In some of the remotest villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan, anti-American organizations are educating children to become the next generation of terrorists.

While visiting Sundance on Saturday to speak about his book, "Three Cups of Tea," author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson warned those in attendance that the greatest threat to America may be allowing millions of children in Third World countries to grow up without an education.

For the past 12 years, Mortenson has helped build dozens of school in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a journey that was unexpected, he said.

In 1993, wanting to honor the untimely death of his sister by placing her necklace at the top of K2, the world's second-tallest mountain, Mortenson spent 78 days trying and failing to reach the summit. Seriously ill, he took a wrong turn at the base of the mountain and stumbled into a remote village.

"As I spent some time there recovering, I looked around and saw 84 kids sitting in the dirt sharing eight slate boards," he said. "Most were writing with sticks in the sand. It was at that moment that I was really touched and I realized I had come to Pakistan not to climb a mountain but to help the children with school.

"I was a stranger and these people were strangers to me. We had yet to have three cups of tea with each other. With the first cup we are strangers, with the second we are friends, and with the third we are family, but the process takes several years."

After a series of failed fundraising efforts in the United States, Mortenson returned to the Pakistani village with $12,000 to build the school, only to encounter a host of unexpected problems. Building that first school taught him to stop micro-managing and let the locals do what they do best, he said.

Today, Mortenson said he has established 58 schools through his nonprofit organization called Central Asia Institute, providing education to more than 24,000 children, 14,000 of which are girls. The schools are built in the most volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders and has become a specialist in local culture.

Educating children in the region is essential to national security, he said, noting the Taliban is specifically destroying schools -- 240 in the past year -- because they know their ability to stay in power is threatened if they allow rural villagers to get an education. In some areas where there are no other schools, terrorist organizations have opened schools in tents, indoctrinating children in violent, extremist sects of Islam.

"Basically we have another viral incubator of terrorism right in the backyard of Pakistan," he said.

Mortenson challenged those gathered at Sundance to get involved in creating global peace through education, rather than a global war on terror.

"When you bring in education, it disempowers the extremists who control illiterate society," he said.

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, conflict is resolved not in courts but by discussion among tribal leaders, and the process is begun by first finding what everyone can agree on, he said.

"In Pakistan, it takes three cups of tea to do business, and it takes time," he said.

The solution to global peace is the same, he said.

"I think everyone in America can agree on education as a good investment, not only here but overseas," he said, noting that if the war budget in Iraq were spent on global literacy, there would be no war in Iraq.

"As adults, we have failed miserably to bring peace to the world," he said. "I think we owe it to our children to do everything we can to leave them a legacy of peace."

Educating girls is crucial, he said.

"If you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but if you educate a girl, you educate a community," he said, noting that while educated boys typically grow up and leave their communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, girls not only stay but educate their own children.

While terrorists are destroying schools and working to curtail education, there is good news, he said. Five years ago there were only 800,000 children in school in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today there are 4.2 million.

Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.