Heroes -- real, imagined, or something in between – serve the same purpose today that they did for the Greeks who gave us the term some three millennia ago. Heroes can inspire, but they mostly tell us who we think we are, often revealing the gap between our idealized and true selves.
On April 15th the media took note that CBS's "60 Minutes" was to air an April 17th expose of Greg Mortenson, the much lauded humanitarian and co-author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller “Three Cups of Tea.” The CBS show questioned the veracity of his stories, the misuse of the millions of dollars he raised to build girls' schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and even the existence of many of the schools he claimed to have built. In just three days since news of the CBS story first appeared, over 390 news articles have appeared concerning Mortenson's fabrications and misdeeds. Those hundreds of news articles, and the hundreds more to follow, will eventually expose the truth. For now, it is useful to consider what Mortenson tells us about ourselves.
An April 10th Los Angeles Times story, "Anatomy of an Afghan War Tragedy," describes how on February 21, 2010, in Afghanistan, a US Predator drone aircraft was keeping a convoy of Afghan civilians under surveillance. From 7,000 miles away in Nevada, the camera operator of the two-man drone crew said "Oh, sweet target." Then, about 2 1/2 hours later, US helicopters unleashed Hellfire missiles -- at $68,000 a piece -- on the convoy, killing from 15 (official US count) to 23 (Afghan count) of the Afghan civilians. The official US military transcript, quoting the Predator drone camera operator, reveals that part of the decision to attack the convoy was based on the questionable assumption that there were no children in the Afghan convoy, despite evidence to the contrary: "I really doubt that children call. Man, I really … hate that... Well, maybe a teenager. But I haven't seen anything that looked that short." There were children in the convoy, and children killed in the attack.
It was common knowledge for years that Greg Mortenson consulted with the US military and lectured at US war colleges. Mortensen was flown around Afghanistan on US Army helicopters, sometimes with General Petraeus. How does an Afghan know if a US military helicopter is there to dispense a book or a bomb? Why did progressives and anti-war folks allow themselves to be entranced by the insane notion that assassination and aid could go hand in hand? Why did so few, including Mortenson himself, question this commingling of aid and armed force (the most fundamental no-no for every respected humanitarian NGO)?
Greg Mortenson was a American hero who encouraged us to believe in the virtue of what we are doing to a people very far away and very different from us. After nearly a decade, stopping our unjust war in Afghanistan seemed impossible, so Mortenson showed us what seemed possible and all too easy: building schools and educating Muslim girls. If only we built enough schools, the Afghans might learn that we weren't such bad people, and they would stop fighting us. Mortenson allowed us to replace our moral duty – ending the war – with a convenient one. In the end the unmasking of Mortensen’s fantasy may tell us more about ourselves than him. We hoped Mortenson could be the good face of American military power, forgetting that that face is at best a mask.
Sacrifice and bravery are not sufficient to make one's actions right or necessary. There are struggles which are necessary – like ending our current wars -- and in those struggles we can become our own heroes. And before we support efforts to educate people in other countries we must first make sure we are not trying to eradicate them.
No comments:
Post a Comment