If you really want to change a culture... empower women.

In "Three Cups of Tea" I was fairly critical of the military. And I mentioned that they're laptop warriors and there's no boots on the ground. But I can say now that they've gone through a tremendous learning curve.

If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.

Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu

Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities, but the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.

I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.

If you look at the 9/11 highjackers, certainly they were educated, some even had university degrees, but nobody really checked their mothers, who were nearly all illiterate.