCongress by the First Amendment. Yet,despite a 1991 federal appeals court rulingthat USAID could not fund religious school-ing in foreign nations, the agency funded thepublication of a series of new Afghan text-books in 2002, including devotional booksinterpreting the Koran and teaching IslamicLaw.101 As recently as the summer of 2003,USAID had not publicly ruled out publishingreligious textbooks in Iraq.

Finally, no pragmatic argument can justi-fy our bankrolling of these textbooks.Whatever short-term benefit they may haveprovided in helping to halt Soviet expansion-ism is clearly outweighed by the generationsof violent Islamists these books have helpedto create. Though official USAID-funded

publication of the unrevised mujaheddintextbooks ceased in 1992, the originals con-tinued to be used in Afghanistan throughoutthe 1990s by both the Taliban and the anti-Taliban mujaheddin warlords. They alsoremained popular with militant Islamists innorthern Pakistan—so popular, in fact, thatthey have been unofficially reprinted there asrecently as the year 2000 (though no longerat U.S. expense).

Over the course of the Afghan conflict,White House officials were aware that theywere building a powerful militant Islamistmovement. They reasoned, however, that thiswas a small price to pay to check Sovietexpansionism. Zbigniew Brzezinski wouldlater ask:

What was more important in the worldview of history? The possible creationof an armed, radical Islamic move-ment, or the fall of the Soviet Empire?A few fired-up Muslims or the libera-tion of Central Europe and the end ofthe Cold War?102

Since the necessity of aiding the mujahed-din remains debatable, whereas the threat ofmilitant Islamism is tangible and serious, theanswer to Brzezinski’s rhetorical questionappears to be the opposite of what he implieda decade ago.

About-Face: What We Are Doing toMitigate Militant Islamist Education

Many Americans both inside the govern-ment and out now believe that militantIslamist education poses a long-term threat toU.S. national security. State Department andUSAID officials told Congress in March 2003that madrasas remain a grave concern.103

Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretaryfor Near Eastern Affairs at the State Depart-ment, told participants at the June 2003 WorldEconomic Forum of plans to promote moremoderate curricula across the Middle East todisplace militant Islamist teachings.104

It is also widely recognized that even non-militant madrasas can contribute to eco-

18

The United Statesshould not be

pressuring for-eign governments

to legislate whattheir citizens canand cannot teach

their children.

nomic hardship and political instabilitywhen they substitute for modern academicinstruction instead of complementing it,since most madrasas do not prepare theirstudents for the contemporary labor market.

Recent USAID projects aim to addressthese concerns by moderating the content ofmadrasas and/or increasing the availabilityand quality of alternatives to madrasas.

Aid to Government Schools. Improving thepublic school system to draw children awayfrom madrasas is the central goal of USAID’seducation operations in Pakistan. ChristineRocca, the State Department’s assistant sec-retary for South Asia, testified at a Housesubcommittee hearing:

President Bush, last year, committedover $100 million to help Pakistan’seducation system, and the idea is to pro-vide an alternative to the madrasas andto support the government’s efforts toreinvigorate or rebuild the educationsystem, which was badly broken. Whenit comes to the madrasas, [the Mushar-raf government has] an internal reformprogram whereby they want to expandthe curriculum, and we want to helpwith that as well, but, more important-ly, we are helping with building up analternative.105

She elaborated in a follow-up writtenresponse for the record:

One key element of the education chal-lenge in Pakistan is the lack of good,available, public education. This lackof available alternatives has fueled thegrowth of the madrassas. USAID andseveral European bilateral donors areworking with the Ministry ofEducation to address education short-comings. . . . It is hoped that these pro-grams may over time provide a popularalternative to the madrassa system.106

Wendy Chamberlin, former ambassadorto Pakistan and currently the head of USAID

for South East Asia, added that not allmadrasas are militant, but agreed that mili-tant madrasas are a problem and that “sim-ply building up a stronger public school sys-tem is a good counterbalance.”107

In pursuit of that goal, USAID has chosento underwrite the government of Pakistan’sEducation Sector Reform strategy.108 TheESR is a purely Pakistani product, havingbeen in the works since the late 1990s, a peri-od during which U.S. aid to Pakistan was sus-pended in protest over the country’s nuclearweapons program. It is a typical example ofbureaucratic committee planning, offeringbits and pieces to countless stakeholders inthe education system, but lacking a clear andempirically grounded conception of how bestto fund and organize schools.

Supporters of the ESR hope that it willreduce the corruption that currently infeststhe government schools, improve their man-agement and efficiency, and increase thequality of their teachers and instruction.Although the reform strategy has specificcomponents that target most of these issues,few of its recommendations have a consistenttrack record of success. To improve manage-ment and academic outcomes, for example,both administrators and teachers will beoffered additional training. But extra train-ing will not alter the current incentive struc-ture that is so conducive to “phantomschools,” to patronage in the hiring of teach-ers, and insufficient emphasis on academicinstruction.

The reason that all these problems are rifein government schools across the developingworld, but less serious in fee-chargingschools, is that government educators do notneed to satisfy the families they putativelyserve in order to get paid. It makes little dif-ference to their financial or professionalfutures whether they maintain their schoolbuildings, control costs, or achieve good aca-demic results.

The only one of the ESR’s governmentschool improvement proposals that evenaddresses the problem of warped incentivesis the suggestion that teachers should be

19

Realpolitik maydictate that wepay Musharraffor his assistancein apprehendingterrorists, butthat does notmean we shouldhelp to perpetu-ate his militarydictatorship.

hired on a contract basis, making it easier todismiss them. But although this proposal iscommendable in at least recognizing theimportance of incentives, it fails to replicatethe successful incentive structure of fee-charging education markets. Although itmotivates teachers to please administrators,it does nothing to ensure that the adminis-trators themselves will use their new-foundpower wisely. In a market environment, bycontrast, school administrators who hire orretain ineffective teachers risk losing stu-dents or even their entire schools, and hencetheir own livelihood is at stake. This incentivestructure unites the interests of schooladministrators with those of parents: it isnecessary to serve families well in order tosafeguard one’s personal well-being.

Absent this market incentive structure,the interests of administrators and familiesdiverge, leading to the problems already ram-pant in Pakistani government schools. As theeducation minister of the North WestFrontier Province admitted last year that

there were problems with monitoringand supervision, lack of dedicationand a sense of responsibility, and prob-lems with top-level management.109

The United States, with all its tremendouswealth and domestic managerial talent, can-not get its public schools to produce decentacademic achievement for all students, main-tain buildings in good condition, or avoidcorruption and mismanagement. Why thenshould we expect Pakistan to be able to do allthese things with or without our $100 mil-lion grant?

Even more fundamental than the aboveconcerns is the fact that the USAID commit-ment rests on a false assumption: thatPakistani public schools do not and will notpromote the same kind of intolerance,hatred, and Islamist extremism as is doledout by militant madrasas. The SDPI reportdiscussed earlier reveals that even Pakistan’smost recent post-ESR textbooks instill ani-mosity toward and mistrust of Hindus and

Indians, glorify jihad and martyrdom in thename of Allah, encourage militarism, containdevotional religious instruction, and areinsensitive to Pakistan’s religious diversity.So, even if the ESR were to miraculouslytransform academic achievement, stamp outfraud, and draw students away frommadrasas, U.S. taxpayers would still be pay-ing for the indoctrination and radicalizationof Pakistani children.

Here is the nub of the issue: state-runschooling has always been one of the prima-ry tools of tyrants. One of the most commonfirst steps of would-be dictators is to shutdown or take over private schools and theninfuse the education system with a curricu-lum that consolidates support for theirregimes and agendas. Lycurgus did it in theGreek city-state of Sparta two and one-halfmillennia ago, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro,and Saddam Hussein all did it the 20th cen-tury. By helping to shore up the governmentschools of Pakistan’s military dictatorship,we are not only failing to promote tolerance,freedom, and democracy, we are actually con-tributing to the suppression of these ideals.

The lessons of history and of Pakistan’scurrent government schools are goingunlearned. The Bush administration, viaUSAID, is trying to get Iraq’s governmentschool system back up and running as fast aspossible. Although the repair of school build-ings is commendable, the United States gov-ernment should not be encouraging Iraqis toreturn to a centralized state-run educationsystem. Such systems are notoriously ineffi-cient and ineffective across the developingworld, they are unresponsive to the specificeducational needs and demands of families,and they make it far too easy to indoctrinatechildren on a mass scale.

Even simple aid for the construction orrepair of schools becomes futile when schoolbuildings are owned and operated by govern-ments. As already discussed, governmentschool systems lack an effective incentivestructure to ensure that new facilities areproperly maintained, so they are far too fre-quently allowed to fall into ruin. According

20

Although U.S.government aid isoften assumed tohelp win over thehearts and minds

of its recipients,there is little

evidence of thisresult in Islamic

countries.

to an education report on Northern India,three- quarters of government schools builtafter 1986 already needed major repairs just10 years later.110

Public/Private Partnerships. In addition toits efforts to expand and improve govern-ment schools, the ESR also includes a smat-tering of projects under the banner of pub-lic/private partnerships. These include“adopt-a-school” programs in which busi-nesses are encouraged to become involved inthe operation of government schools, intern-ship programs for government high-schoolstudents, the contracting out of unused gov-ernment school buildings to private schools,and various financial breaks for privateschools.

The first two programs, while potentiallyoffering some localized benefit, do nothing toalter the flawed incentive structure of the statesystem that has precipitated its current short-comings. The contracting arrangement begsthe question: why not simply sell the buildingsto the private sector outright? Given thePakistani government school system’s inabili-ty to effectively maintain the facilities it owns,transferring ownership to the private sector—which has shown more success in this area—would seem a better option.

The financial breaks to be offered to pri-vate schools include making property inrural areas and urban slums available to pri-vate schools at below market rates (even freein some cases), discounts on utility bills,favorable tax treatment, and even matchinggrants for school startup costs. It is not clear,however, whether some or all of these bene-fits will apply only to nonprofit schools orwill extend to for-profit schools as well. Thisis a key issue since the overwhelming majori-ty of the private schools that enroll 28 per-cent of Pakistani children, including manylow-income children, are for-profit ventures.

Should these benefits be extended to allprivate schools, they would certainly help tomake private schools more widely accessibleand affordable, and this would be the ESR’ssingle most effective way of improving theeducation of Pakistani children and of draw-

ing students away from the ideologicallyproblematic government schools and madrasas.Regrettably, the public–private partnershipcomponent of the ESR has been allocatedless than one half of 1 percent of the totalESR budget.111 As a result, the scope of itsimpact will likely be limited.

Moderating Militant Madrasas. As indicat-ed by the State Department and USAID offi-cials cited earlier, the U.S. government isbacking the ESR’s voluntary plan to

[m]ainstream the madrassahs intoPakis-tan’s general education system . . .expanding the curriculum used by themadrassahs to encompass moderncourses in science, math, economics,English, Pakistan Studies, and comput-er education . . . [and] training madras-sah teachers to teach these subjects112

According to USAID’s Wendy Chamber-lin, the administration preferred generalMusharraf’s earlier mandatory madrasa reg-istration, auditing, and curriculum diversifi-cation program to the current voluntaryscheme and is still encouraging him to carrythrough with it.113

The United States should not be pressur-ing foreign governments to legislate whattheir citizens can and cannot teach their chil-dren. We should not have one standard ofrespect for human liberty for ourselves andanother, lower standard for foreigners. Weshould not preach the virtues of politicaldemocracy one moment and then strive toimpose educational autocracy the next. To doso is simply incompatible with the ideals weclaim to cherish and wish so fiercely to defend.

Moreover, even if we “win” the day andMusharraf cajoles or compels madrasas toteach modern subjects, it is not likely toaffect their ideological extremism. Govern-ment schools in Pakistan and Saudi Arabiateach these subjects already, and doing sodoes not prevent them from indoctrinatingchildren as they see fit. With the addition ofcomputer science instruction, schools likeDarul Uloom Haqqania would be more like-

21

Unlike govern-ment schools,market schoolshave a financialincentive toexpand their services to thewidest possibleaudience and tooperate as efficiently as possible.

ly to turn out computer savvy, Java-codingjihadis than the next Bill Gates.

The madrasas would no doubt be sup-plied with government textbooks for modernsubjects, and those books do not exactlypreach peace, love, and harmony. Even if text-book selection is devolved away from theextremist Curriculum Wing of the Ministryof Education and handed to the provinces,the outcome is unlikely to improve. Islamistparty coalitions rule the NWFP and sharepower in Baluchistan, and any textbooksthey produce are apt to be even less tolerantthan the current crop.

Equally unpromising is our approach tomilitant Islamist schools in Indonesia. Thecurrent plan, under which USAID is payingfor sensitivity training for selected studentsfrom hard-line pesantren, is not simply a can-dle in the wind, it is a candle under water.While the students will be presented with amessage of tolerance during a week-longseminar, they will return to schools thatimmerse them in hatred for the West everyday of every year they attend. Perhaps theprogram will touch a handful of studentsand cause them to think, but hopes shouldbe set decidedly low.

Some Broader Concerns

Funding Indoctrination for Dictators One of the key elements in the White

House’s National Security Strategy is to chan-nel substantially more U.S. foreign aid tonations that adopt freedom, democracy, andfree enterprise than to nations that are repres-sive and authoritarian.114 The official publica-tion “USAID—Support for Democracy”describes how much of a priority it is for thatorganization to promote civic educationaround the world. In February 2003, PresidentBush described as “presumptuous and insult-ing” any suggestion that democracy is unsuit-ed to the Muslim world.115

In spite of these official policies and views,we are openly endorsing and funding mili-tary dictator Pervez Musharraf’s plans to

draw more children into Pakistan’s state-runschools—schools that do nothing to champi-on liberty, democracy, or the separation ofmosque and state. Musharraf himself nolonger shows any intention of ceding powerto the people of Pakistan, asserting in July2003 that his country “is not ready fordemocracy.”116 Since seizing power in 1999he has suspended the Pakistani constitutionand outlawed the two most popular (and sec-ular) political parties.

In supporting Musharraf’s governmentschools we are supporting his government,and doing so at the expense of Pakistani citi-zens and our own purported ideals. Realpoli-tik may dictate that we pay Musharraf for hisassistance in apprehending terrorists, but thatdoes not mean we should help to perpetuatehis military dictatorship indefinitely throughbolstering educational indoctrination.

Money Can’t Buy Us Love, But It CanBreed Resentment

The Japanese people recently won praisefrom Egyptians for financing the construc-tion of Cairo’s new opera house. Over thepast 25 years, USAID has spent more than$25 billion in Egypt, of which more than $6billion was used to build a new physical infra-structure for Cairo and other populationcenters.117 Egyptians, however, are not clog-ging the U.S. postal service with letters ofgratitude.

There are many reasons for the hostilitythat Egyptians and citizens of other unfreecountries feel toward the United States. U.S.support for Israel is of course one key factoracross the Middle East, as is a complex combi-nation of envy and scorn of American culture,but these are by no means the only factors. ADecember 2001 Congressional ResearchService report enumerates others. Prominentamong them is our support for unpopularregimes. According to the report:

Attitudes toward the United Statesoften differ on the governmental andpopular levels. Ironically, long-standingU.S. support for various regimes in the

22

Expanding accessto fee-chargingprivate schoolswould likely be

the mosteffective means

of improving the educational

situation in developing

nations.

Middle East in some cases has adverselyaffected the U.S. image among main-stream residents. Much of the “Arabstreet” is critical of U.S. support for gov-ernments that are perceived by somesegments of the population as dictator-ial, corrupt, narrowly based, or un-Islamic. These labels are variouslyapplied to important U.S. allies includ-ing Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, SaudiArabia, and Tunisia. . . . The UnitedStates draws blame from many in theregion for its role in bolstering theseregimes through political support, armstransfers, or financial aid.118

Both this report and a long line of U.S.administrations have taken the view that thisis a price well worth paying. As long as theworld’s dictators have been perceived as benev-olent toward us, their angry citizens, in particu-lar the “Arab street,” could be safely ignored.

The wisdom of this view is in seriousdoubt, for several reasons. First, it is arguablyun-American. Second, the recipient stateshave not always been truly friendly (e.g.,Saudi Arabia). And third, 9/11 proved thatwhen angry citizens become angry terroriststhey can become grave threats that areexceedingly difficult to deal with (becauseinternational terrorist organizations cannotbe defeated by seizing any particular piece offoreign real estate).

Dubious QualificationsThe U.S. government is not well qualified

to offer educational advice to foreignnations. Consider the situation in Iraq.According to a June 2003 report by Reuters,“poor governance, three wars in two decadesand 13 years of U.N. sanctions” left 6,000 to7,000 of the country’s 16,000 schools “withno glass in the windows, no electricity and nofunctioning toilets.” The education system asa whole was summed up as “very dilapidat-ed,” “decayed,” and “suffering from a lack ofinvestment.”119

Compare that with the condition of U.S.public schools. The United States has seen no

domestic wars or sanctions over the past twodecades. Instead, we have enjoyed a period ofpeace—with the notable exception of 9/11—and strong economic growth. Public schoolspending grew by more than 50 percent inreal, inflation-adjusted dollars.120 Neverthe-less, we have 17,200 schools with defective orinadequate electrical systems, 19,500 withplumbing problems, and 22,700 with inade-quate or malfunctioning heating, ventilationor air-conditioning systems. In all, 39,500U.S. public schools have at least one (butusually more than one) major building fea-ture in less than adequate condition.121 Thatis one-half of all the public schools inAmerica.

This dilapidation exists despite the factthat we spend nearly $10,000 per pupil peryear on our public school systems. Like thegovernment school systems of developingcountries, our public school systems lack areliable incentive structure to ensure that reg-ular maintenance is carried out on schedule.122

When it comes to academics, the UnitedStates is even less qualified to dispenseadvice. Our children do worse on interna-tional tests of mathematics, reading, and sci-ence the longer they spend in school. By the12th grade they are near the bottom. Of 21countries, we place 19th in mathematics,ahead of only Cyprus and South Africa.123

About a quarter of our 16 to 25-year-oldsscored at or below the lowest level of literacymeasured by the International Adult LiteracySurvey,124 indicating that they were essential-ly locked out of white-collar employment.Despite this fact, we are eagerly re-educatingIraq’s teachers to use the “child-centeredlearning” philosophy so often questioned byexperimental researchers but so popular inour colleges of education.125

Considering Alternatives

Developing a strategy for effectively ad-vancing U.S. interests while avoiding moraland legal quandaries is a difficult task. Wewill be successful in that task only if we are

23

A privately funded partialtuition subsidyscheme would bea promising vehicle for broadeningaccess to fee-charging schools.

able to stimulate the same kind of vigorousand empirically grounded debate over oureducation strategy that currently exists overour diplomatic and military policies. Thesuggestions that follow are offered as start-ing points for that debate.

Emphasize Private Aid over Government AidAlthough U.S. government aid, particular-

ly in the field of education, is often assumedto help win over the hearts and minds of itsrecipients, there is little evidence of this resultin Islamic countries. As noted above, officialaid sometimes has the opposite effectbecause the U.S. government ends up fund-ing the activities of unpopular, repressive,and unrepresentative regimes. Private philan-thropy, with the exception of explicitly mis-sionary endeavors, tends not to rouse thesame kind of resentment. USAID itself recog-nizes this fact. A recent USAID publicationtitled Foreign Aid in the National Interest, pointsout that private voluntary organizations arebetter able to “operate in politically sensitivesituations” than either government employ-ees or firms working under government con-tracts. The same document goes on to notethat private organizations are often able “toconduct programs . . . faster and more effi-ciently.”126

But even if private aid is more efficientand less likely to breed resentment than gov-ernment aid, does it account for a largeenough number of dollars to have a measur-able impact? As it happens, the total value ofcapital and labor donated internationally byU.S. private voluntary agencies was roughly$6.6 billion in 2000, which exceeds the $4.1to $5 billion in total government aid spent bynations like France, the United Kingdom,and Germany. Taking the speed and efficien-cy advantages of private voluntary organiza-tions into account, their contributions areclearly very substantial. When we add to this$6.6 billion figure the contributions of foun-dations, corporations, higher educationinstitutions, and individual remittancesfrom immigrants to their home countries,the total private assistance provided by

Americans tops $30 billion. That is threetimes the $9.9 billion spent by the federalgovernment in official development assis-tance.127

If private U.S. donors took cognizance ofthe empirical evidence on what works andwhat doesn’t across developing countries,their contributions could achieve vastlymore than either they, or government con-tributions, currently do. A specific exampleof how private donations could dramatical-ly improve the education available to fami-lies in less-developed nations while further-ing U.S. national interests is described inthe next section.

Expand Access to Fee-Charging AcademicSchools

The single most important pattern to befound among the education systems of thedeveloping world is that private schools paidfor at least in part directly by parents are con-sistently more responsive to parents’ de-mands. As a result, these schools are far lesslikely to try to indoctrinate children thanschools paid for entirely by third parties(whether governmental or private). Whenchoosing and paying for their own children’seducation, parents in these countries over-whelmingly seek out practical academicinstruction and career training that willallow their children to become economicallysuccessful. Both government schools andmilitant seminaries tend to attract studentschiefly by virtue of their low or nonexistentout-of-pocket costs to parents.

The biggest lesson of the research com-paring alternative school governance struc-tures is that fee-charging market schools out-perform government schools (and to a lesserextent government-funded private schools)in academic achievement, cost effectiveness,facilities condition and maintenance, genderequity, and enrollment growth.128

The reason for these patterns is not hardto fathom. Market schools paid for at least inpart by parents must be responsive to thedemands of parents or they cease to exist andtheir employees lose their source of liveli-

24

Fostering economic growth

in developingcountries is at

least as importantas subsidizing fee-charging schools.

hood. Unlike government schools, marketschools have a financial incentive to expandtheir services to the widest possible audienceand to operate as efficiently as possible.

Even USAID and multilateral aid agenciesthat are ideologically tied to universal com-pulsory state schooling recognize these reali-ties, though they are unable to follow themto their logical conclusion. A USAID projectaimed at improving the physical condition ofschools in developing countries reportedthat facilities are more likely to be main-tained if those charged with school mainte-nance and improvement feel a sense of own-ership. The project description did notacknowledge, however, that the best way ofinstilling a sense of ownership is actual owner-ship by the school’s management. It did notmention that fee-charging privately ownedschools across the developing world—and,for that matter, across the developed world—are generally better maintained than collec-tively owned schools, even when they are out-spent by collectively owned schools.129

The practical upshot of these observa-tions and findings is that expanding access tofee-charging private schools would likely bethe most effective means both of improvingthe educational situation in developingnations and of promoting the U.S. nationalinterest by lessening indoctrination. A poten-tial difficulty in accomplishing this goal isthat subsidies to fee-charging schools wouldlessen parents’ contributions to the cost oftheir children’s education—a key element ofthe market incentive structure that underliesthe superiority of these schools.

Fortunately, the large-scale study ofIndonesia cited earlier suggests that directpayment of tuition by parents has a dimin-ishing return, and that significant benefitcan be obtained when parents pay only a por-tion of the cost of their children’s education.Coupled with the previous section’s recom-mendation, this suggests that a privatelyfunded partial tuition subsidy scheme wouldbe a promising vehicle for broadening accessto fee-charging schools. Another plausibleapproach would be to temporarily subsidize

fee-charging schools so that they could buildup an endowment of their own, allowingthem to eventually become self-sufficient at alower tuition fee than would be possiblewithout the initial subsidies.

These ideas are not new. They have in factalready been put into practice in one of themost challenging settings in the world: thecity of Quetta in the Pakistani province ofBaluchistan. Quetta is a very poor, veryrough neighborhood. Not far from the bor-der with Afghanistan, it was home to one ofthe weapons trans-shipment sites used by theISI to supply the mujaheddin during theAfghan jihad130 and was an international hubfor the regional heroin mafia after the rise ofthe Taliban.131 It does not have an intrinsical-ly hospitable climate for women’s rights andeducation. Quetta is located firmly withinnorthern Pakistan’s tribal belt and is popu-lated mostly by conservative ethnic Pashtuns.An Afghani champion of women’s rights,known as Meena, was assassinated in aQuetta refugee camp in 1987 (reportedlywith the help of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’sIslamist Hesbiz organization, a mujaheddingroup backed at the time by the CIA).132

Despite this context, urban Quetta hasbeen the setting for a successful World Bankeducation project aimed at increasing girls’enrollment.133 Under this project, launchedin 1994, families in 11 poor neighborhoodswere asked to select a manager who wouldopen a private school. The new schools werethen to be given diminishing subsidies overthe first three years of their operation. Theplanned subsidies were 150 rupees ($2.60U.S.) per girl per month in year one, 135rupees ($2.33 U.S.) in year two, and 100rupees ($1.72 U.S.) in year three. After that,schools were expected to become entirely self-sufficient, receiving no further subsidies.Participating schools were required to setaside at least 30 percent of the subsidies for aschool endowment to help them achieve self-sufficiency. The new schools were permittedto enroll boys as well, but received no subsidyfor doing so. The subsidies for girls were con-siderably smaller than the 200 rupees per

25

U.S. agriculturalsubsidies make it harder for families in poorAfrican countriesto afford fee-charging academic schools,while giving thema reason to behostile toAmericans.

student per month spent by local govern-ment schools.

In any event, financial independence tookslightly longer than expected, but most of theschools became self-sufficient by year five. Ofthe minority of schools that continued torequire partial financial assistance at thispoint, the largest subsidy required was just 30rupees ($.52 U.S.) per girl per month—15 per-cent of the average expenditure of local gov-ernment schools. The average monthlytuition charged per student in year five was58 rupees. Both startup and operating costsfor the new private schools worked out toabout one-quarter of the costs at a govern-ment school. The Quetta project thus com-bined the use of temporary subsidies forthose schools that eventually became self-sufficient with ongoing partial subsidies forschools that need them.

The program’s effect on enrollment wasdramatic. Initial average enrollment in thetreatment neighborhoods was 45 percentfor girls and 56 percent for boys. By the endof the second year, these figures had jumpedto 71 percent for girls and 76 percent forboys—a substantial increase for both sexes,and a halving of the initial 11 percent gen-der gap. In the control neighborhoods(comparable areas that did not participatein the program) enrollment remained essen-tially unchanged for girls and dropped sub-stantially for boys.134

By concentrating their funds, skills, andvolunteer efforts on replicating Quetta-style programs throughout Pakistan andthe rest of the developing world, privatedonors could dramatically raise the enroll-ment of girls and boys in academicallyfocused schools while lessening the existingincentive for families to send their childrento madrasas or government schools. Thisapproach would be far less costly than try-ing to extend the government school sector,and less fraught with the indoctrination,corruption, and abysmal facilities mainte-nance associated with that sector. The useof private rather than official governmentfunds for this purpose would also secure

the benefits and avoid the pitfalls discussedin preceding sections.

Eliminate Trade BarriersSince the 1990 United Nations conference

in Jomtien, Thailand, the main thrust of theinternational development community hasbeen “education for all”—the goal of gettingall the world’s children into school. This hasbeen seen as the key to prosperity and self-suf-ficiency. In reality, it is only half the picture.

There is little empirical support for thenotion that artificially boosting enrollmentthrough foreign aid will lead to substantiallong-term economic progress. Virtually all ofthe research showing returns to investmenton education apply to naturally occurringrates of domestic investment, not to infu-sions of outside funding from donor nations.It is entirely possible that artificially boostingconsumption of schooling alone will pro-duce an educated class for which there arefew appropriate jobs. Historically, societieshave developed not because of isolated injec-tions of additional schooling but throughthe gradual, continuous feedback loopdepicted in Figure 1.

This virtuous circle has fueled the rise ofworld powers from classical Athens to themodern United States.135 Therefore, if wewant to facilitate a self-sustaining processthat will steadily increase both the demandfor modern academic education and thefinancial ability of citizens to consume thateducation, fostering economic growth indeveloping countries is at least as importantas subsidizing fee-charging schools. An effec-tive strategy for spurring economic growthwould be for the United States to eliminateour tariffs and quotas on imports from thesecountries, and our subsidies to U.S.exporters, and to encourage other rich coun-tries to do likewise.

Looking at the evidence of the past 200 years,researchers have concluded that unhinderedtrade is strongly tied to economic convergence—the ability of poor countries to catch up to richcountries in terms of standard of living.Economic historians Kevin O’ Rourke and

26

The educationalimpact of freer

trade withPakistan has a

substantialnational security

dimension.

Jeffrey Williamson observe that “as long asthey are members of the ‘club,’ poor countriestend to grow faster than rich countries, factorprices converge, and the living standard gapsbetween them tend to erode with time.”136

Belonging to the “club” means being able toexchange labor and goods with rich countrieswith minimal hindrance from trade barriers.Conversely, protectionism and declining tradehave been associated with divergence—theincreasing impoverishment of already-poorcountries with respect to rich countries.Agricultural subsidies in rich countries drivedown world prices, further impoverishingalready poor nations. Tariffs and quotas erect-ed by rich countries make it more difficult fordeveloping nations to sell their goods abroad,driving their citizens out of work, making itharder for them to afford private schooling fortheir children, and diminishing the value(return on investment) of that schooling bysouring the labor market.

Unfortunately, our nation currently im-poses substantial trade barriers. U.S. tariffs,

quotas, and subsidies dwarf official develop-ment assistance. The 2002 farm bill aloneallotted $15 billion to$20 billion in subsidies,about double what the government spends onforeign aid worldwide.137 These subsidies hurtpoor agricultural exporting nations all overthe world, including many Muslim ones. Theinternational relief organization OXFAMpublished a report in October 2002 condemn-ing the dumping of subsidized crops on theinternational market on the grounds that itdestroys developing countries’ efforts toachieve self-sufficiency and build exportindustries.138 Though this report focused onagricultural dumping by EU countries, theUnited States is a major culprit as well. Forexample, Mali (which is overwhelminglyMuslim) and Chad (which has a large Muslimpopulation) suffer substantially because ofU.S. cotton subsidies. These subsidies are esti-mated at just under $4 billion in 2003, or anaverage of roughly $150,000 for every cottonfarmer in the United States.139 The U.S. gov-ernment specifically subsidizes the export of

27

Any long-termstrategy for fighting international terrorism mustabate the indoctrinationtaking place inthousands of militant schoolsall over theworld.

GreaterEducation

Consumption

Figure 1The Virtuous Circle

cotton, further aggravating the negativeeffects on Third World farmers.

In other words, U.S. agricultural subsidiesmake it harder for families in poor Africancountries to afford fee-charging academicschools, while giving them a reason to be hos-tile to Americans. Anyone wondering whatAfrica has to do with Islamist terrorism needonly recall that Osama bin Laden was able tocomfortably set up shop in Sudan during the1990s, from which he

oversaw the Sudanese Islamic drive andtrained radical forces in countries suchas Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Chaduntil his Africa cells played roles in theAugust 1998 bombing of Americanembassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dares-Salam, Tanzania, which killed 223people and injured over 4,000.140

The infamous Somali “Black HawkDown” episode has also been tied to AlQaeda–trained mercenaries, and Somalia’s alIttihad Islamist Party is on the U.S. list of ter-rorist organizations.141

Agricultural subsidies are of course onlyone aspect of the tripartite protectionist edi-fice of the United States. Quotas and tariffsalso play a substantial role. Pakistan is a casein point. The clothing and textile industriesemploy three of five Pakistani workers, andthe United States places substantial barrierson the import of their products. The U.S.imposes duties of more than 25 percent oncotton clothing imports from Pakistan,putting intense pressure on that nation’seconomy. Though the Bush administrationconsidered lowering these duties and raisingassociated quotas in the wake of Pakistanicooperation during the war in Afghanistan, iteventually elected not to do so. That decisioncost many poor Pakistanis their jobs. Oneclothing worker, laid off for seven months,complained that “America is like poison tome. . . . I’m still bitter about it. I felt they wereour friends.” Although the elimination ofU.S. quotas, duties, and subsidies would notwin over hearts and minds by itself, it would

avoid the creation of such bitterness. Moreimportant, it would allow this worker, andmany others, to better afford tuition for hischildren at fee-charging schools.142

What is particularly galling about U.S.trade barriers erected against developingnations is that they hurt America’s economyas well. A recent study by the InternationalTrade Commission found that the removal ofsignificant import barriers would result in awelfare gain of $14.4 billion to the U.S. econo-my. Liberalization of textiles and apparelwould account for the vast majority of thisgain. Furthermore, trade liberalization wouldcause a net addition of 17,400 full-time Americanjobs. In other words, the number of jobs pro-tected by trade barriers is substantially lowerthan the number of jobs lost because of high-er domestic prices for goods.143

The reason that quotas, tariffs, and subsi-dies persist despite the harm they do both athome and abroad is simple: politics. The ben-eficiaries of these trade barriers are few innumber and they benefit substantially, giv-ing them an incentive to organize and lobbyvigorously for government welfare paymentsand protection from competition. The bene-ficiaries of free trade are very numerous, andthe benefits of liberalization are thus spreadmore thinly. The average citizen does nothave sufficient incentive to organize andlobby for free trade. U.S. trade relations withPakistan are a case in point. The Bush admin-istration originally intended to lower tradebarriers with Pakistan considerably after9/11, but could not get the necessary votesbecause of effective lobbying by the U.S. tex-tile industry.144

At that time, however, the easing of tradebarriers was seen as nothing more than an eco-nomic quid pro quo for Pakistani cooperationin combating terrorism. Protectionist legisla-tors who opposed trade liberalization nodoubt believed that their votes would at worsthave a negative economic effect on the UnitedStates. But the educational impact of freer tradewith Pakistan also has a substantial nationalsecurity dimension. The fact that more fami-lies would be able to afford fee-charging acad-

28

The consumptionof modern

academic andcareer training in

developing countries will be

constrainedunless it is

justified byincreasingly

sophisticateddomestic markets

and rising international

trade.

emic schools and would thus rely less onmadrasas for full-time education would be asignificant positive development. This nation-al security consideration should be stressedduring all future debates over trade liberaliza-tion with developing countries.

Conclusion

To be effective, any long-term strategy forfighting international terrorism must abatethe indoctrination taking place in thousandsof militant schools all over the world. OfficialU.S. policies in this field are either fraughtwith problems (e.g., beefing up Pakistan’sgovernment school system) or flatly counter-productive (e.g., trade protectionism). Whileno set of foreign policies or amount of for-eign aid will transform world opinionovernight, there are promising alternatives tothe status quo.

Promoting access to private schools paidfor at least in part by parents would enablefamilies to get the kind of practical academicand career-oriented training they seek fortheir children without exposing them to theideological manipulation common in “free”schools (whether government or private).Because fee-charging schools are generallymore effective and efficient than their gov-ernment counterparts, a given level of finan-cial assistance will do more good for morepeople at the same or lower cost. Education isa sensitive area, however, and so it would bemore expedient to channel the vast privateflows of aid toward this end than to pursue itthrough official government channels.

Another crucial step is the elimination of“beggar-thy-neighbor” trade policies. In addi-tion to the well-known economic harm doneby these policies to the U.S. economy, theycripple the prospects for self-sustaining eco-nomic and educational growth in poornations and thereby harm U.S. national inter-ests. Educational progress has historicallybeen tightly coupled to economic progress,and the consumption of modern academicand career training in developing countries

will thus be constrained unless it is justifiedby increasingly sophisticated domestic mar-kets and rising international trade. Every per-centage point of duty we impose on poorcountries, every shipment of goods that neverhappens because quotas have been reached,every $100,000 of subsidies to domestic pro-ducers drives hundreds if not thousands offamilies in poor nations into the arms of“free” schools. Most of these schools pose lit-tle threat to the United States. Others, likeDarul Uloom Haqqania and al-Mukmin, arefactories of jihad. Voters and legislatorsshould keep that in mind when next consid-ering U.S. trade policy.

Notes1. Thomas L. Friedman, “In Pakistan, It’s Jihad101,” New York Times, November 13, 2001, http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2002/commentary/works/111301.html.

2. Rick Bragg, “Nurturing Young Islamic Heartsand Hatreds,” New York Times, October 13, 2001.

3. Alex Alexiev, “The Pakistani Time Bomb,”Commentary, March, 2003, http://members.lycos.co.uk/terrorism/pakistani-time-bomb.htm. It isnot clear on what evidence this estimate is based,however.

4. “Madrasas may be wary of government aid butforeign funding—private or state—is a status sym-bol. Indigenous madrasas have thus become partof a global financing network. Private charitiescollect alms (including zakat [an Islamic tithe])from overseas Pakistanis in the Gulf, Britain andNorth America where Pakistani religious partiesand jihadi groups have loyal constituencies.” Seethe International Crisis Group, “Pakistan:Madrasas, Extremism, and the Military,” ICG AsiaReport no. 36, July 29, 2002, p. 16, http:// www.intl-crisisgroup.org/projects/asia/afghanistan_southasia/reports/A400717_29072002.pdf.

5. Husain Haqqani, “Islam’s Medieval Outposts,”Foreign Policy, November/December 2002, pp.58–64, http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/Haqqani112002FP.asp.

6. These figures come from Friedman and P. W.Singer, “Pakistan’s Madrassahs: Ensuring aSystem of Education Not Jihad,” BrookingsInstitution Analysis Paper no. 14, November2001, p. 2, respectively.

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7. The International Crisis Group uses the 10,000figure (“Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism, and theMilitary”). Bragg gives a figure of 7,500. A specialreport by the Asia Times puts the number at 8,000(Nadeem Iqbal, “Cynics Doubt Law to ReformPakistani Religious Schools,” Asia Times, June 28,2002, http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DF28Df01.html). An article by CNN uses a figure of 10,000(Ash-har Quraishi, “Pakistan’s Religious Schoolsunder Fire,” CNN.com, September 13, 2002, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/09/13/pakistan.madrassah/), as does NadeemIqbal in “‘Upgrading’ Madrassas,” News on Sunday[a publication of News International Pakistan], June29, 2003, http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-weekly/nos-29-06-2003/spr.htm. Scott Bal-dauf used the figure 15,000 in 2001 (“Pakistan’sTwo Schools of Thought,” Christian ScienceMonitor, October 03, 2001, http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1003/p7 s1-wosc.html).

8. These figures come from Baldauf; Haqqani,“Islam’s Medieval Outposts”; International CrisisGroup, “Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism, and theMilitary”; Iqbal, “Cynics Doubt Law to ReformPakistani Religious Schools”; and ChristinaLamb, “‘Nurseries of Terror’ Surge in Pakistan,”Sunday Times (of London), March 30, 2003,http://membres.lycos.fr/tthreat/article35. htm,respectively.

9. The Population Association of Pakistan pro-vides the 25 million total enrollment figure, Table5.3, http://www.pap.org.pk/education.htm. Closeto one-third (28 percent) of Pakistani children areenrolled in private schools according to thePakistan Integrated Household Survey of2001–02, but virtually all of these students attendfor-profit schools, not religious madrasas. SeePakistan Integrated Household Survey, Table2.32, for the breakdown by school type.

10. A 10 percent figure is given in Nadeem Iqbal,“‘Upgrading’ Madrassas.” The figure is put at 10 to15 percent in ICG, “Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism,and the Military,” p. 2.

11. See, for example, Lamb.

12. There are exceptions to this rule, however, suchas the Al Mukmin madrasa in Solo, Indonesia, atwhich students are taught hand-to-hand combat.See John Aglionby, “Writing on the Wall for ‘TerrorSchool,’” Guardian, October 22, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,816521,00.html.

13. Haqqani, “Islam’s Medieval Outposts,” pp.58–64.

14. The Shia believe that Islam should be led by ahereditary line of imams descended from

Mohammed, whereas the Sunni believe that itshould be lead by appointed caliphs.

15. Mandavi Mehta and Teresita C. Schaffer,“Islam in Pakistan: Unity and Contradictions,” AReport from the CSIS Project, Pakistan’s Futureand U.S. Policy Options, October 7, 2002, p. 11,http://www.csis.org/saprog/islaminpakistan.pdf.

16. Rana Jawad, “623 Fell Prey to Sectarian Killingsin Punjab in Nine Years,” News International(Pakistan), January 19, 1999. http://www.karachipage.com/news/sectarian2.html.

17. Mehta and Schaffer, p. 11.

18. See, for example, B. Raman, “PunishmentTerrorism: Questions & Answers—Part III,” work-ing paper no. 433, South Asia Analysis Group,http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper433.html.

19. See, for example, Eliza Griswold, “Where theTaliban Roam: Dodging the Jihad in Pakistan’sTribal Lands,” Harper’s Magazine, September,2003, pp. 67–76.

20. Asim Hussain, “No Thanks,” The News onSunday (a publication of The News International,Pakistan), June 29, 2003, http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-weekly/nos-29-06-2003/spr.htm.

21. Iqbal, “‘Upgrading’ Madrassas.”

22. Haqqani, “Islam’s Medieval Outposts.”

23. See the already-cited essays by HussainHaqqani, along with ICG, “Pakistan: Madrasas,Extremism, and the Military.”

24. Singer.

25. ICG, “Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism, andthe Military,” p. iii, Recommendation no. 9.

26. Quoted in Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy andAbdul Hameed Nayyar, “Rewriting the History ofPakistan,” in Islam, Politics and the State: ThePakistan Experience, ed. Mohammad Asghar Khan(London: Zed Books, 1985), p. 170.

27. Quoted in ibid., p. 165.

28. Ibid., p. 174–75.

29. One of Pakistan’s most well-established thinktanks, the SDPI, studies and offers policy adviceon environmental and social issues. Located onthe Web at: www.sdpi.org.

30. A. H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, “The SubtleSubversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks

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in Pakistan,” a report of the “Civil Society Initiativein Curricula and Textbooks Reform” project,Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islam-abad, Pakistan, July, 2003, pp. 1–2. http://www.sdpi.org/what%27s_new/reporton/State%20of%20Curr&Textbooks(final-BB).pdf.

31. Consider this commentary from Pakistaniwriter Pervez Hoodbhoy:

Bureaucrats of the Federal Ministry ofEducation, and particularly the CurriculumWing, brazenly pursue their narrow anddestructive agenda, unfazed and undeterredby those seeking change. Knowing that gov-ernments come and governments go butthey will stay on forever, the educationbureaucracy has closed ranks to protecttheir mutual interests. . . . Numerous strongreform proposals for school education havebeen opposed, ignored, or mutilated out ofrecognition. In what must constitute themost brazen of practices, minutes ofAdvisory Board meetings have beenchanged at will, twisted around, and manip-ulated as seen fit. Not surprisingly what hasemerged at the end of several months aremere platitudes.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, “What Are They Teaching inPakistani Schools Today?” www.Chowk.com (anonline civic forum for South Asians), April 15,2000, http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00000753&channel=university%20ave&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1.

32. An alternative view is that the orthodoxIslamist output of the Curriculum Wing is at leastpartially the result of foreign pressure. In a printinterview, an unnamed government officialreputedly told reporter Mohammad Shehzad:

The Curriculum Wing has been hijackedby a powerful lobby that is ultra-Islamistand follows the Wahhabi school ofthought. The government of Pakistanreceives huge funds from Saudi Wahhabis.Therefore it promotes the denominationpracticed by the Saudis. This type of Islamhas no tolerance for the Shia.

Mohammad Shehzad, “Textbook Controversy inGilgit,” SikhSpectrum.com Monthly, no. 13,August 2003, http://www.sikhspectrum.com/082003/textbooks.htm.

33. Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi ArabiaSupports the New Global Terrorism (Washington:Regnery Publishing, 2003), pp. 27, 47.

34. Ibid., pp. 101–102.

35. Cited in ibid., p. 100.

36. Steven Stalinsky, “Preliminary Overview—Saudi Arabia’s Education System: Curriculum,Spreading Saudi Education to the World and theOfficial Saudi Position on Education Policy,”Special Report no. 12, Middle East Media ResearchInstitute, December 20, 2002, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=coun tries&Area=saudiarabia&ID=SR01202.

37. Cited in the Center for Monitoring theImpact of Peace, “The West, Christians and Jewsin Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks,” CMIP report no.SA-03-02, February, 2003, http://www.edume.org/reports/10/toc.htm.

38. Stalinsky, “Saudi Arabia’s Education System.”See also PBS’s Frontline interview with Ali al-Ahmed, recorded on November 9, 2001, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/interviews/ahmed.html.

39. Background material from an investigationby Frontline for “Saudi Time Bomb?” November15, 2001, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/etc/textbooks.html.

40. Gold, p. 13.

41. Quoted in Stalinsky, “Saudi Arabia’s EducationSystem.”

42. Gold, p. 207.

43. Scott Peterson, “Saudi Radicalism Springsfrom Deep Source,” Christian Science Monitor, June7, 2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0607/p08s01-wome.html.

44. Mark Huband, “Saudis Flooding into Iraq‘Preparing for Jihad,’” Financial Times, August 19,2003, p. A 1.

45. The exchange rate hovers at around fourriyals to a U.S. dollar.

46. Stalinsky, “Saudi Arabia’s Education System.”

47. Ibid.

48. Friedman.

49. Jonathan Head, “Cambodian School inTerror Spotlight,” BBC News, July 3, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3040796.stm.

50. Jane Perlez, “Saudis Quietly Promote StrictIslam in Indonesia,” New York Times, July 2003,http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/0703/43.html.

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51. Alex Alexiev, “Wahhabism: State-SponsoredExtremism Worldwide,” Testimony before the U.S.Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technologyand Homeland Security, Thursday, June 26, 2003,http://www.senate.gov/~kyl/legis_center/sub-docs/sc062603_alexiev.pdf.

52. Prince Saud al-Faisal on CBS’s 60 Minutes,September 9, 2002.

53. The Middle East Media Research Institute,the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace,and the American Jewish Committee, to namethree.

54. As quoted in “Prince Naif Ibn Abdul Aziz toAsharq Al-Awsat Newspaper,” Ain-al-Yaqeen,September 20, 2000, http://www.ain-al-yaqeen.com/issues/20020920/feat7en.htm.

55. Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, “Saudi ReligiousEstablishment Has Its Wings Clipped,” Daily Star(Lebanon), June 29, 2002, http://www. lebanon-wire.com/0206/02062913DS.asp.

56. Steven Stalinsky, “Inside the Saudi Classroom:Seeking Reform,” National Review Online, February7, 2003, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-stalinsky020703.asp.

57. “No Move to Change Curricula,” Arab News,October 27, 2002, http://www.najaco.com/travel/news/saudi_arabia/2002/october/27.htm.

58. “Saudi Curriculum Development in ThirdPhase,” Saudia-Online.com, June 1, 2003, http://www.saudia-online.com/news2003/newsjun03/news06.shtml.

59. Most prominent among these critics is JohnR. Bradley, managing editor of the Jeddah-basedArab News, which claims to be the most widelyread English-language daily in the Arab world.Like all Saudi papers, the Arab News is ultimatelyresponsible to (and its editors chosen by) the gov-ernment.

60. P. K. Abdul Ghafour, “Students Advised toShun Violence,” Arab News, September 13, 2003,http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=31874&d=13&m=9&y=2003&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom; and “MediaShould ‘Educate Youth against Extremism,’” ArabNews, September 11, 2003, http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=31768&d=11&m=9&y=2003&hl=Media%20Should%20’Educate%20Youth%20Against%20Extremism’.

61. “VP Tells Muslims Not to Carry Weapons,”Laksamana.Net, October 25, 2002, http://www.laksamana.net/vnews.cfm?ncat=44&news_id=4104.

62. It is estimated that, since 1999, 5,000 peoplehave been killed in Maluku’s sectarian clashes. SeeReyko Huang, “In the Spotlight: Laskar Jihad,”Center for Defense Information, March 8, 2002,http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/laskar.cfm; andRichard Galpin, “Muslim ‘Army’ Invades Moluc-cas,” BBC News, May 9, 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/741986.stm. See alsoDamar Harsanto, “Suspected Rioters in AmbonArrested, 14 Sent to Jail,” Jakarta Post, October 22,2002; and Amit Baruah, “Jakarta Gets Tough withIslamist Outfits,” Hindu, May 6, 2002, http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/05/06/stories/2002050600581400.htm.

63. Atika Shubert, “Indonesian Minister AssessesConflict-Torn Sulawesi,” CNN.com, December 5,2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/12/05/indon.sulawesi/?related.

64. International Crisis Group, “Jemaah Islamiyahin South East Asia: Damaged but Still Dangerous,”ICG Asia Report no. 63, August 26, 2003, http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/asia/indonesia/reports/A401104_26082003.pdf.

65. The official unemployment figure is roughly10 percent, but with 40 million unemployed froma workforce of little more than 100 million, theactual rate is much higher. See Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, “Indonesia Job Situation Worsening,”Washington Times, August 14, 2003, http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030814-031911-2917r.htm. See also Bill Guerin, “Indo-nesia: Turning Water into Wine,” Asia Times,March 7, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EC07Ae02.html.

66. Unam Sanctam, “Indonesian VP: United StatesIs ‘Terrorist King,’” Reuters, September 3, 2003;and Nick Mckenzie, “UN Releases List ofSuspected JI Funders,” Transcript of the AustralianBroadcasting Corporation’s PM, September 5,2003, http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s940174.htm.

67. International Crisis Group, “Jemaah Islamiyahin South East Asia,” pp. 26–27.

68. Dan Murphy, “Who’s Radicalizing Indonesia’sSchools?” Christian Science Monitor, September 16,2003, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0916/p07s01-woap.html.

69. Perlez.

70. Matthew Moore, “Anti-terrorism Now Part ofCurriculum,” Age, August 30, 2003, http://new.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/29/1062050665721.html.

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71. Arjun S. Bedi and Ashish Garg, “TheEffectiveness of Private versus Public Schools: TheCase of Indonesia,” Journal of DevelopmentEconomics 61 (2000): 463–94.

72. According to press reports, the final draft ofthe bill stipulated that schools failing to complywould not be legally penalized, but a comment byAnwar Arifin, head of the bill’s working committee,suggests that it may nevertheless be enforced. He isreported to have told the Jakarta Post in March, “Weleave the monitoring of the article to the public aspart of social control and punishment.” In a coun-try wracked by violence between Muslims andChristians, in which more than 10,000 citizens areestimated to have died in just the past four years,Arifin’s comment could well presage yet anotheroutbreak of murder and destruction—particularlygiven that many Christian schools have said theywill ignore the law. See Dianthus Saputra Estey,“Education Bill Splits Indonesians,” AlJazeera.net,September 4, 2003, http://english.aljazeera.net/Articles/News/GlobalNews/Features/Indonesians+differ+on+new+education+bill.htm; and “Edu-cation Bill Threatens Further Strife in Indonesia,”Voice of the Martyrs (an international evangelicalChristian organization serving persecuted Chris-tian communities), Persecution.com.au, July 17,2003 http://www.persecution.com.au/news/sendart.asp?artID=%7B4117FFEE-97E9-4F22-A59F-D1FCA0FA102B%7D. See also Jakarta Post, March31, 2003, cited in Elizabeth Kendal, “Indonesia—Controversial Education Bill Is Passed,” http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm/pray/ pray0767.htm.

73. Bedi and Garg.

74. Estelle James, Elizabeth M. King, and AceSuryadi, “Finance, Management, and Costs ofPublic and Private Schools in Indonesia,” Economicsof Education Review 15, no. 4 (1996): 387–98.

75. See Peng Wang, “Private Education Emerges inModern China: A Comparative Case Study,” Journal ofLanguage, Culture and Communication 3, no. 2 (2001):105–16, http://www.joho.nucba.ac.jp/NJ LCCarticles/vol032/07PWANG.PDF. The 2000 figure and thequote are from “China to Draft Law on PrivateSchools,” People’s Daily (a government-owned newspa-per), May 23, 2001, http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200105/23/eng20010523_70802.html.

76. Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, and Asim IjazKhwaja, “The Rise of Private Schooling inPakistan: Catering to the Urban Elite orEducating the Rural Poor?” Working paper,Harvard University, March 21, 2002.

77. Jooseop Kim, Harold Alderman, and PeterOrazem, “Can Private Schools Subsidies Increase

Schooling for the Poor?: The Quetta UrbanFellowship Program,” working paper no. 11,Development Research Group, World Bank, May1998.

78. Andrabi, Das, and Khwaja, “The Rise ofPrivate Schooling in Pakistan.”

79. Harold Alderman, Peter Orazem, ElizabethPaterno, “School Quality, School Cost, and thePublic/Private School Choices of Low-IncomeHouseholds in Pakistan,” Journal of HumanResources 36 (Spring 2001: 304–326, http://www.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/orazem/lahore.pdf. Datafrom tables 1A and 1B, along with the knowledgethat 3,500 rupees equal a family income of lessthan one dollar per person per day, were used tocalculate that 51 percent of Lahore families in thisincome bracket sent their children to private, fee-charging schools. The Karachi finding is alsocited in this study.

80. Anaradha De et al., Public Report on BasicEducation in India (New Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress, 1999), pp. 40–43, 102–104.

81. Ibid., p. 41.

82. Ibid., p. 43.

83. Andrabi, Das, and Khwaja, “The Rise ofPrivate Schooling in Pakistan.”

84. See, for instance, Ko-Chih Tung, Assessment ofBasic Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1990–2000(Harare, Zimbabwe: UNESCO, 2001), p. 62; andAïcha Bah-Diallo, “Basic Education in Africa,”UNESCO Study Report, March 3, 1997, http://www.jica.go.jp/english/publication/studyreport/research/subsahara/keynote/subsah_01. html. Seealso “Women Standing Up to Adjustment inAfrica,” a report of the African Women’s EconomicPolicy Network, July 1996, http://www.developmentgap.org/awepon.html.

85. Asia Development Bank, Kiribati: Monetizationin an Atoll Society (Manila: ADB, 2002), pp. 123–24,http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Monetization_Atoll_Society/kiribati.pdf.

86. See Omer Bartov, “The Conduct of War:Soldiers and the Barbarization of Warfare,” Journalof Modern History 64, Supplement (December 1992):S32–S45.

87. Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan:1947–2000 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 2001), p. 248.

88. Ibid., p. 261.

33

89. Ibid., p. 252.

90. The CIA spent $30 million on the program in1982, $80 million in 1983, $122 million in 1984,$250 million in 1985, $470 million in 1986, and$630 million annually from 1987 through 1989.See Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 2000), p. 18, note 1; and SandraJones, “Afghanistan: A Historical Note,” back-ground note 2001/10, parliamentary library (NewZealand), September 19, 2001, http://www.clerk.parliament.govt.nz/content/plib/01-10Afghanistan.pdf.

91. Kux, p. 252.

92. Kux puts the number at three million (p. 253),whereas Haqqani puts it at five million (“Islam’sMedieval Outposts”).

93. Ibid., “Islam’s Medieval Outposts.”

94. Rashid, Taliban, p. 19.

95. Ted Galen Carpenter, “U.S. Aid to Anti-Communist Rebels: The ‘Reagan Doctrine’ andIts Pitfalls,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 74,June 24, 1986.

96. Craig Davis, “‘A’ Is for Allah, ‘J’ Is for Jihad,”World Policy Journal, Spring 2002, pp. 90–94, http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-1/Davis.pdf.

97. Ibid., pp. 90–94.

98. Ibid., pp. 90–94.

99. Thomas Gouttierre, “Basic Education in Pakis-tan and Afghanistan: The Current Crisis andBeyond,” Presentation at the Brookings Institu-tion, Washington, December 17, 2001, http://www.brookingsinstitution.org/dybdocroot/comm/transcripts/20011217.htm.

100. Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, “TheABC’s of Jihad in Afghanistan: Courtesy, USA,”Washington Post, March 23, 2002.

101. Mary Ann Zehr, “Religious Study ConfrontsU.S. in Iraq,” Education Week, June 11, 2003, http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=40islam.h22.

102. Quoted in Ahmed Rashid, “How a Holy Waragainst the Soviets Turned on U.S.,” PittsburghPost-Gazette, September 23, 2001, http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/2001/pittsburghpostgazette092301.html. The quote also appearsin Rashid’s book Taliban (p. 130), with slightly dif-ferent wording.

103. Christina Rocca, State Department, andWendy Chamberlin, USAID, “The U.S. and SouthAsia: Challenges and Opportunities for AmericanPolicy,” Testimony before the Subcommittee onAsia and the Pacific of the House Committee onInternational Relations, 108th Cong., 1st Sess.,March 20, 2003, p. 31, http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/85841.pdf.

104. Gamal Essam El-Din, “Education in Flux,”Al-Ahram (Cairo), no. 649 (July 31–August 6,2003), http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/649/eg2.htm.

105. Rocca and Chamberlin, p. 31.

106. Ibid., p. 51.

107. Ibid., p. 31.

108. Education sector reform was already in theplanning stages prior to 9/11, when USAID’sPakistan office was still shut down in protest overPakistan’s nuclear weapons program. After 9/11,however, the USAID office in Islamabad wasreopened and $600 million in USAID grants waspromised as a quid pro quo for Pakistan’s help inpursuing Al Qaeda. The first grant awarded underthat promise was the ESR commitment.

109. Imtiaz Gillani, conference proceedings of thePakistan Human Development Forum, vol. 1,Islamabad, January 24–26, 2002, http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/sar/sa.nsf/Attachments/Proceedings-PHDF/$File/Proceedings-PHDF.pdf.

110. De et al., p. 41.

111. Public/private partnerships were allocated.25 billion rupees for 2001–2004, whereas thetotal budget allocated for Education SectorReform for that period was 55 billion rupees. SeePakistan Ministry of Education, “EducationSector Reforms Action Plan 2001–2004,” January1, 2002, Table 1.1, http://www.logos-net.net/ilo/150_base/en/init/pak_1.htm.

112. “Strategic Objective Grant Agreement betweenthe United States of America and the IslamicRepublic of Pakistan for Education Sector ReformSupport Program,” USAID Grant Agreement no.391-004-01, August 20, 2002, http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh02082101.html.

113. See Rocca and Chamberlin, p. 31, http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/108/85841.pdf.

114. “The National Security Strategy of theUnited States of America,” September 2002,Chapter 7, http://www.state.gov/documents/

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organization/15538.pdf. For details of the U.S.Agency for International Development’s strategyin this area, see “Foreign Aid in the NationalInterest” (Washington: USAID, 2002).

115. Haqqani, “U.S. Should Stop IndulgingMusharraf.”

116. Quoted in ibid.

117. Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, “What Have WeDone with U.S. Aid?” Al-Ahram Weekly Online, no.539 (June 21–27, 2001), http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/539/fo81.htm.

118. Alfred B. Prados, “Middle East: Attitudestoward the United States,” CongressionalResearch Service Report for Congress no.RL31232, December 31, 2001, p. 15, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7858.pdf.

119. Huda Majeed Saleh, “U.S. Plans to Rid IraqiClassrooms of Saddam,” Reuters Alert Net, June 30,2003, http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4628817.htm.

120. National Center for Education Statistics,Digest of Education Statistics 2002 (Washington:NCES, 2003), Table 166, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/digest02/tables/dt166.asp.

121. National Center for Education Statistics,“Condition of America’s Public School Facilities:1999,” Statistical Analysis Report, June 2000, pp.13, 14, and B-29.

122. For more on this, see Andrew Coulson,Market Education: The Unknown History (Somerset,NJ: Transaction Publishing, 1999), Chapters 6and 9.

123. Ina V. S. Mullis et al., Mathematics and ScienceAchievement in the Final Year of Secondary School:IEA’s Third International Mathematics and ScienceStudy (Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS InternationalStudy Center, 1998).

124. Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development, and Statistics Canada, Literacy,Economy, and Society (Paris: OECD, 1995).

125. See Coulson, Market Education, pp. 141–44,154–68.

126. U.S. Agency for International Development,Foreign Aid in the National Interest, p. 141.

127. Another source of U.S. private aid, donationsby religious congregations, totals $3.4 billion.This is excluded from the present discussionbecause much of that aid is either expressly mis-

sionary in character or accompanied by proselyti-zation that can breed hostility among some com-munities in recipient nations. See ibid., p. 131.

128. Andrew Coulson, “Implementing Educationfor All,” paper presented at the FondazioneLiberal’s Second International EducationConference, Milan, May 17, 2003; and “HowMarkets Affect Quality,” paper presentd at theCato Institute conference on urban education,May 15, 2003.

129. American Institutes for Research, “Girls’Education: Improving the Physical Environment inSupport of Girls’ Education,” project description no. 2,undated, p. 9, http://www.air.org/ pubs/phyenlng.pdf.

130. Kux, p. 263.

131. Rashid, Taliban, pp. 190–91.

132. Liz Sly, “Afghan Women Wage Own War,”Chicago Tribune, October 22, 2001, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0110220253oct22.story?coll=chi-news-hed; andRaman Mohan “Women Used Web to Fight Veil& Taliban,” Tribune (India), November 26, 2001,http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20011126/login/main1.htm.

133. The Quetta Fellowship Programs have beenfollowed over the years by a team of researchersincluding Harold Alderman, Peter Orazem,Elizabeth Paterno, and Jooseop Kim. The mostrecently published study is Harold Alderman,Jooseop Kim, and Peter Orazem, “Design,Evaluation, and Sustainability of Private Schoolsfor the Poor: The Pakistan Urban and RuralFellowship School Experiments,” Economics ofEducation Review, no. 22 (2003): 265–74.

134. Ibid. A similar program was attempted in ruralareas outside Quetta, but was less successful for anumber of reasons. See Ronald G. Ehrenberg,Dominic J. Brewer, Adam Gamoran, and J. DouglasWillms, “Class Size and Student Achievement,”Psychological Science in the Public Interest 2, no. 1.

135. See, for instance, Coulson, Market Education.

136. Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke and Jeffrey G.Williamson, “Education, Globalization andCatch-up: Scandinavia in the Swedish Mirror,”Scandinavian Economic History Review 43 (1995):287–309.

137. Jeffrey J. Schott, “U.S. Trade Policy: Methodto the Madness?” Institute for InternationalEconomics, revised version of paper prepared forthe International Affairs Institute conference,Rome, Italy, October 11, 2002, http://www.iie.

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com/publications/papers/schott1002-1.htm.

138. Oxfam, “Stop the Dumping,” Oxfam brief-ing paper no. 31, October, 2002.

139. Kevin Watkins, “Cotton Pickin’: The PhoneyWar over Farm Subsidies,” Guardian (UK), March5, 2003, http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto/2003/0305cot.hem.html.

140. Taewoo Kim, “Islamic Terrorism and Clashof Civilizations,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis14, no. 1 (Spring 2002), http://www.kida.re.kr/pdf /02kjda1/Taewoo%20Kim.PDF.

141. Paul Watson and Sidhartha Barua,“Somalian Link Seen to al Qaeda,” Los Angeles

Times, February 25, 2002; and U.S. StateDepartment, “State Department Names 36Groups as Foreign Terrorist Organiza-tions,”news release, April 30, 2003, http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/press/2003/may/050104.html.

142. Keith Bradsher, “Pakistanis Fume AsClothing Sales to U.S. Tumble,” New York Times,Sunday, June 23, 2002.

143. United States International Trade Commis-sion, “The Economic Effects of Significant U.S.Import Restraints,” Third Update 2002, Investiga-tion No. 332–325, June 2002, Publication 3519.

144. Bradsher.

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