KARABAGH (Afghanistan): A convoy of US army pickup trucks wends its way through the ruins of Karabagh, a village north of Kabul badly scarred by war.

Mud walls are pocked with bullet holes and craters mark the spots where bombs struck home. Mud-walled buildings, shattered by artillery fire, are gradually melting back into the dirt floor of the plain.

In contrast to the ruin around it, a brick school is being built in the middle of the village. A dozen Afghan workers, dressed in traditional garb, slap on mortar and add layers of dusty red bricks.

Sergeant Larry Moore, an engineer with the 489th Civil Affairs Battalion, a US army reserve unit based in Knoxville, Tennessee, steps out of his pickup truck and surveys the work.

The Shelby, North Carolina, native, a genial soldier with deep blue eyes and a sandy moustache, is pleased with what he sees.

“This school will be excellent,” says Moore. “It’s going to do wonders for the village.”

The US army is spending $101,000 to build the Karabagh school. When it is finished, 1,200 students, boys and girls, will attend classes in morning and afternoon shifts.

BUILDING TRUST: The Karabagh school is one of hundreds of projects being underwritten by the United States military in Afghanistan.

It is a sign of modern warfare that building schools and hospitals, digging wells, handing out blankets and repaving roads are key components of fighting battles.

Hearts-and-minds campaigns like the one underway in Karabagh are key to winning the ‘war on terror’, says Major Brian Cole, a civil affairs team leader with the 489th.

“We’re dropping food rations and bombs at the same time, but the humanitarian approach will be the long-term solution,” Cole says.

Even though he is enthusiastic about his work in Afghanistan, Cole, who spent 18 years heading up a group in Kentucky for juvenile delinquents as a reservist, wishes it could have been begun long before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

“One thing that I feel guilty about is when I come here and I hear all the stories about the Taliban, about the murders in the soccer stadium, about how the schools were bombed and teachers thrown out,” Cole says. “Why are we just now reacting to it?”

The simple answer, one that has occurred to some Afghans, is that US foreign policy is keyed to the cold logic of necessity.—Reuters