Nir Rosen

In the course of a spittle-inflected Small Wars Journal diatribe against my friend Nir Rosen for the alleged moral failing of embedding with the Taliban, Atlantic correspondent Bing West — whose recent book I preliminarily praised in TWI — offers this bit of dubious moral outrage:
Having told the reader what his intent was, Rosen described [...]

A couple months ago, I had lunch with Nir Rosen at a god-awful Mexican restaurant he likes. What was I up to these days? he asked.
I figured I’d impress my friend, who snuck into insurgent-controlled Falluja in 2004, by saying I was working on a trip to Afghanistan. Nice, right? “Oh, interesting,” he said, “I’m [...]

My friend Nir Rosen, recently back from embedding with the Taliban in Afghanistan, talks about being taken by the Taliban to a war zone near Wardak, and I suddenly feel so much less badass about my recent Afghanistan trip.
“Negotiation might be a great idea,” Rosen says, “but the Taliban may not feel like they should” [...]