Accessibility links

Breaking News

At Large

American writer Greg Mortenson with Gultori schoolchildren in Pakistan, undated.
American writer Greg Mortenson with Gultori schoolchildren in Pakistan, undated.

When Greg Mortenson—the Montana nurse who earned worldwide fame with his campaign to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and then recounted the tale in his mammoth international bestseller Three Cups of Tea—was exposed as a fraud in April, there was one prominent media figure he could count on for support: the Pulitzer-prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

“One of the people I’ve enormously admired in recent years is Greg Mortenson,” Kristof wrote in his April 20 column. While conceding that the accusations against Mortenson “raised serious questions,” Kristof countered that “it’s indisputable that Greg has educated many thousands of children, and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.” He acknowledged that Mortenson gave “a blurb for my most recent book, Half the Sky, and I read his book Three Cups of Tea to my daughter.” As for Mortenson’s critics, Kristof had the following message: “Let’s not forget that, even if all the allegations turn out to be true, Greg has still built more schools and transformed more children’s lives than you or I ever will.”

The accusations against Mortenson—unearthed by 60 Minutes in collaboration with the journalist and filmmaker Jon Krakauer in an e-book entitled Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way—are grave. Mortenson is said to have fabricated the very incident he says gave him the inspiration to launch his school-building charity, the Central Asia Institute (CAI). According to the creation myth, Mortenson stumbled upon the Pakistani village Korphe following a failed attempt at climbing the world’s second highest mountain, K-2. After the villagers cared for him and restored him to health, Mortenson says, he promised to return and build them a school. As Krakauer shows, however, Mortenson did not stagger into Korphe following his descent from K-2; he pledged to build the school there more than a year later, on a second trip.

Read the rest of this article in "Commentary Magazine."

Ron Asmus, R.I.P.

Ron Asmus
Ron Asmus
On April 30, Ron Asmus passed away following a long struggle with cancer. Asmus, the head of the German Marshall Fund of the United States's Brussels Office, served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs from 1997-2000, and played a major role in expanding NATO to the former communist countries of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. He was also a veteran of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, having worked here as an analyst.

I didn't know Ron particularly well, but in all of my dealings with him he was nothing short of gracious. His passing will not only be mourned by his family, friends and colleagues, but also by so many people across the continent of Europe, to which he had devoted his career to making "whole, free and at peace."

In recent years, Ron had become one of the most persistent advocates for the integration of Georgia into the EU and NATO. In the aftermath of the 2008 Russian-Georgia War, when so many commentators were blaming the victim, Ron consistently framed the conflict in terms of the bigger picture: that it was Georgian independence, and its Westward orientation, which angered Moscow and set the groundwork for war.

As Robert Kagan writes, "In short, Ron spent his life fighting for the freedom of others, and he continued to fight at a time when it became less fashionable in some circles. No one who had suffered under oppression ever had to wonder which side Ron was on, which is why so many turned to him for help when they were in need."

You can read my interview with Ron about his book, "A Little War That Shook The World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West," here, and my review of it for "Commentary" here.

Load more

XS
SM
MD
LG