A Cargo More Dangerous Than Bombs

The vehicle was filled with material so dangerous that it had to be destroyed.

Anne Smedinghoff was killed in an act of unconventional war, the one that is waged against those who are the most defenseless. She posed a deadly threat to the Taliban, with her cargo of books.

She was on her way to a school, to deliver books to girls. Books result in learning, in the expansion of the mind. Books lead to thought and thought turns into questions that upset the grand scheme of the Islamo-fascists who would like to control Afghanistan again.

Ms. Smedinghoff rode through the war-torn country with books. She carried the threat of learning and she had to be stopped.

She herself was vulnerable, a bright young woman full of idealism. She saw the good in people, too untouched by life to know that evil exists under a pleasant smile.

It's not that she was trying to destroy the Taliban outright. However, she ported the means to do so, to those who would carry out the assault. Educated women give birth to children who they educate in turn. Once intelligence and thinking take hold in a culture, it is not so easy to control it and near impossible to eradicate it.

One has only to look at the Arab Spring uprising, with protests featuring educated people questioning authority, to see how frightening the prospect of education can be to the powerful whose power relies on a lack of knowledge to preserve their little kingdoms.

It was the books that needed to be destroyed. That a woman died in the process makes no difference to the Islamists who have no regard for women, for the innocent or the most vulnerable in society. For them, it isn't really about religious beliefs. If they can achieve their goals by crushing the weak, so much the better. A smooth road is preferable to a rocky ascent.

Books and learning are not tolerated in some corners of the world. Schools for girls are anathema. And anyone trying to promote those causes becomes a soldier in an unconventional war, a battle of ideas about freedom and human rights.