Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer Page A
Authors: Jon Krakauer
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business. It ’ s not. He ’ s using the public ’ s money. CAI is a tax-exempt organization subsidized by our tax dollars. It sounds like he ’ s violating every financial practice that nonprofits are supposed to follow. It ’ s very important that any nonprofit separate personal and private business interests from its charitable interests. CAI should not be paying for all these expenses that serve to benefit Mortenson personally. The fact that the charity might also benefit doesn ’ t make it OK. ”
Mortenson ’ s Pennies for Peace program (P4P) is a commendable cultural studies course that also happens to function as a phenomenally effective marketing-and-fundraising scheme for CAI. By pitching P4P directly to kids, their teachers, and school administrators, Mortenson has induced nearly three thousand schools in the United States and Canada to make P4P part of their standard K – 12 curriculum. Hundreds of thousands of children have contributed their lunch money in response to P4P fundraising appeals. “ The Pennies for Peace money, every single penny, we put it very quickly to use over in Pakistan and Afghanistan, ” Mortenson has assured these students and their parents. “ All of the money is used for supplies, for books … . Everything is used to help the kids out. ” 6 In 2009, schoolchildren donated $1.7 million to Pennies for Peace. But CAI ’ s total 2009 outlay for the things P4P is supposed to pay for — teachers ’ salaries, student scholarships, school supplies, basic operating expenses — amounted to a paltry $612,000. By comparison, in 2009 CAI spent more than $1 million to promote sales of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools , and another $1.4 million to fly Mortenson around in chartered jets. Donors unknowingly picked up the tab for all of it.
Part III
GHOST SCHOOLS
“ But education is a sacred thing, and the pledge to build a school is a commitment that cannot be surrendered or broken … . ”
— Greg Mortenson, Stones into Schools
“ TAKING GREAT PERSONAL RISKS to seed the region that gave birth to the Taliban with schools, Mortenson goes to war with the root causes of terror every time he offers a student a chance to receive a balanced education, rather than attend an extremist madrassa . ” This trope, from the introduction to Three Cups of Tea , is brandished by Mortenson as a central theme in all of his books and in most of his public utterances. The message he seeks to convey is that CAI schools are typically built in areas where fundamentalist madrassas are ubiquitous, and that his schools prevent the nearby madrassas from transforming kids into suicide bombers.
This simply is not true, and Mortenson knows it isn ’ t true. Only a small fraction of his schools are found in locales that might be characterized as breeding grounds for terrorists. In Afghanistan, the majority of schools CAI has established are in areas where the Taliban has little influence or is simply nonexistent, such as the Panjshir Valley and the Wakhan Corridor. In Pakistan, most of the CAI schools are situated in a region the size of West Virginia that used to be known as the Northern Areas but in 2009 was officially designated Gilgit-Baltistan. North of Gilgit-Baltistan lies Afghanistan ’ s Wakhan Corridor; to the northeast, across the towering peaks of the Karakoram, is China; to the southeast is the fiercely disputed border with India — the so-called Line of Control.
Despite its proximity to contested areas of Kashmir administered by India, Gilgit-Baltistan is a tranquil land that has thus far escaped most of the violence afflicting so many other parts of the region. Ethnically diverse, the inhabitants of Gilgit-Baltistan are followers of Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, and Nurbakhshi interpretations of Islam, and “ have historically lived in relative harmony, ” according to Nosheen Ali, a sociologist with a doctorate from Cornell who has conducted extensive research in
Mortenson ’ s Pennies for Peace program (P4P) is a commendable cultural studies course that also happens to function as a phenomenally effective marketing-and-fundraising scheme for CAI. By pitching P4P directly to kids, their teachers, and school administrators, Mortenson has induced nearly three thousand schools in the United States and Canada to make P4P part of their standard K – 12 curriculum. Hundreds of thousands of children have contributed their lunch money in response to P4P fundraising appeals. “ The Pennies for Peace money, every single penny, we put it very quickly to use over in Pakistan and Afghanistan, ” Mortenson has assured these students and their parents. “ All of the money is used for supplies, for books … . Everything is used to help the kids out. ” 6 In 2009, schoolchildren donated $1.7 million to Pennies for Peace. But CAI ’ s total 2009 outlay for the things P4P is supposed to pay for — teachers ’ salaries, student scholarships, school supplies, basic operating expenses — amounted to a paltry $612,000. By comparison, in 2009 CAI spent more than $1 million to promote sales of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools , and another $1.4 million to fly Mortenson around in chartered jets. Donors unknowingly picked up the tab for all of it.
Part III
GHOST SCHOOLS
“ But education is a sacred thing, and the pledge to build a school is a commitment that cannot be surrendered or broken … . ”
— Greg Mortenson, Stones into Schools
“ TAKING GREAT PERSONAL RISKS to seed the region that gave birth to the Taliban with schools, Mortenson goes to war with the root causes of terror every time he offers a student a chance to receive a balanced education, rather than attend an extremist madrassa . ” This trope, from the introduction to Three Cups of Tea , is brandished by Mortenson as a central theme in all of his books and in most of his public utterances. The message he seeks to convey is that CAI schools are typically built in areas where fundamentalist madrassas are ubiquitous, and that his schools prevent the nearby madrassas from transforming kids into suicide bombers.
This simply is not true, and Mortenson knows it isn ’ t true. Only a small fraction of his schools are found in locales that might be characterized as breeding grounds for terrorists. In Afghanistan, the majority of schools CAI has established are in areas where the Taliban has little influence or is simply nonexistent, such as the Panjshir Valley and the Wakhan Corridor. In Pakistan, most of the CAI schools are situated in a region the size of West Virginia that used to be known as the Northern Areas but in 2009 was officially designated Gilgit-Baltistan. North of Gilgit-Baltistan lies Afghanistan ’ s Wakhan Corridor; to the northeast, across the towering peaks of the Karakoram, is China; to the southeast is the fiercely disputed border with India — the so-called Line of Control.
Despite its proximity to contested areas of Kashmir administered by India, Gilgit-Baltistan is a tranquil land that has thus far escaped most of the violence afflicting so many other parts of the region. Ethnically diverse, the inhabitants of Gilgit-Baltistan are followers of Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, and Nurbakhshi interpretations of Islam, and “ have historically lived in relative harmony, ” according to Nosheen Ali, a sociologist with a doctorate from Cornell who has conducted extensive research in
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