Building the Counterinsurgent Girl

Feminist Studies 44, no. 3. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 635 Molly Geidel Building the Counterinsurgent Girl In early 2006, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin published Three Cups of Tea, promoted by Penguin Books as “the astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard.”1 Narrated by Relin, the book recounts Mortenson’s 1993 failed attempt to climb the treacherous peak K2, after which he is nursed back to health by Pakistani villagers and, in return for their hospitality, promises to build them a school. The rest of the book chronicles Mortenson’s rollicking adventures as he wins over rural communities in the region through tea drinking and other respectful behavior, then constructs fifty-five schools in Pakistan ambiguously designated “especially for girls”; a subsequent book, Stones into Schools, recounts Mortenson’s similarly wild, and wildly productive, school-building adventures throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. Despite unabashed caricatures of the local people— men “attack” their food in a “primal, barbaric” manner, “tearing and grunting”—and what one reviewer deemed the book’s “self-indulgent digressions, clunky prose and odd, hagiographic references,” Three Cups 1. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). 636 Molly Geidel of Tea enjoyed tremendous success.2 The book spent four years on the New York Times nonfiction paperback bestseller list, provided copious material for liberal-interventionist opinion columnists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof, shaped the strategy of the US troop surge in Afghanistan in the late 2000s, and inspired donations from schools and churches across America. Barack Obama donated $100,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize winnings to Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute (CAI).3 As Three Cups of Tea became ubiquitous, it began to draw scrutiny. Journalist Jon Krakauer, initially a generous supporter of Mortenson and the CAI, uncovered a series of inaccuracies in the book, including its incorrect identification of the Baltistan region of Pakistan as violent and Taliban ruled; its claim that Mortenson had been kidnapped by Taliban forces, corroborated by a photo which, Krakauer easily discovered, depicted Mortenson’s non-Taliban-affiliated friends; and the fact that many schools Mortenson boasted of did not exist or lay empty while he used the CAI’s funds to promote his book. In 2011, Krakauer enumerated these accusations in a blistering e-book titled Three Cups of Deceit, and 60 Minutes ran a story exposing the false kidnapping and empty schools.4 The state of Montana sued Mortenson for defrauding the CAI—they settled for $1.2 million—and four readers drew on Krakauer’s discoveries to file a class action suit against Mortenson, Relin, Penguin, and the CAI.5 The latter suit was thrown out of court, but the consequences of the debacle, at least for Relin, were severe: he killed himself in 2012, 2. Mortenson and Relin, Three Cups of Tea, 4, 162; Pamela Constable, “After the Taliban: The Struggle for the Future of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as Seen through Western Eyes,” Washington Post, April 2, 2006. 3. Thomas D. Friedman, “Teacher Can We Leave Now? No.,” New York Times, July 14, 2009; Nicholas D. Kristof, “It Takes a School, Not Missiles,” New York Times, July 14, 2008; Elisabeth Bumiller, “Unlikely Tutor Giving Military Afghan Advice,” New York Times, July 17, 2010; Joshua Keating, “Obama Donated Part of Nobel Prize Money to Allegedly Fraudulent ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Charity,” Foreign Policy, April 19, 2011. 4. Jon Krakauer, Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way (San Francisco: Byliner, 2011); “Questions over Greg Mortenson ’s Stories,” CBS News, April 19, 2011, http://www.cbsnews.com/news /questions-over-greg-mortensons-stories-19-04-2011. 5. Lori Grannis, “Lawsuit Dismissed Against ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Author,” Reuters , April 30, 2012. Molly Geidel 637 suffering from depression he linked to the lawsuit and Mortenson’s public statements blaming him for the book’s inaccuracies.6 After Mortenson’s story fell apart, commentators marveled that no one in the international development community had raised questions about his

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