And what happens when people who accept those plants, schools and education are killed by people who don't want them to accept those gifts from us? Back in the Vietnam era I made the same argument you do (for awhile). But the VC learned to kill villagers who accepted aid. The same thing goes on today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc.
In a better world, one without war, I would agree with you. But that is not the world we live in. Sometimes you have to think things through to second-order and higher effects.
Drop books not bombs!
Dropping books on villages when the security situation hasn't been established is akin to dropping landmines - anyone who picks one up and takes it home risks being killed.
There is a very good reason the Afghan campaign was about providing security in an area first then building schools, providing power, healthcare etc.
The problem is that Helmand province (especially) is so close the Pakistani border, and thus limitless reinforcements, providing the security there to do anything else is nigh on impossible.
Provide the security so that people won't be killed for being educated, and education is best. Educating without security just leads to dead kids.
It was once very, very difficult to drop a bomb on a childs head from afar - you used to have to do a lot more. Now its 'easy', relatively speaking. Imagine if that same scale of efficacy were applied, instead, to educating - to healing - to helping instead of killing.
What would the "B1 Bomber" of education systems look like? Lets develop it, and deliver.
I've yet to meet an American who thinks the Trillion dollar military-industrial debt that they owe has been worth it.
At all.
Your statement is simply a complaint that really has no relevance. Are you in favor of giving more in foreign aid, to help build schools, etc?
Of course, if not for the US, some other bully would be there, I perfectly understand that. Thus, no need of answering anything along those lines.
cf Boko Haram - the Nigerian group whose name is literally "Western education is sinful".
As alwasy, the military leads the way in science with their limitless budget, funded by fear.
Peaceful spinoff project is where the benefits for everybody will come from.
A nice thought, but anyone who has spent time in rural AFG/PAK or Yemen/Somalia (where most of this is happening) will tell you that that is not what would happen. More typical, the power would be diverted to or ripped out by the local warlords to maintain their own power over the population - and most of the "regular" citizens go along with it because it meets cultural demands of the religiosity and tribalism that has been baked in for.
Liberalism (classic) can't be forced on a region or a group of people.
For the cost of a single Hellfire, many Afghanistan villages could've been given power, for the first time, to charge their phones, making it possible for them to communicate, to educate themselves. But instead: BOOM! There goes some kids leg.
What a pity that the desire to create such technology is not, instead, being directed by the government towards truly peaceful technologies..