Building schools, training teachers, publishing textbooks: it's how you win the peace.

Winning the war is the easy part. The enemy knows it. Why don't we? Comrade Lauryn reports from territory recently held by the savage Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda and reflects on Afghanistan:

Out at the teachers college, rudimentary one-room classes speckle the property. There is a mostly defunct computer lab, once funded by USAID, but now housing a few poorly functioning computers competed over by the college's 500 students. The lab's manager, Denis Godwins, occasionally removes a poisonous snake wrapped around the doorknobs when he arrives in the morning, a holdover from the land's recent life as a hastily removed patch of jungle. The college is too far out of range to get Internet service. It has struggled to attract donors to meet basic needs like books and staff. There's no library on site, and little commercial activity in the area. Power outages are frequent and there is no generator for a backup source.

The situation in northern Uganda is sadly typical. . .

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed two more primary schools in Khar District of Bajaur Agency in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on Tuesday. So far, more than 88 schools have been destroyed in the Bajaur region, which borders Afghanistan.

The headless bodies of 11 Afghan civilians allegedly decapitated by Taliban insurgents have been found in central Afghanistan, police said Friday.

Suspected Taliban militants beheaded a headmaster and torched two schools in southern Afghanistan, officials said. On the same day, dozens of militants, riding on motorbikes, came to Zardalo area of the district and torched two elementary schools.