Hearts & Minds: Reprogramming the Youth

Newsweek has an interesting story on yet another task that will most likely be added to one of America's "missions" in Iraq: un-brainwashing the young.

Some of the teens may have tried to kill American or Iraqi soldiers, others may have been picked up for smaller offenses like breaking curfew. But the group, all Sunnis, have one thing in common: they've all been brainwashed for jihad. "They get their education from Wahhabis," says Sheik Abdul Jabbar, 37, an Iraqi cleric working with the teens, as he looks on from the side of the class. "They say their enemy is the Shia first and then the Americans." Abdullah has had his dose of radical education. He is convinced that his stepmother, who is Shiite, is a kafir, or nonbeliever. He has told the instructors in the class that, given the chance, he would kill her. "If they let them out, they would all become suicide bombers," says Jabbar. "Soon we will have two generations of terrorists."

If our foreign policy was more about education, diplomacy and governing, and a little less about using the military to solve every problem, maybe this wouldn't have been necessary.