Well, I’m glad to learn the truth. I was just about to buy the book. But, please don’t go over the edge and blame people who were fooled by him. Most people I know are working hard at their jobs, their kids and their other responsibilities, and have no time to investigate some guy who’s a fake. Since the man has been exposed as a fake by investigative journalists, doesn’t that mean the system is working? The truth has a way of coming out, and it did, so that’s a happy ending as far as I’m concerned.
The Red Cross is almost as bad.
Real-life heros write two books about their heroism, I guess.
Thanks for posting this article.
Americans basically are good folk. Even nut case liberals think they want to do good. So along comes a story that brings something good out of the shit hole that is Afghanistan, and everyone goes WOW!
Not ever realizing that girls are burned alive for going to school, bombed, etc. WILLFUL IGNORANCE on parade.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, and you only need to fool 51% at election time, unless Perot runs.
I guess I missed this one, because I never heard of the guy.
But I would be somewhat suspicious of a story in which Afghan Muslims were portrayed as such nice and kindly people, happy to have some infidel come into their country and set up school for their children, including the girls.
The Muslims I’ve heard of in that country kill interfering do-gooders at the drop of the hat, and take pleasure in blowing up little girls who think they deserve an education. It sounds to me as if it was a setup to appeal to liberal do-gooder daydreams. Kumbaya.
1. Perhaps part of the reason why nobody investigated Mortenson is because Mortenson was lauded by so many people, especially by the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff - and his book became required reading for many US soldiers entering Afghanistan. People took it in good faith and assumed that everybody else did their homework
Also they assumed the publisher did fact checking, when it didn’t - it said to Mortenson “swear to me that it’s true” and didn’t do nothing else
2. With presidents, it’s not possible to win without some way of promoting oneself. Because everyone promotes himself (it’s in a job description), that alone does not necessarily mean that one is a BSer (or any worse of a BSer than any of the other candidates).
Yes. Next question.