Comments on: What I Don’t Have in Common with the Rendon Group

By: DC Civilian

DC Civilian — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:43:27 +0000

I think you might want to get your facts straight. USFOR-A has pointed out that their contract with Rendon was primarily for worldwide media analysis of the Afghan conflict. The journalist profiles element was stated to be a small part of the contract.

By: steve

steve — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:21:02 +0000

Sorry, I meant to suggest that others had accused Rosen of subversion, not me. I accuse him of sloppy story-telling, at least in that one instance.

By: steve

steve — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:18:27 +0000

I agree about Rosen’s welcome ignorance of the official party line delivered by breathless PAO’s and staff officers about all the wonderful things our military is doing in Afghanistan. I also thought criticisms of Rosen’s “embed” with the Taliban were often ridiculous ad hominem attacks on Rosen’s lack of patriotism, if not evidence of his outright subversion.

But I’ve seen little discussion about what the infamous “embed” article really delivered: a rather thin narrative about an aborted attempt to see what the Taliban were doing (governance?) peppered with hyped-up encounters that read like one of Robert Young Pelton’s ‘dangerous’ self-deprecating misadventures. That is, the story, despite its promise, delivered nothing new. Nothing like Rosen’s Fallujah work.

Now, let’s see what the latest story gives us…

By: David M

David M — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:10:08 +0000

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 09/01/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:52:39 +0000

… yes, and? I don’t care about his citizenship (and don’t you dare start talking Israel in this space). I care about his reporting. Where he or his parents were born is immaterial.

By: Pirouz

Pirouz — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:40:36 +0000

I’ve been an avid reader of Rosen’s material for some time now. This post gave me the idea of looking up his background. He is actually jewish-iranian, and I presume an Israeli-American dual-citizen. He could even have been eligible for Iranian citizenship, but his Israeli citizenship probably precludes that.

By: FreeDem

FreeDem — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:26:12 +0000

What I have always liked is that Rosen reported what he saw/felt and has a real reporters empathy for the average “walking around folks” missing in so many.

What I liked even more was that the commanders on the ground used the information quite counter to the intention of the Rendon group, taking a very negative report as a badge of honor.