The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘It’s a Beautiful Story. And It’s a Lie.’

Posted on | April 16, 2011 | 8 Comments

A soi-dissant philanthropist is exposed as a liar:

Some of the most inspiring and dramatic stories in the best-selling book, “Three Cups of Tea,” by Greg Mortenson, are not true, multiple sources tell “60 Minutes” . . .
The stories in “Three Cups of Tea” have become the source of inspirational speeches Mortenson is paid to make and the partial basis for donations of nearly $60 million to the charity he founded. . . . Mortenson’s charity, Central Asia Institute, has spent more money in the U.S. talking about education in Pakistan and Afghanistan than actually building and supporting schools there . . .
The heart of Mortenson’s “Three Cups of Tea” is the story of a failed attempt in 1993 to climb the world’s second-highest peak, K2.
On the way down, Mortenson says, he got lost and stumbled, alone and exhausted, into a remote mountain village in Pakistan named Korphe.
According to the book’s narrative, the villagers cared for him and he promised to return to build a school there. In a remote village in Pakistan, “60 Minutes” found Mortenson’s porters on that failed expedition. They say Mortenson didn’t get lost and stumble into Korphe on his way down from K2. He visited the village a year later.
That’s what famous author and mountaineer Jon Krakauer, a former donor to Mortenson’s charity, says he found out, too. “It’s a beautiful story. And it’s a lie,” says Krakauer. “I have spoken to one of his [Mortenson’s] companions, a close friend, who hiked out from K2 with him and this companion said, ‘Greg never heard of Korphe until a year later,'” Krakauer tells Kroft.

Read the whole thing. After 9/11, Mortenson shared his “philanthropic” opinion of the War on Terror:

“I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they had a reason to choose life over death.”

Which is utterly misguided: Osama bin Laden is from one of the richest non-royal families in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed Atta was from an affluent Egyptian family and had a college degree in architecture. But one finds this Mortenson quote all over the Internet, because liberals desperately want to believe that poverty causes terrorism. If this were true, supposedly, we could “fight terrorism” by sending money and Peace Corps volunteers to the Third World, just as liberals believe we can “fight crime” at home with welfare, summer jobs programs, etc.

The moral of the story, of course: If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not true. But there’s always someone clever enough to cash in by telling liberals what they want to hear.

Which brings us to the Question of the Day: “Liberals pride themselves on being tolerant. Are they really just suckers?” I think we all know the answer to that question, but the liberal author, Sally Kohn, goes on to make reference to the “pathetic self-loathing” of liberals.

Really, did she have to remind us of “Conscious Men“?

Category: Corruption, Pakistan

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