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Now for "Three Cups of Tea. One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time."

To those, like BuzzFlash who advocate that we can win hearts and minds as a nation by doing what we did in the Marshall Plan, help people improve their lives and rebuild the infrastucture of nations, this book is...well, a cup of warm tea.

It has become a surprise bestseller for months, and it is currently still 15 on the Amazon bestseller list.

This is what Publishers Weekly had to say about "Three Cups of Tea":

Starred Review. Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.

Buzzflash repeats the second to last sentence of the Publishers Review: As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls.

But when your goal is the goal of Dick Cheney, which is to gain control of fossil fuels, only the peace advocates care about the welfare of people. And we are soft-bellied wimps to him for thinking that the welfare of individuals matter for anything. Oil is more important than human life when it comes to national hegemony and oil company profits.

But here is a book filled with grit, heart, compassion, mission and the desire to improve the lot of young girls and women in a world where they are forcefully kept from being educated.

This is a remarkably encouraging and heart warming book about the difference one person can make in the world, a difference that hundreds of billions of dollars cannot accomplish.

On July 13, 2008, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column praising "Three Cups of Tea." It is entitled: "It Takes a School, Not Missiles."

Kristoff writes:

“Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing some Taliban around the country,” says Mr. Mortenson [the author and builder of schools in Afghanistan], who is an Army veteran.

Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.

The Pentagon, which has a much better appreciation for the limits of military power than the Bush administration as a whole, placed large orders for “Three Cups of Tea” and invited Mr. Mortenson to speak.

“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. ... The thirst for education here is palpable.”

Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.

So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.

Kristoff also notes:

Mr. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion — an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world — to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: the backlash has radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before 9/11.

Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.

Who has the done the better job?

The answer is clear. Read the book.

Finally, Kristoff writes of the "Three Cups of Tea":

Mr. Mortenson has become a legend in the region, his picture sometimes dangling like a talisman from rearview mirrors, and his work has struck a chord in America as well. His superb book about his schools, “Three Cups of Tea,” came out in 2006 and initially wasn’t reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: it has spent the last 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1 spot.