{"id":2391,"date":"2010-07-19T15:16:59","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2391"},"modified":"2010-07-19T15:16:59","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T19:16:59","slug":"what-does-greg-mortenson-tell-us-about-progress-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/07\/19\/what-does-greg-mortenson-tell-us-about-progress-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Greg Mortenson tell us about progress in Afghanistan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend the New York Times employed the news hook of an e-mail from former commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal to “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson to draw attention to the latter’s influence in the military campaign in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The e-mail message was in response to a note of support from Mr. Mortenson. It reflected his broad and deepening relationship with the United States military, whose leaders have increasingly turned to Mr. Mortenson, once a shaggy mountaineer, to help translate the theory of counterinsurgency into tribal realities on the ground.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I saw Mortenson speak to several hundred people at Fort Drum last spring.<\/a> It was hard not to get swept up in his compelling story, clarity of mission, and demonstrations of success: rebuild Afghanistan by educating girls.<\/p>\n

It seems to be a hopeful thing that the military is relying in no small part on Mortenson’s writings and actions to reshape its counterinsurgency strategy in\u00a0 Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

But what if there had been no “Three Cups of Tea” to learn lessons from?<\/p>\n

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with Doug Baker, Troop A commander for the 1-71st Cavalry.\u00a0 He’s in Afghanistan right now.<\/p>\n

Baker said that, traditionally, the Army’s specialty was destroying the enemy’s “ability and will to fight”.\u00a0 But the counterinsurgency requires much more…<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s clear the success or failure of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan hinges on the military’s ability to win over local Afghans, train the police and Afghan Army, stuff outside the wheelhouse of its traditional strength.<\/p>\n

It’s hard not to be skeptical, though, when the strategy rests, in part, on the happenstance that some generals’ wives read a book about a mountaineer who happened to wander into a remote Afghan village and build a school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend the New York Times employed the news hook of an e-mail from former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}