Hat tip to Galrahn at Information Dissemination via Twitter. Carolyn Kellogg at the Los Angeles Times (Investigation throws 'Three Cups of Tea' author Greg Mortenson's charity work into doubt) reports that:
An investigation by "60 Minutes" to be broadcast this weekend will cite multiple sources that contend some of the most inspiring stories in Greg Mortenson's books "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones into Schools" are not true.
Much more at the LAT and "60 Minutes".
Update
Greg Mortenson's response so far, via the Central Asia Institute web page:
An Important Message from Greg Mortenson
Afghanistan and Pakistan are fascinating, inspiring countries full of wonderful people. They are also complex places torn by conflicting loyalties, and some who do not want our mission of educating girls to succeed. I stand by the information conveyed in my book, and by the value of CAl's work in empowering local communities to build and operate schools that have educated more than 60,000 students. I continue to be heartened by the many messages of support I receive from our local partners in cities and villages across Afghanistan and Pakistan, who are determined not to let unjustified attacks stop the important work being done to create a better future for their children. For further questions, concerns and inquires, please email media@ikat.org.
Update 2
Mortenson Under Fire from '60 Minutes', Bozeman Philanthropist Denies Allegations by Gail Schontzler, Bozeman Daily Chronicle. BLUF: "He denied several "60 Minutes" allegations, and defended his financial dealings, but appeared to concede that one key story in his book was not literally true."
Update 3
Board of Directors, Central Asia Institute: Responses to 60 Minutes Questions. "Following (at the link) are questions that were asked by producers of the program 60 Minutes, exactly as they were asked of us, and the answers that we are providing to 60 Minutes."
Three-cup Monte by Carl Prine at Line of Departure. BLUF: "Like the best swindles, Dr Greg keeps his rap simple: The sexy svengali who tickles, teases and touches your soul while his mitt wiggles into your purse; the Ponzi peddler paying a fortunate few to fleece the rapacious many; the book cooker who dangles dubious data and dividends to draw Dow dollars; the quack selling pharmaceutical enhancements to the same guy who never gets the chance to try them out at the clip joint."
Update 4
60 Minutes: Questions over Greg Mortenson's Stories - CBS transcript
Update 5
Does It Matter If The Military's Fave Scholar Sells Three Cups of Snake Oil? - Spencer Ackerman, Danger Room. BLUF: "... Danger Room pal Niel Smith argues that the Army has institutionalized counterinsurgency so poorly that officers can fool themselves into embracing caricatures of it. And that's how Mortenson's tea can taste a lot like snake oil."
Update 7
Via the Central Asia Institute website:
Greg Mortenson's Message to Supporters - CAI
CAI Board of Directors Statement 04/16/11 - CAI
CAI Board of Directors Response to "60 Minutes" Questions - CAI
Greg Mortenson's response to "60 Minutes" Questions - CAI
Update 8
Stranger than Fiction: What We're Really Losing with Greg Mortenson's Fall by Joshua Foust, PBS. BLUF: "Just because you can't help everyone doesn't mean you should help no one. Sadly, Mortenson's good work is going to be overshadowed - possibly destroyed - by this scandal (albeit one that looks like it was largely of his own making). And the losers, besides wide-eyed Americans who've lost an unassailable hero, will ultimately be the people his schools were helping."
Greg Mortenson Speaks interview by Alex Heard, Outside. "The embattled director of the Central Asia Institute responds to allegations of financial mismanagement and that he fabricated stories in his bestselling book Three Cups of Tea."
Comments
I think the point that Breaking News is making is that maybe everyone should take a deep breath and let this news play out before taking it more seriously than it deserves. I have some problems with the credibility of 60 Minutes, having seen some of the garbage that it has put on the airwaves over the years, starting with its so-called reporting from Central America in the 1980s. I also agree with Carl's thought that positing as a Center of Gravity the population's perceptions of legitimacy has been a basic principal of COIN long before Mortenson's books became known.
Who is that addressed to, Breaking News!?
No one in this comments section wants to leave Afghanistan just like that. I certainly don't and never have.
I also think we would be fine if we did. This is a wonderful nation and we will do, well, just fine.
Sigh. Pride matters more to some of you than losing, huh?
Liberal Scumbag Lies!
Shocking!
This calls into doubt our whole war effort in Afghanistan! Surely because this guy made up a story WE MUST WITHDRAW FROM AFGHANISTAN NOW!
We should also consider withdrawing from the United States as well! His lie calls into doubt our whole system of government! We need to re-write the constitution! Fire all government workers above E-3! No wait, just get rid of them all! Financial markets crash as I write! Nuclear war approaches!!1!
Stock up on, canned food, water, and ammunition!
So Shocking!
@ Carl -
I recall watching <strong>Secretary Gates</strong> on CSPAN (I can't remember the exact Afghanistan briefing) and he said something along the lines of: "If only we had built schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 90s. We abandoned Pakistan in the 90s and look what happened...."
I was stunned. Stunned.
Take the effects of Mortenson's book, Western development theory about education and the prevention of radicalism, and the GWOT, and you end up with big money thrown at corrupt regimes in order to educate children.
Predictably, what happened last time, happened again! The money went for weapons and into greedy pockets.
(A Harvard Belfer Center report showed that a big chunk of the money spent in the 2000s went unaccounted for because Pakistan received direct wire transfers. The cash became sovereign property of the government. We turned a blind eye because we wanted to. We wanted them to do nasty things in that region without once questioning whether that was in our best interests.
The assumption that Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan to the GWOT - and key to stability in the region! - combined with Western development theory (romanticized by Mortenson's book) resulted in Pakistan with more nuclear weapons and F16s.)
Sorry for the ramble. I think the Design guys and gals should spend some time thinking about the intellectual history of the DOD and the military and how and why it thinks what it does as an institution.
<strong>Tom Ricks</strong> mentions this book on his blog:
<em>How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States: Riding the Roller Coaster</em>
I'd think planners would have been better off reading the transcripts around the Pressler Amendment and the hearings that took place during the 90s with Sen. Glenn, etc. instead of <em>Three Cups of Tea</em>. I am 100 percent serious. If you have a history with a region, study what you did there before so you don't make the same mistakes.
We keep making the same mistakes. Afghanistan is following the trajectory of our history with Pakistan - complete with the West building its fledgling Army!
In case anyone thinks I am too negative, and a whiner, there is still time. There is still time to get this right. That's why I write this stuff.
Carl:
Anon has a point. To be sure Mortenson's book has not become army doctrine, but as a symbol of the hearts and minds approach he has become very influential in the American Army. Many Brigade and battalion commanders have had him talk to their units prior to deployments, his book has come to be on many, many commander reading lists, he has been featured in many newspaper articles (one specifically about an army combat battalion a few years ago in Afghanistan where one of the officer's wives had read Mortenson's book and sent it along to her deployed husband who used it as a guide during operations).
The Irony of this story is that Mortenson's book contains lies about what he actually did--yet his book has come to be embraced by the coin community--and American counterinsurgency itself is one big myth. The myth is that it works, it does not.
Proof to my assertion is the story running today by Rajiv C in the Washington Post on "progress" in South Afghanistan. His article to be sure shows that progress has been made, but it has come about at the barrel of a gun through death and destruction, and not through the winning of the trust of the local population. If there was any success in Vietnam during the latter years of that war with pacification it was from the same thing; combat produced massed movements of people from rural hamlets and villages into government controlled areas. But again the point is that persuading the people to side with the government and against the communist enemy never happened.
So now what to do in Afghanistan? As Rajiv's article makes clear we can establish a semblance of control through raw military power in certain areas but for what? What is any of this getting us strategically? Like Iraq it is a waste, yet we continue to be mesmerized by articles of promise and hope of a bit more progress so that someday in the far future it will all lead to something.
And in the end Coin campaigns are very much like Mortenson's book since they have been described as wars of perceptions. And really all that Mortenson did was write a little white lie that created the perception of things that he supposedly did in Afghanistan.
gian
Carl: Read history of how that book shaped and formed the political class's thoughts and actions to set requirements on the military and diplomacy portions of national power. It is one of the foundations "soft power" rests on. It is one of the backchannel thoughts on why you can't kill your way out of an insurgency. We can disagree about how it formed, with other writers, the ways and means behind actions in that area of the world.
Anon:
I doubt that Mr. Mortenson's books are the foundation upon which the small war's principle of treating people with respect and courtesy rests. That is a fundamental because it works and it should come fairly natural to anybody who has his head screwed on straight. Mr. Mortenson's guidance isn't crucial.