Free Republic

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...

The first tip-off that Greg Mortenson's memoir "Three Cups of Tea" has some credibility issues comes in the book's introduction. Co-author David Oliver Relin writes that as Mortenson is flying over Pakistan, the helicopter pilot marvels to Mortenson, "I've been flying in northern Pakistan for 40 years. How is it you know the terrain better than me?" The pilot also confides, "Flying with President Musharraf, I've become acquainted with many world leaders, many outstanding gentlemen and ladies. But I think Greg Mortenson is the most remarkable person I've ever met." People don't talk like that. Books don't lead with that...

There is someone who you should know, and his name is Greg Mortenson, who is a World Leader (yes in “caps”), visionary, and guidance for the organizations of the Central Asia Institute (CAI - to promote and provide community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia), IKAT.org, and the Pennies for Peace program of CAI in educating children who are future leaders about Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a penny buys a pencil and opens the door to literacy for children their, especially for the young girls who are now having the opportunity to...

As he ate a late lunch in the dining room of the Brown Palace Hotel, Greg Mortenson radiated all the qualities newspaper articles have attributed to him: unassuming, gentle, spiritual. One would never guess Mortenson is an anti-terrorism warrior in the Islamic strongholds of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that his main weapon is schools. "Americans are now learning that we can't fight the war on terrorism with bombs, but with books," said Mortenson, 48, founder of a movement that has built 55 schools in those two countries in the past 13 years. "The Mullah (Islamic extremist movement) is not afraid...