Teenagers Our Secret Weapon In Afghanistan?

Well that would sure be a pleasant surprise. Jim Hake and the folks at Spirit of America are testing the concept and it seems to have legs.

As the US was zeroing in on Bin Laden, we were organizing a videoconference and building bridges between American children and Afghan children. Thus, as Bin Laden was in his final descent, things that he stood against – children in Afghanistan going to school, opening their minds, making friends with American kids – were ascendant. This is very good news.

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The videoconference shows a side of Afghanistan you’ve probably never seen before. It was between students at Windward School in Los Angeles and Afghan students at the Kodoala Drab school.

At Windward, the power of the person-to-person connection brought tears to many eyes. There were surprise questions, funny moments and a lot of laughter. In some ways, the most profound thing was that the interactions between the American and Afghan kids were so normal.

Watch it here. You’ll really enjoy it. And, read below the comments from Windward students and teachers and from Marines in Afghanistan and the US. This was part of Spirit of America’s project to help our troops help Afghan children and schools. The Marines later told us that school attendance at Kodoala Drab doubled in the week after the videoconference.

Spirit of America has been helping the efforts of our troops to win hearts and minds for quite a while now, and they get results. It is a tough battle, but with allies like this it seems possible to do enough good to matter.