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A New Standard for Objective Journalism at the CJR?
I work as a defense policy analyst at a think tank. I get paid to do research and then give informed opinions about issues of interest to policy-makers. Those policy-makers can either accept my recommendations or, more often than not, reject them. Last week, Joel Meares went after me on the Columbia Journalism Review's blog, which is fair game even though I am not a journalist and the piece of work he was criticizing was an analysis piece commissioned by the opinion page of the New York Times. This week, though, Mears interviewed my friend Nir Rosen, who is a journalist, and who said the following about the Wikileaks episode that frankly caused my jaw to drop:
"I think undermining that war in any way possible is a good thing."
Okay, CJR, Whisky Tango Foxtrot: Are you an anti-war blog or are you a blog focused on issues related to journalism and war reporting? Because I both like your blog and also like Nir a lot, but his statement sure as hell would have prompted a follow-up question about the line between activism and journalism. You don't think that a journalist covering the war in Afghanistan who feels the war should be undermined in any way possible is slightly problematic given the American tradition of objectivity in journalism? Did you really just let that comment slide completely unchallenged?
P.S. Also, Nir, you seriously don't think someone in Karachi is going to read the documents on the internet and send forward a list of names? Seriously? You seriously don't think the Taliban has access to the internet?
Oleg Kalugin attended and
Oleg Kalugin attended and taught at Columbia University and, subsequently, was recruited by the KGB. He was a journalism student, teacher and worked as a journalist for many years in NYC and at the spending much of his time at the United Nations.
Ex, ask yourself.... what makes my friend Nir Rosen similar to Oleg...and you might answer your own question.
You might want to reevaluate the criteria you use to select friends.
Abu Muqawama está en
Abu Muqawama está en llamas
Cómo es Abu Muqawama como una hamburguesa? Él es en un rollo.
Actually, so long as you can
Actually, so long as you can keep your TS/SCI, I think it's wise to gather up as many eccentric and crazy friends with as many different viewpoints as possible. It's kind of the exact opposite of getting all of your information from whatever newspaper or cable channel most closely aligns with your preconceived views.
"the line between activism
"the line between activism and journalism"
Are you kidding? You bought that?
While you're busy this week getting disillusioned, there's also no such thing as a Chinese Wall at financial firms.
yeah man, choose your
yeah man, choose your friends better, dont be friends with kgb agents.
whats controversial about being opposed to war, especially a war of choice that isnt necessary or winnable?
besides, i didnt release the documents, the activists did, i just applauded it, as someone who believes access to information is a good thing, and that governments by nature lie to their citizens
if this was not a war being fought by the US military you would not have an objection to my opposition to it, so i only have to be neutral when it comes to US wars?
There is an emotional
There is an emotional current in Nir Rosen's writing that necessarily renders it suspect as purely objective journalism. If he chooses to pursue advocacy, that's fine, but he clearly lacks the magnetic compass to keep it from deviating from a value-neutral stance.
Passion certainly fuels his vocation, but he makes little effort to suppress, or conceal, his prejudices. And those prejudices do seem to be mildly anti-American.
"I think undermining that
"I think undermining that war in any way possible is a good thing."
plus aleph nought
Frankly, as a reactionary, I
Frankly, as a reactionary, I love it when liberals and lefties have their little bitch-fights. Keep it up, guys. It's like the Oakland Pregnant Ho Battle, only whiter, less manly, and not quite as wasted. Don't worry. It's all comedy. You and boyfriend will be back together soon, even if you put that barstool through his SUV window.
O great foreign-policy intellectuals of the early 21st century, does perhaps the name "Arthur Schlesinger, Jr." ring a bell to you? You know - the Kennedy shill who wrote The Vital Center? Into the '90s Schlesinger wondered why, one by one, his old collaborators were dropping off the bandwagon and becoming neocons. But finally he wondered no more, for his last major work was The Disuniting of America, a straight-out attack on multiculturalism. (Not a great book. Read Sam Francis or Jim Goad instead.) The things Schlesinger says in that book could get him ostracized for life in a Harvard freshman orientation today.
You simply can't be both honest and a leftist. As Hunter S. Thompson said, you can't wallow with the eagles at night and soar with the hogs in the morning. You can't storm Mordor by donning the Ring. It's not even that it's immoral - it's that it simply doesn't work. Either the pangs of conscience and the brief deviation will be suppressed, and the would-be Boromir will be firmly back on track to full Nazgul status - or he will go completely out of control and just fall off the train, like even Schlesinger. (The intellectual pillar of ADA liberalism - to the extent that a jellyfish has pillars.)
Nir Rosen: "But let’s also
Nir Rosen: "But let’s also remember that these are people who are collaborating with a foreign occupier that’s oppressing their fellow countrymen."
Words fail.
Torture fan Marc Theissen
Torture fan Marc Theissen wants to snatch Assange and umm..err.....waterboard him?
i doubt that will help the war pimps little PR problem.....the rest of Assanges goodies are on time release, or insta-release to capitalize of the sensationalism of his assassination or kidnap.
Anyways, theres more True Believers every day.
We are legion.
Mold the past is dust, and
Mold the past is dust, and your boring tedious historical examples are useless......the environment has changed.
i have told you several times that time travel to the past is impossible because of closed form timecurves.
:)
Nir Rosen: "But let’s also
Nir Rosen: "But let’s also remember that these are people who are collaborating with a foreign occupier that’s oppressing their fellow countrymen."
He writes for The Guardian. That's just part of their loyalty oath.
the past is dust, and your
the past is dust, and your boring tedious historical examples are useless......the environment has changed.
The petit left in a nutshell. Your posts here are a great boon to the right, although not by your intention.
The past is dust! But it is hardly useless. Of course you have no use for the past, and no interest in it. It does not advance your cause. It is an embarrassment for your cause. The past has any number of examples of how to win wars against barbarians, wars which your side lost. You know, the same people you now cheer for as they kill Americans. Afghans have hardly changed, Ms. al-Adiwyya, since the last time the West conquered them. It is we who have changed. And yet, now, in the very ignorance you and your team have created, those people win.
The lesson from history is pretty obvious: if you conquer a nation, and you want them to stay conquered, you must rule them. To rule them, you organize them hierarchically and control the hierarchy. You give them orders, from highest to lowest, and not just advice or suggestions. And if any one balks, you don't use strongly worded reprimands; you use whatever level of violence is necessary to break his will to resist your rule. No man is indispensable, and especially no barbarian. Depose the village chief, or hang him if he tries to resist, and appoint his cousin. There is no lack of men who are willing to subjugate themselves if it gains them a little power. The past knew that. The Taliban knows it! We do not. We believe we can win "hearts and minds" with our ludicrous "PC-COIN"; we think we can let them rule themselves if only we kill them gently enough, and give them lots of money. Whose fault is that? Such staggering ignorance of what used to be common knowledge? It is the fault of anyone who will say anything as ignorant as you about learning from the past.
"I think undermining that
"I think undermining that war in any way possible is a good thing."
anyway possible?
There may be some specific
There may be some specific Afghans who were exposed by Wikileaks who need to be rescued/protected, either because of the good faith of their co-operation or the value of their co-operation. However, the Afghans who need/deserve to be rescued/protected are subsumed within the much larger group of all co-operating Afghans. The problem is non-trivial segments of the group as a whole either never co-operated in good faith in the first place or to a lesser extent are garden variety criminals who were flipped. So why should we wail and gnash our teeth over Afghans who had ongoing relationships with as many players/factions as possible or who were and probably still are drug dealers, thieves, rapists, ect.?
Nir Rosen sounds like a
Nir Rosen sounds like a contemporary Abbie Hoffman, doesn't he? Theatrical tactics! When's your next show?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman
Hey I've got question Nir, have you registered as an Agent of a Foreign Principle yet?
Wait, don't answer that....someone could be watching.
:-)
Does WikiLeaks put more
Does WikiLeaks put more Afghan civilians in harms way than, say, an armed drone?
We should track it.
I think there are two
I think there are two separate issues at stake here. One is the issue of informational freedom and information monopoly. The second is one of basic decency.
On the first issue, I apllauded the release of the WikiLeaks papers, precisely because of the reasons that CJR point out in the first take on Exum: Info available to us here in war-blog world is news to the great unwashed masses. (irony! Irony!). If a democratic state is to be in any way relevant, such info should be out in the open, it must be out in the open, for normal people to make correct evaluations of their politicans spin.
On the second issue, however, Assange is a massive fail. I think Nir Rosen makes one fundamental mistake in that he sees the war as a imposed war of choice only, making the afghan collaborators quislings and so liable to no protection. Rather, as I see it, this is round 4 or 5 of the great Afghan civil war, just thatthis time one of the factions is allied with the US and not Russia. In a civil war, the lines of moral become much more blurry. What really struck me is that Assange is making sure no western lives are put at risk, but doesnt give a shit about the afghans on "our" side. If he had released the full info with both western and local forces fully exposed, in a way that would be more honourable and certainly more consistent with his socalled principles. That he only censors info harmful to his own tribe, indicates to me that he doent give a shit about the mud-people. ANd thats just pure old fashioned orientalism in my humble opinion.
Leonard, its not that we
Leonard, its not that we ignore the lessons of the past, it is that pastlessons have become less useful under our increasing level of knowledge. The reason I used to enjoy this site before Exum went full frontal war pimp over the Wikileaks docs, was that this one of the extremely rare sites where there was evidence of third culture thought among conservatives.
Do you know what the third culture is?
There is a famous essay by Sir Richard called Stop Beating Basil's Car (google it if you like). Both the Bush Doctrine and COIN as implemented are just more beating on Basil's car. The laws of the biological basis of behavior and evo theory of culture make COINs current mission simply impossible. For almost a decade the US has been trying to stand up western style democracy in MENA. It wont ever work, no matter how much blood and treasure we pour into it.
So Exum's collateral murder snark at Assange is just throwing war pimp radar chaff. The fact that Manning walked 92k SECRET docs out of a secure facility on r/w media is a profound failure of our protection of classified data. We hung our sheild comrades out to dry....well at least the low level ones. At the TS codeword level, our high value-assets are still intact, bidness as usual. Exum can keep playing RL table-top, maintain the status quo.
Fnord, i dunno how it is in scandanavia, but in the US we are headed toward a classist tiered society....differentiated not by income into rich and poor....but by race, age, IQ and education. 94% of scientists are not republican. Older people are naturally conservative, but we are seeing a trendline towards young people becoming permanent liberals. Even the natural conservatives that are darkskinned have becoming permanent liberals.
It is disgraceful to blame Assange for our failure to protect Afghan names in classified data.
A craven, weak and cowardly act of misdirection.
I am not an evil person, or a "traitorous leftie"...and neither is Assange, and neither is Nir Rosen. We are intelligent people that can assimilate the truth. There is no way we can "win" in Af-pak. We did not "win" in Iraq.
We need to admit that.
"I think undermining that war in any way possible is a good thing."
Every day that Exum and the war pimps try to bury or obfusticate this truth, makes more True Believers of the rest of us.
bi la kayfah
"To rule them, you organize
"To rule them, you organize them hierarchically and control the hierarchy. You give them orders, from highest to lowest, and not just advice or suggestions. And if any one balks, you don't use strongly worded reprimands; you use whatever level of violence is necessary to break his will to resist your rule. No man is indispensable, and especially no barbarian. Depose the village chief, or hang him if he tries to resist, and appoint his cousin. There is no lack of men who are willing to subjugate themselves if it gains them a little power. The past knew that. The Taliban knows it! We do not. We believe we can win "hearts and minds" with our ludicrous "PC-COIN"; we think we can let them rule themselves if only we kill them gently enough, and give them lots of money. "
the more i read here, the more i become convinced we are not the good guys anymore.
we aren't even the better guys.
Oh suck it up. :) Besides
Oh suck it up. :)
Besides anyone who meanders to middle of the political spectrum will forever find themselves in political and journalistic purgatory anyway.
I think language plays a
I think language plays a role here, Nir Rosen actually speaks Dari, and he isn't a piece of Iowa white bread, meaning that that the locals will respond differently to him. What's really suspect is when you have some journalistic idiot, who is overly proud of himself because he learned some military jargon and, gee, a few Pashto and Dari words which he/she incessantly inserts into the narrative, lest we forget that our journalist idiot/expert is a learned source on things Afghan, it's kind of like the really dumb chick from college who comes back from a semester abroad in France or Britain. Alternatively, one could say said journalists cling to words like"shura" or "fob" almost like a small child does with a safety blanket when confronting a dark and scary world.
Nir Rosen@
"if this was not a war being fought by the US military you would not have an objection to my opposition to it, so i only have to be neutral when it comes to US wars?"
That's really what this is all about. Objectivity translates as a poor attempt at objectivity masking Uncle Sam boosterism. Ann Jones just came out with a pretty hardcore smackdown of this silliness over at tomdispatch.
"I work as a defense policy
"I work as a defense policy analyst at a think tank. I get paid to do research and then give informed opinions about issues of interest to policy-makers."
I think you should let us know daily just what questions policy makers are asking of you.
A note to "PS, Also,
A note to "PS, Also, Nir...." the Taliban does in fact have access to the internet. As Steve Coll notes, its not just the alleged informers that have to worry - it's their whole family.
Mr Meares is a drag. A well
Mr Meares is a drag. A well known drag. We turn the sound down on him and say rude things..
Really.
Ad Oculos is right, the
Ad Oculos is right,
the Taliban does have access to the internet, which would be impacted if we quit funding the ISI. One thing you got to give America in all this, we are sportin', we have armed every deer in the woods. The US was smarter at one point, back in the day if you got caught selling arms to the Comanche you could get hung, but we abandoned that policy for something more along the lines of the Spanish imperial model- sell arms and horses to the Comanche in Santa Fe in order to help them raid San Antonio de Bexar.
What 'American tradition of
What 'American tradition of objectivity in journalism' do you have in mind???
What if the entire 90,000
What if the entire 90,000 pages of fluff was just the boat that carried this central message - that is, what if Wikileaks had access to far more information, but just selectively released material?
"The most politically explosive documents concern the conflicting loyalties of Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Nearly 200 reports allege that the Pakistani military intelligence arm is in cahoots with the Taliban, despite claiming to side with America."
In the U.S., the most politically explosive issue is whether or not the government partnerships with private contractors in areas like intelligence gathering, nuclear weapons production, and bioweapons research is really "making us safer" or not. The Washington Post expose doesn't even have a biological operations subsection, even though $50 billion has been poured into that sector since 9/18 and 10/9.
Ms. al-Adiwyya: your "third
Ms. al-Adiwyya: your "third culture" is Exum et al. Those who seek to rule by claiming the mantle of science. PC-COIN is nothing if not scientific! Or at least it is scientifical. It's just that it's wrong.
As for Stop Beating Basil's Car, I just read it. That you like it is symptomatic. Yes, we are material. So perhaps after the Singularity, we won't need to kill or imprison criminals to deter and punish. We'll just reprogram their brains, so they are someone else. No killing! New man, no problem! So I agree with Sir Dawkins, as far as that goes. But... whatever does have that to do with us, here and now? Exactly nothing. We punish, as Dawkins laments, to deter, to prevent, and to punish. And perhaps some also think to rehabilitate. And our punishments do indeed serve those goals (except rehabilitation -- there is little evidence of that).
You wish to analogize Afghanistan to Basil Fawlty's car. You suggest that Afghans are utterly indifferent to physical force. And you think that "the laws of the biological basis of behavior and evo theory of culture" support you in this. I dunno if this is some of the latest scientifical theory, but I don't buy it. I think that Afghans are humans somewhat like you and me, who can be dominated. Obviously, I am uncultured.
I agree with you that the USA won't win with its current COIN strategy. But that is because the strategy is flawed. It is flawed because it is based on a flawed model of human nature. That model is a leftist model, which says that love is the strongest force in the human soul. In a contest of raw force versus love, love wins. Therefore, to dominate another society we must make them love us. Break out the candy and bribes! Build schools! This fails as COIN, because fear is stronger than love, and insurgencies will use whatever levels of violence are necessary to make them more feared than us. We are, of course, making that easy for them via the policies of you and your tender-hearted ilk.
The rightist model of COIN emphasizes fear and men's intelligence: you win minds, not hearts. Can the USA apply this model? Well, it used to, and it worked. This is what the history you claim not to ignore tells us. Can the USA apply it now? No, it cannot as currently constituted: the left is in charge. The USA is far too tender and solicitous to rule others. Therefore, it should not try. So I agree with you that the USA should get out of Afghanistan. Then the locals can start doing what we ought to be doing: creating a viable long-term order.
But... and you know there's a but... if (really when) we leave, that does not end things there. Whether or not the USA is there, love will not win. Rather, fear will. Someone will rule the Afghans, and by failing to do it ourselves, we guarantee it is going to be someone much nastier than us. This is a sense in which we could be the "good guys".
Leonard you ignorant
Leonard you ignorant slut.
We tried to stand up western-style democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan because George Bush was a WEC retard that didnt understand that when muslims get to vote, they vote for shariah. And his Evil-but-smarter advisory team just hella exploited that for their own goals.
The islamic cultural substrate of MENA is Basil's car.
You can't beat evo theory of culture into submission. It can't be done.
"Love" won't win.....al-Islam will win.
Nir looks like he should
Nir looks like he should shave his entire body. Is he a body double for the Geico Caveman?
Ms. al-Adiwyya, I don't know
Ms. al-Adiwyya, I don't know what your "evo theory of culture" is. However, your "Islamic cultural substrate" is culture, I guess. And culture is not a machine. It is ideas in men's minds. Funny that you, the same person referring me to Sir Dawkins telling me that men's criminal motives are nothing more significant than patterns of atoms in a brain, should think anything different about culture.
So perhaps one cannot beat your "evo theory of culture" into submission. Or maybe so. But in any case, one can beat Islamic cultures into submission. You know, as was done in most confrontations between the West and Islam from 1700 or so until 1950? I wonder what they knew then that we no longer know? (Could it be found in that history you keep insisting is obsolete?)
As for whether al-Islam will win: doubt it. Love will beat Islam eventually, just as it has destroyed Christianity. But y'all Muslims will have to do it to yourselves. You are the harbinger.
Rosen: "I think undermining
Rosen: "I think undermining that war in any way possible is a good thing."
Would that include setting up an SAM battery adjacent to an Air Force base (assuming you could do so undetected) and then launching them on the next flight carrying troops to the front? Giving actionable intelligence to the enemy deserves to be treated no differently.
"...the American tradition
"...the American tradition of objectivity in journalism" has been mocked by generations of foreigners whose actions and opinions have been written about by American foreign correspondents.
The American tradition of journalism is founded on a lie, even it it's one that journalists believe in themselves.
I liked them better when they called themselves reporters.
There's no such thing as objectivity, all there is at its best is engaged intelligence written for an engaged public. You're free to read what you want.
All there is is debate, but it doesn't have to be stupid.
"Oleg Kalugin attended and
"Oleg Kalugin attended and taught at Columbia University and, subsequently, was recruited by the KGB. "
Subsequently? LOL. Kalugin was a KGB recruit LONG BEFORE he went to Columbia.
Rabi - If you really knew
Rabi -
If you really knew anything about protection of classified material you would understand that to a certain extent, no matter what the classification level, protection depends on the trustworthiness of the individuals who are granted access. That is why such great pains are taken to investigate the backgrounds of people given access to the material. That is why every single person given access to that material has to sign a form that confirms that they know it is against U.S. Code to release that material to people who are either not cleared or not granted access to the specific material they are being read into. It is unfortunate, but it is true, that in the digital age it is not difficult AT ALL to smuggle out enormous amounts of classified material if you are of a criminal bent and have no ethical personal standards to prevent you from doing it. There may have been lapses in security that helped to make this happen, but the truth is that if a person who appears trustworthy has access and is determined to give classified information away, especially things like e-mails and short papers that are digitized, it is very, very difficult to stop such a person. The man/men/women who leaked this information are criminals, AND they are unethical AND they are cowards. If they and Assange and you are against the war, there are many avenues you could pursue to fight against it that don't include endangering the lives of Afghans. Do YOU believe, like Rosen, that Afghans who choose to side with us against the Taliban are collaborators? If YOU were an Afghan man, whether with the U.S. military in the country or not, would YOU rather live under Taliban rule or some other form of Afghan governance? Would you like the women in your life to live under Taliban rule? Spare us your arguments about the wonderfulness of liberals and the knuckle-dragging nature of conservatives (oh, and your ridiculous sprinkling of elementary Arabic) and tell us what you really think. If you were in Afghanistan right now and you had an Afghan man standing next to you who was acting as an interpreter for U.S. troops -- would you feel within your rights as an anti-Afghan war advocate to turn that interpreter over to the Taliban? Because that is what the leaker and Assange have done -- either knowingly which shows a level of evil and cowardice that is breathtaking, or in ignorance, which shows a level of stupidity, recklessness, and inability to think more than one step ahead that is equally breathtaking.
And if you base your assessments on whether we are the "good" guys or the "better" guys on what you read in blogs then you are even more ignorant than I think. I'll make it easy for you. Place yourself along in Afghanistan. On one side you have the Taliban/Al Qaeda approaching -- on the other side you have the American military. Which way do you run?
Think about it the next time before you make such a ridiculous statement.
Kgeb
BTW "obfusticate" isn't a word. But then I'm just a stupid anti-science Republican.
Kgeb at 10:38 P.M.: "Place
Kgeb at 10:38 P.M.: "Place yourself along in Afghanistan. On one side you have the Taliban/Al Qaeda approaching -- on the other side you have the American military. Which way do you run?"
Your point is correct insofar as a Westerner is concerned. However, Afghans would not on every occassion choose to run to the American military. Sometimes, yes. But others times they would run to the Taliban or AQ or Pakistan or Iran or the Soviets or some other player/faction. Such a decision would be made pragmatically based on an individual Afghan's assesment of how an alliance with a particular player/faction would best serve his interests under the circumstances existing at that particular moment. Different circumstances, different alliances, which will always be temporary because the circumstances are always changing.
Only a miniscule number of Afghans have been unconditionally loyal to the American military. The rest have all hedged their bets and have ongoing relationships with some or all of the other players/factions. They do this because for centuries various foreign powers have been present on their land for one reason or another. Under such circumstances temporary alliances of convenience and the betrayals of these alliances by one party or the other that inevitably followed are how the game is played. The Afghans understand this, because it is necessary for their survival.
"I think supporting that war
"I think supporting that war in any way possible is a good thing."
How many times do "news" organizations spew something like the above without skipping a beat?
According to my own
According to my own monitoring, thousands of people all over the world get the credit loans from good banks. Thence, there is a good possibility to get a small business loan in any country.
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