M. Salahuddin Khan's Blog

Today’s National Review Online carries an article by Ashley Thorne. In it, while acknowledging the importance of education in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he professes such a concern for the truth that he worries over the corruption of students educated in America on the lessons of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, all in the name of appeasing the Islamic world.
Yes, accuracy is important. One can drill into the nuances and seek accuracy or inaccuracy there. Did Moretenson get sick? Did he get nursed back to health? Did this cause him to promise to return to build a school? If our fixation is on the truth of these points then how and where do those truths stack up in our zeal for facts relative to the following:
Did Moretenson return from Pakistan, sell everything, live out of his car, write hundreds of letters, visit grade schools looking for donations and begin with a single collection of a little more than $600 from one such school in the US?
Did Mortenson return to build the school in Pakistan?
Did he go on to build scores more?
Did tens of thousands of young children get a schooling?
And did schooling those children divert a schooled child's life from taking up armed extremist forms of Islam?
Did Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, take a half day trip to inaugurate one of Mortenson's schools, giving Mortenson a bear hug greeting when he got there?
Did Mullen recognize that such initiatives beat hands down any American attempt to kill or capture its way to victory in Afghanistan? And do his troops have any grasp of this?
Assembling a work of non-fiction memoir narrative is like putting together an interesting home movie. If you leave everything in, it's too long and too boring. Editing is key to making it engaging.
And sometimes the editing goes too far. It seems such is indeed the case with the Mortenson books, but not where it comes to the questions that really matter.
If we wish to allege that we are educated, then we ought to be able to discern the important truths from the unimportant editing falsehoods. For John Krakauer to rank these alleged inaccuracies, not all of which are accepted as fact, as a “fraud” and for him to create the very storm from Moretenson’s alleged deceptions that he argues will sink the ship of childrens’ education, is itself unconscionable and must cause us to question his own book marketing objectives. For 60 Minutes to carry the story reveals more about that show’s standards and appetites than it does about the humanitarian cause of childrens’ education.
But, Thorne’s so-called concern is none other than a not even thinly-veiled and rabid antithesis toward anything construable as appeasement of the Islamic world.  This is what he would have us believe is the real meaning of Mortenson’s mission, folding into the argument some de facto presumption that moving to make the Islamic world like America would be somehow a bad thing. He needs to get a grip on the causes of terrorism, perhaps by reading the seminal work of Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and author of “Dying to Win.”
If we need to pick apart the foundation stones of positive efforts, so that we can cast the same stones at those whose courage built something with those foundations—a courage, which incidentally most of us lack—then we have truly become as small as the nuances we seek to focus on.
Certainly, beyond matters of nuance, there are indeed questions relating to uses of funds and we do need to see some explanation to respond to allegations of misuse, the personal “ATM machine”, failure to audit etc. But one giant fact that I believe needs to be recognized is that a charity ought legitimately to be able to assemble an endowment to secure the ongoing expense requirements of what it has thus far funded.
Directing donated funds to such a purpose, far from being an underhanded misrepresentation is a financially astute move. But take a look at any one year’s accounting and that charity will appear to have spent only a fraction of what it raised for the expenses germane to the charity’s purpose because the balance (less fundraising and administrative costs) will have gone to the endowment. In the long run, the endowment’s returns will serve to provide a reliable source of funds for the mission of the charity. I don’t suggest that this is THE explanation but we should have the patience to hear the response before making the bourgeois judgments that I’m seeing in many a publication alleging itself to be “respectable.”
Fortunately, there are those such as Thomas L. Friedman and Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times who have witnessed first hand both Mortenson the meek, and guileless, as well as Mortenson the charitable giant along with his handiwork, not simply in bricks and stones but in the eyes of the little girls who are thrilled at being able to attend the schools his charity has helped realize. They get it. So should we.

On the heels of CBS’s 60 Minutes’ program about Greg Mortenson’s alleged fabrications in his books, the twitterverse and blogosphere have become abuzz with the chatter that delights in controversy.

Whether the allegations are accurate or not, is important from the perspective of publishing non-fictional memoirs. There needs to be confidence that the narrative isn’t fabricated. This is especially true if it inspires its readers and even more so if it results in making donations to a charitable cause like the Central Asia Institute and its mission to build schools.

That said, and without any further investigation on my own part, it does not surprise me that elements of a non-fictional memoir should be simplified to aid in reading it. Just as we can easily find home movies to consist of moments of interest embedded in long stretches of boring renditions of the mundane, and feature films to be continuously engaging, a memoir often needs to make simplifications to convey an underlying truth.

But to debate these points is to miss several gargantuan truths which are, to my knowledge only occasionally and superficially mentioned amid today’s discussions.

First, be mindful of the fact that when Greg Mortenson returned to the USA after leaving Pakistan, he, unlike the vast majority of the rest of us, elected to sell everything, living out of his car for some time and attempted to raise the funds for the first school. He wrote innumerable letters. He put up while others talked.

There’s no denying the fact of the several schools that have indeed been built. There’s no denying that in most of those schools an education is being delivered. There’s no denying the several thousand children who have benefited and there should be no denying the threat to their successors if the charity should suddenly lose its expected funding.

And wherever the education isn’t being delivered, we should seek to solve that problem rather than point fingers of blame to the one among us who has dedicated himself to this purpose.

Highly regarded authority, Peter Bergen, also CNN’s terrorism correspondent and frequent visitor to the affected region, was at pains on CNN this morning to point out that even though some of the information in Greg’s books might have been inaccurate, the underlying truths haven’t been compromised and that the CAI’s efforts are worthwhile. From what I can tell on that count, with the furore extending to discussions of the use of funds, no one seems to be examining just how much of that money has been going into an endowment versus being immediately deployed. Clearly, the more that is directed in the endowment direction, the smaller the fraction of raised funds will appear to have been expensed for the charitable purpose in any given year. To compare those with the funds used for marketing is to fail to understand the dynamics of fundraising in the USA and the cost of marketing. So many charities fail in this regard due to their under-funded marketing efforts. CAI has approached the marketing task professionally. Lastly, who in his right mind would eschew promoting of a book that is at once directly relevant and persuasive to would be donors to give to a charity that has been conducting efforts to the extent that CAI quite plainly has.

One dark spot on this in my view is the need for a response on the allegations of only one set of audited accounts since inception of CAI. This, to my mind is damaging and should either be rebutted if untrue or rectified with immediate effect.

I sincerely hope the CAI continues to be supported and the under-served children of Afghanistan and Pakistan are given the opportunity they deserve. Let’s stop this craving for the entertainment of amphitheater and let those among us who have the courage to step off the treadmill of career to go and make a difference to other people’s lives, get on with showing us how to do what we have ourselves lacked the courage to do.

Bad decisions with Afghanistan and Iraq are now casting a shadow over America’s ability to do the right thing in response to the Arab Awakening of 2011.
Imagine a world in which there was no al-Qaeda, no Afghanistan invasion and no Iraq war. Leave the rest in place, so it’s basically a geopolitical rewind to September 10th, 2001 but with all the socio-cultural, economic and technological history intact from the last 10 years.
So now you’ve fast forwarded to say, January 2011, without the above historical baggage and ask yourself the following question:
What would America’s correct response be to the uprisings blazing across the Arab world in opposition to dictatorial regimes? It’s hard to imagine Americans not intervening. What, after all, would our own often-repeated claims of leadership of the free world mean if not that?
I find myself unable to imagine any response other than (a) moral encouragement without hesitation, and (b) unabashed leadership of a collective international military intervention where genocide is threatened.  Take heed that in none, repeat, none, of the uprisings is there a focal personality. This underscores how each is a grass roots initiative of a population seeking to unshackle itself, and for this reason makes our intervention all the more imperative. All the while, the recent history of our ill-advised and ill-conceived foreign interventions gives us pause where none should exist.
In the “reset button” world I described at the beginning of this piece, it would have been considered the right thing to do because it so thoroughly comports with the principles we have enshrined in our own Constitution. It is this writer’s premise that the fastest way to see a principle turn to dust is to proclaim it loudly while shying away from defending it when both the facts—and the people affected by them—scream unequivocally and in equal measure for that defense.
So what does the future hold for the Arabs? Amid generally increasing prosperity throughout the rest of the world, Arabs everywhere have seen their prosperity decline. But now having also shed their fear, they have decided finally that it’s time for them to stand up and cast off their oppressors. What’s more, they’ve recognized that there can be no prosperity without freedoms and that in turn means that finally, the Arab world and America seem in principle to agree on something.
Yet the signals we’ve given them have been ones of equivocation and vacillation. We have projected our own sense of dilemma over loyalty to the autocratic ally versus loyalty to our founding principles and to the universality of human rights. At a time when America couldn’t be more certain of the principles which are at stake, we hesitate. Certainly, America isn’t responsible for birthing every liberation struggle but (and now conveniently reflecting the actual events of Iraq and Afghanistan) our rationale of spreading democracy which underwrote the Iraqi adventure must certainly ring hollow and cynical if we falter with the Arabs today.
Beyond the alignment of ideals so patently obvious in this situation, regardless of the messy and turbulent aftermath that is sure to ensue, America has perhaps a never-to-be-repeated chance of neutralizing its real enemies, the misguided radicals of al-Qaeda and their franchisees together with the nonsense they put out. No single act could resonate more with Muslims worldwide than for America to be seen to be supporting the popular Arab cause. Not unthinkingly for sure, but thoughtfully and strategically. Ultimately this has to be our response.
Yes, there are those who argue that removal of “stable” forces of autocracy will serve to unleash Islamic fundamentalism. It might not, but probably will. What such commentators fail to recognize, however, is that it isn’t fundamentalism that is assaulting our collective lives. It’s the radical extremists who began by reacting to America’s occupation of Muslim lands and its unwillingness to intervene in the matter of Jewish settlements. It’s our own myopia that prevents us from separating the two quite different concepts of fundamentalism and radicalization.
Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago recently published compelling evidence corroborating the conclusion that occupation, a form of suppression, has always been and remains the single biggest driver of at least suicide-based terrorism, Muslim or otherwise. We must try to understand this dynamic so we can address it properly. But to do so we have to start preferring information over the inaccurate eloquence which is offered by our agenda-laden pundits in what alleges to be news media.
We should also get things in perspective.  Translating a people’s life-risking struggles for freedom into the price that gasoline will reach in order to interfere with our enjoyment of the summer vacation season is, and is seen as, emblematic of America’s real feelings toward the Arab world.
We should remember what principles we are founded on and avoid the trap of proclaiming them ever more proudly and owning them ever more possessively, in tacit compensation for their ever-dwindling substance. The substance of fig-leaves.

Steven Covey, author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, identifies Habit 5 thus: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Today more than ever, this is much needed advice and for this reason alone, all Americans, including Muslim Americans, should welcome the Peter King hearings.
Representative King’s past public speculations on mosques and Muslims, coupled with his record of support for the IRA in Northern Ireland, do not make him a particularly worthy sponsor of the hearings.  But America needs to get through something here if we can get past the usual posturing in which political leaders are apt to indulge. These hearings represent an important opportunity for us all.
Some advice for all my fellow Muslim Americans. Let’s acknowledge the concern that much of the non-Muslim American public internalizes. We may feel it’s overblown. We may feel ourselves singled out. But whatever we feel, the process of achieving better understanding can only begin with an acknowledgement of the other side’s negative reality.
Radicalization is real. We might disagree about its scale, or as to whether it’s a “Muslim-only” or a broader issue. But if we fail to acknowledge its existence, we’ll be talking past each other and more dangerously, ill-informed decisions and laws will result. Against this backdrop, here’s some advice for Representative King and his colleagues.
First Congressman King, we should expect to learn about root causes of radicalization and how to detect, deter and intercept it. If laws are needed, we will be Constitution-bound to write them generically, not just for Muslims. So we trust that absurdities resembling the Swiss ban on minarets will be avoided.
Second, since you are set upon qualifying the problem specifically as Muslim radicalization, then show how it emerges from the way Islam is promoted, interpreted or practiced instead of from socio-psychological factors that might lead any troubled individual to become radicalized, Muslim or not. It’s a hypothesis and maybe it’s accurate and maybe it isn’t. Let the hearings unearth some truths about it.
Third, avoid the temptation to play to our human weakness for the compelling tangibility of anecdotes over dull but accurate revelations from hard comprehensive statistics. If all we are fed by the hearings are example after example of failures of Muslim organizations to unearth instances of radicalization then your hearings will have been politically cynical and dangerous. So, instead of negative anecdotes versus yawn-inspiring positive statistics, I propose you focus on those incidents that have been successful in unearthing radicalization tendencies.
Bring forward witnesses of interventions that thwarted radicalization (and I don't mean FBI stings which border on entrapment), and programs aimed at dissuading first steps toward radicalization. From such examples will come the best practices which we can spread around constructively to other communities.
Lastly, demonstrate the objectivity of these hearings by examining how to adapt the most effective of the Muslim American community practices to say, avert such other disasters as the Columbines, Virginia Techs, and Tuscons of this country's social landscape.
Muslims as a community have no desire to be objectified, gazed upon and examined as if they represent a tumor within the body politick. We are an integral part of American society and need therefore to be a part of any solution.

Let’s face it. The reason we’ve been glued to the TV and Internet to learn of the freedom and democracy movements in North Africa and the Middle East is not simple curiosity. There’s something palpably resonant in what is being expressed. It touches our quintessentially American, freedom-loving psyche. Deeply, as few international developments ever have. The question we must ask is whether we’re willing to provide real leadership for the brave people in those places or slide down the wrong side of history. 
Only once in a while does the world seem to pivot on events. Pearl Harbor was such a moment. 9/11 was such a moment.  And we’re in that kind of moment with this wave of popular uprisings. Notably, one thing the uprisings ALL have in common is that they’re not propelled by personalities, factions, or political parties. No “claimant” to represent the people’s wishes. It’s the people themselves, often risking life and limb, showing tremendously more courage than is being asked of us, and sadly, too often paying with their lives as they make their feelings plain.
This is about as self-evident a truth as one could hope for and it’s about time that the leaders of the “free” world do now proclaim loudly and in unison. Enough!
We must stop dithering over whether we’ll be seen as reliable allies to world leaders, or to weigh the consequences for a strategic naval base. Whether or not we get behind the common people’s ambitions in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Iran, all indications are that things won’t finish with a return to the status quo ante with a quelling of such powerfully uncontainable spirit. Failing to act will mean that indeed we will have been on the wrong side of history. Remember, strategically speaking, those places will be just as important for us after the people overthrow their oppressive rulers as they are now.
Ronald Reagan was clear. Yes, there might be détente, but an evil empire is an evil empire. Like Reagan, President Obama must demonstrate that America’s values are morally hallowed, not hollowed. Indeed, how empty might our claim now seem for bringing democracy to Iraq—one ostensible purpose of the 2003 invasion—when we said we expected a domino effect throughout the region? Is Muammar Gaddafi any less deserving of overthrow than Saddam Hussain? And no popular revolt had gathered force in Iraq’s case. Libya surely provides more clear evidence of a need than Iraq ever did.
The dominoes are falling. And they’re falling faster than anyone might have predicted. Once more, the United States of America can provide not only leadership through military force, but through the force of ideas. Now we must demonstrate that those claims about wanting democracy were genuine and that our values are not simply just so many words on aging pieces of parchment. Tourist attractions to be gawked at under bulletproof glass. They’re in our hearts and minds which is why these events resonate with us. By extension, they should be our government’s values as well. 
But in these events also lies a different kind of opportunity. We probably won’t see another chance to get on the right side of the Muslim world. A world of 1.6 billion people that has for long treasured America’s values while ruing the absence of the spirit of those values in America’s realpolitik dealings with the princes and presidents of their world. Nothing is likely to take the steam out of al-Qaeda’s recruiting engine more effectively than America’s clear, unequivocal demonstration of its own belief in democracy. Let us show the Muslim world that we do actually hold as self-evident that all people are endowed by their creator with those inalienable rights.
With the priceless aid of such uniquely American ingenuity as the iPhone, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, the people of these countries are speaking out against their oppressors while crying out for our help.  It’s time to get our political ingenuity on their side and assist them in their pursuit of happiness. Do we recall, for example that it was Morocco that first acknowledged the fledgling aspirations of the United States of America, by recognizing this country as a newborn, free, and independent nation?
So what can the Obama Administration do? It should certainly provide moral encouragement through its own considerable propaganda apparatus as in the case of Iran. It should warn those rulers of the inevitability of the outcome, to step down in an orderly fashion and not to resort to futile blood-letting. It should engage the UN more fully. (While it’s been popular to denigrate the institution in this country, these are precisely the kinds of circumstances when tough stances and even physical intervention can be given legitimacy by such a body). 
We should never forget that should the people prevail as is almost certain with the courage they’ve shown, then our failure to act will offer them more reason to despise an America that has to such a degree forgotten the meanings of its own anthems and declarations. We will stand ashamed of what we stand for if, when it comes to the crunch, all we can silently intimate is that we didn’t really mean it.