A woman asked me one day after an upbeat book talk I gave, "Do you ever get sad?" I said yes, "I cry about war. Then I dry my eyes and I do something about it." Most of my friends cry too when they watch anything to do with the Holocaust and other world atrocities past and present. The main thing is to then do something to reverse it. Apathy is also the enemy. What we need to do in order to ensure literacy is to have a cavalry of businesses coming to do trade with nations like Afghanistan. Buy their saffron, buy their essential oils, buy anything so that a farmer can buy books and shoes for his children and not have their children taken away by oppressors.

A veteran leader of the Taliban has expressed strong doubts the group can win the war in Afghanistan, adding he's relieved Osama bin Laden is dead and...

Western leaders have repeatedly justified military intervention as a means for providing security for community-building development efforts. Perhaps it's time we revisited that construct.