Why You Should Not Let the Greg Mortenson Scandal Discourage You from Supporting NGOs

Karl, great post. I think we are wired to believe the lie and that influenced why lots of well meaning folks bought into Mortenson. But there is more: since you brought up the evil theme you may be familiar with the Bathsheba Syndrome.

http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~uzimmerm/Notes/Ludwig+Longenecker,%20The%20…

I think this also goes a long way to explain Mortenson -- of course greed, money and power are strong motivators too. Thanks, MCS

"True development spawns internally IN SPITE OF the good intentions of do-gooders."

Grant Martin

A case worth studying: Scotland in the Reformation period.

Here is a very poor nation. No external funding. Clan warfare, a relatively weak monarchy.

But with the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, came an emphasis on education so that as many people as possible could read Scripture for themselves. The mark of being one of the elect became the capacity to achieve.

Scotland's emphasis on public education resulted in a high number of educated people whose theology gave them an internal locus of control. They left their poor nation and sought their fortunes as soldiers, sailors and, through accumulation of capital, as merchants.

And many a ship's engineer was a Scotsman.

Something happened during the Scottish Reformation that turned a Thar like nation into one of the great contributors to modern history.

Students of military history and nation building may want to examine Scotland and see how Scotland turned herself into a region so rich in human wealth and did this without any foreign aid.

PS Am only 1/64 Scots so am not being chauvinistic here.

Steve Dutch noted in his article that Japanese Bushido was not the same as Thar. It was an internalized sense of rectitude.

Nation rebuilding succeeded in Germany and Japan because both cultures had had indigenous forms of knightly culture through which a sense of self and loyalty to institutions personal achievment could later develop.

Neither Germany nor Japan were Thar cultures of the sort we are encountering in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan--or Saudi Arabia.

Abu Floos wrote

"The real question is, Why did we believe him? (Mortenson) Why was his exaggerated story so eagerly embraced by the public and even by military leaders? Why did people actually believe so quickly and uncritically that he'd made so much progress in a war-torn region characterized more by medieval barbarism than by any kind of recognizable love of learning?

"I think the answer is theological. We've lost any real understanding of evil and depravity. Cultural relativism teaches us that conflict is a result not of significant moral differences but of misunderstandings. Postmodern anti-colonialism teaches us that the West is the root of all that ails the world; that virtuous indigenous cultures would flourish without our oppression and militarism. Well-meaning, idealistic (but biblically ignorant) Christians believe that just a little kindness and love will transform hearts and minds on a vast scale. (unquote)

For those who dont believe evil is an objective reality, there is another way to frame Abu Flood's excellent observation.

Give up on idealism. Not not all indigenous cultures are virtuous. Twenty years ago, I bought into this and was very sorry to have to face that Kumbaya does not work.

Steven Dutch, a geology professor has an essay on the Thar culture that we are coping with in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to some extant, in Pakistan.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/toxicval.htm

Some indigeonous cultures actually support ongoing patterns of oppression and poverty. No amount of school building, whether by charismatic showmen or by humble and skilled persons working in obscurity, will succeed, if the toxic nature of these cultures is ignored due to starry eyed idealism.

If a Thar based society gets a massive injection of wealth that it has not earned through its own efforts (oil wealth in the case of Wahabi Arabia), or massive injection of US $$-Pakistan) a Thar culture will not become more humane and just. Instead, that injection of wealth will go to the elites and the Thar features will remain but be concealed behind a charming modern facade designed to fool donors into giving yet more money.

A Thar culture given an injection of sudden wealth will remain cruel, the money will remain mostly in the sticky fingers of the chiefs, who will adopt charming manners and a facade of Westernized civlization while telling us what we want to hear, and continue to laugh behind our backs. In reality, the poor will remain poor, females will continue to be devalued, and foreigners who are hired from even poorer countries to do the dirty work will continue to be mistreated.

As a stomach churner, get and read The Dancing Girls of Lahore by Louise Brown. Young girls are sold to wealthy shiekhs in the Gulf countries--Thar in action.

Military policies and foreign aid programs that ignore the presence and tenacity of Thar will leave us bankrupt and feeling skull-f*cked.

Anonymous,
Our constitution does not apply to other nations, but it does apply to our congress, and it is our congress that has passed the war resolution and the finance to support the nation building (or whatever we call it) of Islamic nations.

I am sure there will be some disagreement about what constitutes "respecting establishment of a religion" versus simply helping some nation rebuild, and there is probably lots of gray, but if our congress decided to spend billions rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, I think many would agree that would be a violation of the first amendment of the constitution.

It makes me very uneasy that we are fighting and dieing for an Islamic government. I understand they are probably better than the Taliban, but according to wikipedia it is illegal to convert to Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Afghanistan

Since when does our constitution apply to other nations? Are we making their laws, or are they making their own laws? If we were encouraging a Islamic Republic within the U.S. it would clearly be illegal, but supporting one external to the U.S. isn't (opinion), but it does run against our moral grain.

We swore an oath to the constitution:

First amendment of the US constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;....

Does the US support for building Islamic republics that mix government and religion violate our constitution?

Ladies and gentlemen, we've been had. But not by Mortenson. The military culture that grabbed Mortenson's three cups and didn't let go was already lost, already in thrall to the Lefty theories and see-no-Islam strategies that have turned U.S. foreign policy into the Great Society with guns.
Independently, Mortenson dressed it all up with a heady mix of popular appeal and ever-so-high purpose. Education, not terrorism; plowshares, not swords; love, not war. Clear, hold and build, build, build!

From COIN to "Three Cups," it's a perfectly irresistible way to avoid the facts and features of jihad culture where such institutional naivete leads to stratospheric waste, fraud and mounting casualties.
Anything to keep the teacups from getting chipped.

Karl

We (the military) appear to believe Mortensen because we must. The American public demands it. The Army marches to the cadence of coffee, literally. You know the one. "They say that in the Army, the coffees mighty fine." From the first day of basic training soldiers learn that breaking for coffee provides warmth, camaraderie, and, sometimes, a brief respite from the insanity. Ours is a coffee army. So, why have recent articles suggested that the military leadership in Afghanistan was overly influenced by tea, specifically, Three Cups of Tea, the beleaguered book by Greg Mortensen? Because it this is a good story, and if the Army runs on coffee the American media runs on scandal. Nonetheless, the criticism of the military leadership is not entirely unfounded. There are several reasons that the Army has recently migrated towards a lighter caffeine source.

First, Army operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are heavily influenced by political constraints at home and abroad. With both conflicts growing long in the tooth, each rotation of military leadership is under heavy pressure from their political masters to present a plan of action that favorably departs from the status quo. Congressional delegations are frequent visitors to command posts and in-country briefings and they are keen consumers of initiatives that resonate with their constituents. Talk to them about cordon and search results, and their eyes glaze over. Trot out a local woman who is learning basic sanitation from a locally sponsored initiative and the cameras will not stop flashing for hours. One quickly learns that these briefings, and the funding that they often pitch for, are not targeted at winning the war in-country. They are designed to win the battle for money and support in Washington.

Second, the militarys dependence on political support, which in turn relies on the political will of the American people, is the backbone of our civil-military relations. The codependent interrelationship between the Army and society is not a new phenomenon. One need only remember the sheer number of embedded reporters that accompanied the "Race to Baghdad" in order to understand the role that popular media plays in present-day conflicts. The direct connection between Army operations and viewers at home subjects everything the military does to an additional level of scrutiny and places a premium on battlefield images that preserve and enlarge public approval for the military action. People watch and wait for two things: to see their army conqueror; and to see the oppressed people liberated. The role of the conquering military is set aside early in the conflict, which leaves the role of military as saviors. In reality, this is a role and image that has not been widely accessible to the American Army since World War II, but even small scenes of gratitude from locals broadcast to millions of viewers can make it seem like it is raining flowers in Afghanistan.

Third, the American public loves a good story, or, more specifically, a story with a good-ending. Books about boys running with kites, girls making dresses, or old men drinking tea lay uneasily, and almost fantastically, over the ruinscape of war-torn Afghanistan. Yet, these books and stories will sustain the best-seller list for months at a time. Americans love tales of morality and hope. The only people who love these tales more are the ideologues who populate the NGO delegations that crowd in and among senior military leaders and their advisers. Faced with a decision to make, no senior military leader, regardless of rank or conviction, can stare into a room of agenda-toting activists and not agree to build a girls school, a clinic, an occupational skills workshop, or whatever-else is currently on the menu. The commander will do this knowing full well that local norms may be dead-set against such an undertaking. That attendance in or around these facilities may make locals a target and that the contractors building these projects will likely use the funds to buy weapons for their insurgent countrymen. It is a decision that is impossible to understand, yet it must be made to preserve the idea that people are being saved, and that they are grateful for being saved, by the American military.

The military remains very much committed to finding and killing its adversaries where it can. However, in this day and age of instant political feedback and mercurial funding, certain military decision are beholden to a higher power. The power of the American people. If there is any shame in the fact that our senior military leaders appeared beholden to drinking three cups of tea rather than good, old-fashioned, Army coffee, then we should first blame ourselves as American citizens. After all, Mortensen may have established that it take three cups, but we were the one demanding to see something sweet and not so dark.

Karl,

I'm going to let your comment stand b/c I think it's an important one; however, it should be understood that the people of Diyala Province are not particularly religious. Rather, they were/are fighting local tribal/family fights over power.

Mike

Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush's and Greg Mortensen's.

Thus began a column in The New York Times by Nicholas Kristof in July 2008. I remember the column distinctly because I was, at that time, fighting terrorism according to the George Bush approach, serving with the Third Armored Cavalry regiment in Diyala Province as part of the signature Bush policy effort of the war, the Surge. A friend forwarded the Kristof article, and I was intrigued.

Who was this Greg Mortensen? What's his approach?

I read on:

Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana . . . 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.

The only thing that Mr. Mortenson blows up are boulders that fall onto remote roads and block access to his schools.

He builds schools. Good for him. But I knew that his efforts--no matter how admirable (and admirable they certainly are)--were but a tiny drop of hope and decency in the oceans of oppression, violence, and misery that are the jihadist-dominated regions of Southwest Asia. I was glad for his work, but that's an approach to fighting terrorism? An approach to rival our massive, ongoing military efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan?

According to Kristof, Mortensen offered more than "an approach." He offered "the approach," one far superior to anything we were doing in the Surge. Kristof concluded:

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.

I literally laughed out loud. I gave no further thought to Mortensen, and we just kept doing our job: clearing al Qaeda from our corner of Iraq, having our own "cups of tea" with tribal elders, local police, ordinary villagers--so much tea, in fact, that I get nauseous at the very thought of the word chai.

But tea wasn't enough. Nor were schools or roads or power stations or our other nation-building efforts; they weren't enough until al Qaeda was beaten, until they no longer had the strength to behead villagers who cooperated with our efforts, until they no longer could terrorize mothers by shooting their babies right in front of them, or until they could no longer clear out the schools or power stations or government offices (or anything else we built) and use them as weapons depots and safe houses, or simply vandalize them, leaving their shattered emptiness as a symbol of their power, not ours.

When I got home in late 2008, I learned that Greg Mortensen was a bigger deal than I had realized. The military made his books mandatory reading. He spoke to tens of thousands, and even the President of the United States donated to his charity. In the midst of a long and bloody war, his story of cultural understanding, patience, tea, and education resonated. Did Greg Mortensen really offer a better way?

Less than two weeks ago, the whole story unraveled. John Krakauer and "60 Minutes" discovered that key elements of Mortensen's compelling life story were fabricated. Worse, they discovered that his charitable efforts were far less extensive than advertised. Many of his schools were empty, some didn't exist, and the overall footprint of his efforts was a fraction of what we believed. He wasn't a total fraud (he has done much good in the lives of the students he served), but he and his charity were not what we thought they were.

In the immediate aftermath of the "60 Minutes" story, the question came: Why? Why did a man who'd done such great good so exaggerate his story and his efforts? Wasn't the truth enough for him?

But that's actually a less interesting question than its reverse. After all, he simply joins a long line of public figures who have exaggerated their accomplishments. Greed and pride are the oldest of sins. The real question is, Why did we believe him? Why was his exaggerated story so eagerly embraced by the public and even by military leaders? Why did people actually believe so quickly and uncritically that he'd made so much progress in a war-torn region characterized more by medieval barbarism than by any kind of recognizable love of learning?

I think the answer is theological. We've lost any real understanding of evil and depravity. Cultural relativism teaches us that conflict is a result not of significant moral differences but of misunderstandings. Postmodern anti-colonialism teaches us that the West is the root of all that ails the world; that virtuous indigenous cultures would flourish without our oppression and militarism. Well-meaning, idealistic (but biblically ignorant) Christians believe that just a little kindness and love will transform hearts and minds on a vast scale. "If only they can see how nice we are, how much we care, then their hearts will melt."

But biblical Christianity teaches us that evil is not only real; it is the default human condition. Since the Fall, we are hard-wired for evil, not for good. Biblical Christianity teaches us that grace is extraordinary, not ordinary, and that even Christians are shot through with sin. Why do we believe that cultures that have not had a significant Christian presence for more than one thousand years (if ever), that have lived and died by the sword for every generation in living memory, and that are locked in the hate-fueled grip of jihadist Islam, will be transformed by schools, tea, and books, all delivered with a smile by well-meaning Americans?

The Taliban and al Qaeda are grotesquely evil. In regions they control, they will immediately kill anyone they perceive as a threat to their military or cultural domination. That is a fact. We can build 10,000 schools, but if the schools are not safe, if the curriculum is not countercultural (and often counter to their own faith), and if the education does not continue well into adulthood, then we are simply chasing after the wind. Nicholas Kristof points out that a school is cheaper than a Tomahawk missile, and this is true. But could anyone build a girls' school in Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan before the Tomahawks?

Why did we believe Greg Mortensen? Because we wanted to believe him. Because we still can't understand the enormity of the evil we face. Because we actually believe that a few cups of tea can bridge a yawning cultural and spiritual gap that has existed for more than a millennium.

The story he wanted to tell is the story we wanted to hear.

In sum, the WOTC v. COIN distinction may be a false one, as Gian notes, but it is a necessary one in order to stave off the popular resistance that you describe.

Bill M.

I do not dispute that all wars have an anti-war element. My point was that sustaining political will since Vietnam (in an era of high-velocity news transfers and murkier political objectives) requires that the public be constantly reassured of progress or success. This happens in a WOTC context when we declare victory over an existential threat. The trouble is that moment has never really materialized since WWII. The expectation-managment course of action that follows relies heavily on pop-centric COIN strategies, as these provide constant stories of humanitarian triumph, which in turn serve as a panacea to public impatience.

The anonymous of 01:14 is me.

Gian:

The author of the piece seems to have first hand experience with both war fighting and NGOing. His comments may be more thoughtful than he is being given credit for.

Wars waged prior to Vietnam were dependent on a lesser degree of sustained political will. The attraction of distinguishing COIN from WOTC is that it allows the US to (i) claim WOTC victory quickly and beginning talking about exit strategies; and (ii) fills the news cycle with warm-hearted anecdotes of literacy and sanitation improvements in far-away land. American people can feel that we are at once victors and saviors, and they extend their political will a lot longer for saviors. It is all optics, but it matters to the great American public.

"But the military is not very good at this type of work because effective development requires a unique skill-set and operates on a different time-line than warfighting."

Really, what kind of "time-line" is warfighting on? How about considering the 30 Years War, or the 100 years War; or America's 300 Year war against the indians.

Can we please just stop using the caricature of Wars-Other-Than-Coin (WOTC)as something fast, rule bound, and simple to do? Maybe if we did we might get somewhere with these analyses.

gian