More comments came in by email on the Rosen Affair Roundup from two weeks ago, which summarized some of the reactions to the SWJ commentaries An American Journalist by Bing West and A Personal Problem with Nir Rosen’s Dance With the Devil by Dave Dilegge on Nir Rosen’s recent article in Rolling Stone. This short exchange in particular adds some non-armchair perspective from a rolling stone with no moss on it (ouch, sorry): Robert Young Pelton of Come Back Alive.
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I noticed you did a round up of hate articles on Rosen. There needs to be a little context here. The taliban don't do "embeds", the term was deliberately used by Nir or his editor at Rolling Stone to mirror the U.S. militaries management of media. Secondly the article was printed in Rolling Stone which deliberately chose the timing and the focus of the piece just before the elections. Finally Nir did not do anything with the "taliban" since its a generic term with Big T and Little T and myriads of small groups claiming allegiance. As someone who has been in 36 wars but just did my first "embed" with the DoD in Bagram, I have to laugh at the comparison. Embedding is a legal contract between a journo and a sponsoring organization that covers accreditation, safety, censorship, transportation etc etc. No such think exists or has existed with any of the insurgent, terrorist or rebel groups I have covered and it does not exist with the "taliban.”
Nir Rosen is a good journalist but his hatred of anything USG is sad. Scrape off the hate and you have a brave inquiring mind hustled by left wing agenda media.
As someone who set up the world's first TV interviews with the taliban back in '95 (which required a fatwa in Kandahar to allow them to appear on camera) I can say that being driven to Ghazni and meeting a regional commander is not really much of a coup, almost getting killed is less of a journalistic endeavor. What is worse may be his critics taking Nir's bait and polarized along the lines of Iraq. We did not invade, occupy or rebuild Afghanistan. There is no win or lose. There is only scale of effort. The war in Afghanistan is just beginning.
Stay tuned.
best
Robert Young Pelton
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> Not all "hate" but weighted that way. Thanks for your comments.
> Unless you object, will put up your thoughts in toto this eve.
> - Bill
> ------------
> Sent all thumbs via bberry.
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no problem. Yes, not all hate but Nir is famous for taking credible experiences and then adding hatespew like "Obama now wants to kill brown people" to enrage listeners or readers at presentations or in print :))
I think its important that we don't bleed IraqThink and Neocon clichés into the situation in Afghanistan. The very title of his piece shows the lack of understanding. When I was with McKiernan over the last few months he is back at trying to convince people we are at war not reconstruction. Nir thinks the war that hasn't started yet is over.
As a funny aside, in his attempts to get some instant Afghan gravitas, Nir contacted a number of afghan friends of mine in Kabul to get to the taliban. They googled him and blew him off. Nir is yet to realize that afghans don't neccesarily disagree with what the taliban stands for and the term "taliban" has been hijacked just like al qaeda was in Iraq.
The now defunct Made-In-Iraq media crowd is going to skew the discussion for a bit with their circa 2003 framework so its good to push back against the race for the mantle of "afghan experts " :))
Comments (3)
this is incorrect, or dishonest, i did not contact any other afghans except for the ones who helped me, and i wasnt blown off by them. in fact i only have one contact for that thing and nobody else.
Posted by nirrosen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2008 5:09 PM
this is a silly post because if RYP had read the article he would see that one of the points is exactly that the taliban DO represent many afghans, and thats why its important to negotiate with them
Posted by nirrosen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2008 5:24 PM
Via E-mail, credible source:
I'm in Afghanistan researching for a book. I have a number of disagreements with Rosen on facts and analyses. As for analyses, it would take too long to get into. Quick disagreements on facts.
Parwan is safe. It is Ahmad Shah Masoud country - heavily Tajik and mujahideen - and if there are Taliban here, they're feeding the worms. I have traveled this road, most recently on Sun., and it's safe, with only the usual checkpoints. Because of the rapes and killings by Talibs during their 3 day occupation of Parwan/Shomali Plain in 1999, the people will kill Talibs for fun -- after they castrate them. They are very anti-Pashtun, and the handful of Pashtun families that live there may be Taliban sympathizers, but will not assist, either as fighters or guides in laying IEDs. Cf., the local Pashtun guides south-east of Kabul who helped Taliban raiders from Pakistan (coming in via Parrot's Beak), and who hit the French at Sarubi in August.
The road to Jalalabad is open, and is the main supply route for Americans, etc. The Parwan road via Shomali Plain leads to the north, Panjir, Mazar-i Sharif, Kunduz, Faisabad, etc. , and is fine. Off this road, at two points, one can head west to Bamian. The only problem road is south, to Kandahar.
The Kabul airport was not hit by rockets. There was a gas explosion awhile back.
As for his assertion that ANA/ANP might think he's a suicide bomber, that's malarkey. Unfortunately, I look like a Paki -- and they hate Pakis here for what they did, and still do, to Afghanistan; moreover, they are on the lookout for suicide bombers, most of whom are Pakis -- and the coppers never bust my chops, in or out of mufti. My Persian is Iranian accented (i.e., Farsi not Dari), they know I'm a foreigner, and I have not had any problems. They only asked for my passport once, all very perfunctory, and I was sent off.
I showed this article to a resident scholar, and his first criticism was that they are seeing a spate of negative stories recently, all in the same vein. He suspects it's pre-election media propaganda on how Bush messed A'stan up. And no, my interlocutor is not a neo-con.
Posted by SWJED![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2008 7:25 PM