Greg Mortenson: Hero Or Liar?

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Greg Mortenson: Hero or Liar?
Education. Books. Money. Schools. All of these words share something in common. They are what one man claimed to give to the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the future under his Central Asia Institute program. In his book, “Three Cups of Tea,” Greg Mortenson was portrayed as being a hero for building many schools for children and for also promoting education for women. The controversial issue over Greg Mortenson lying and keeping personal funds from the CAI is true due to the many pieces of evidence found and numerous stories from witnesses. To start off, from the reader’s point of view, the book published in 2006 known as “Three Cups of Tea” is an inspirational story, however it is based off of lies. …show more content…

He even received one hundred thousand dollars from the president, Barack Obama (“Questions Over Greg Mortenson’s Stories”). It was not until a few years later when thousands of readers changed their minds about this so called, “hero.” One of the first acts that sparked suspicion was when Mortenson said he was taken care of by people in a small village called Korphe. A man named Jon Krakauer stated that someone who traveled with Mortenson told him that he never heard of this village until a year later. In fact, in one of the first articles Mortenson wrote, Korphe was not even mentioned (“Questions Over Greg Mortenson’s Stories”). Obviously, he lied about ever getting help from the people in Korphe. Also, in his book he claimed that he was kidnapped and held captive for eight days. However, the people he claim were his …show more content…

This institute did not receive all of the money it was supposed to get. “Mortenson was supposed to provide a contribution to CAI equal to the amount of royalty payments he received from the book purchases, but failed to do so, investigators concluded” (“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). The charity program spent over three million dollars to buy copies of Mortenson’s books. In return, they didn’t receive anything back financially. Advancing on to a similar topic, Mortenson also used the money to purchase personal things. “These include expenses for such things as LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxurious accommodations, and even vacations"(“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). He used the money from the CAI for these purchases and spent about one million dollars. This money was supposed to go the materials needed for building schools. Although he did pay back some of the debt, he may not have if he was not forced to (“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity”). The response Mortenson gave was another

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