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&lt;p&gt;The Monitor Group, among the world&#39;s most prestigious strategy consultancies, is taking heavy flak from academic circles as a result of its recent engagement with Muammar Qaddafi&#39;s regime in Libya.  Thus far, pundits in both media and academia have largely focused on the ethical questions surrounding Monitor&#39;s involvement with the autocratic government, which saw the firm embark on a PR campaign designed to cast the country and its leader in a more favorable light internationally.  Now, leaked cables between the firm and the Qaddafi administration suggest that Monitor Group had a hand in the development and organization of Libya&#39;s national security infrastructure, which is now coordinating the logistics behind the brutal military crackdown sweeping the North African state.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Academics have been quick to condemn their own colleagues for participating in a Monitor-organized PR push of dubious accuracy and morality.  The focus of their ire is a 22-page book proposal by Monitor consultants that portrays Qaddafi and his government in an irrationally positive light.  Over the course of nearly a decade, the &lt;em&gt;Boston Globe&lt;/em&gt; reports, Monitor Group paid leading academics (including professors from Harvard, LSE, Stanford, and more) to travel to Libya and return to peddle flattering reviews in exchange for financial boons.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 1px solid black;&quot; src=&quot;http://www.vault.com/VCM/articles/blair_qaddafi.png&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; width=&quot;411&quot; height=&quot;270&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br&gt;Hugs abound in Monitor&#39;s Libya.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scholars examined the ethical fallout over their fellow academics&#39; choice to participate, a reality that the &lt;em&gt;Globe&lt;/em&gt;&#39;s editors think amounted to a full-blown &quot;corruption of academia.&quot;  &quot;The really nefarious aspect of this is that it reinforced in Qaddafi&#39;s mind that he truly was an international intellectual world figure, and that his ideas of democracy were to be taken seriously,&quot; said a Dartmouth College political science professor.  &quot;It reinforced his reluctance to come to terms with the reality around him, which was that Libya is in many ways an inconsequential country and his ideas are half-baked.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Among Qaddafi&#39;s half-baked schemes that Monitor supported was the formation of the National Security Council, an &quot;elite&quot; military intelligence organization that keeps tabs on &quot;crises&quot; in Libya and abroad and ultimately &quot;improve security&quot; in the country.  To be fair, Monitor seems to have approached the organization&#39;s formation as it would a business client.  The firm mostly provided advice on organizational structure, staffing, IT infrastructure and aspects of strategic direction, though it also appears that Monitor consultants provided training on &quot;security and intelligence technology&quot; and other military systems.  The extent to which these security measures are currently being used against the Libyan people is unknown.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For Monitor Group&#39;s part, the firm insists that its intentions were driven by virtuous aims, not the $250,000 that Qaddafi paid the Boston-based consultancy each month for its services.  &quot;Monitor believes that the vast majority of our work in and for Libya was appropriate and responsible,&quot; a firm representative told &lt;em&gt;Mother Jones&lt;/em&gt;, the first publication to break the story. &quot;But we did make mistakes.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Mother Jones&lt;/em&gt;, for one, couldn&#39;t agree more with that final sentiment.  &quot;Perhaps another one,&quot; the publication muses, &quot;is not fully acknowledging that it pocketed millions of dollars for selling Qaddafi to the West.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;For more information:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;em&gt;Boston Globe&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;em&gt;Boston Globe&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;em&gt;Mother Jone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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