Five writers imagine the day after somebody wins the election. Some imagine an Obama victory, others a McCain win. One writer imagined that neither did, not really. “I thought I was the only one, but later, on the news, they’d reported I wasn’t, that thousands of us had turned in blank ballots, unable, finally, to cast a vote for a world whose rules we didn’t know.”
But the world is unlikely to stop after the elections. Prospect Magazine describes the continuing momentum for a “league of democracies”, an idea primarily associated with John McCain but with some support in the Obama camp. On the day after elections, whoever wins, the regular to and fro of policy debate will continue, some of it with support on both sides of the aisle.
The provenance of any proposal is no reason for its adoption—or rejection—but I would note that Madeleine Albright was an advocate of an alliance of democracies in the 1990s, and since 9/11 its principal authors have been Ivo Daalder, a senior adviser to Barack Obama, James Lindsay, a former NSC official in the Clinton administration, the Republican nominee for the presidency, John McCain and one of his senior advisers, Robert Kagan. This bipartisan support may be simply a function of different conceptions of the same concept, but it is indicative at least of the broad interest in such an idea in the US.
But the culture wars won’t stop either. Bing West believes that some people who claim the citizenship and protection of their countries have crossed the line from the other point of view simply to the other side. Criticizing Nir Rosen’s decision to embed with the Taliban, West wrote in the Small Wars Journal that:
“I am a guest of the Taliban.” Rosen wrote. Supposing in 1944 he had written, “I am a guest of the Waffen SS.” It is doubtful if Rolling Stone would have published Rosen’s article during World War II. The norms and values of American society have changed enormously in the past half-century.
Yet had Rosen been captured by Afghan soldiers, it is likely Rolling Stone magazine would have asked the US military to intercede for his release. But if the reporter has no obligation toward the soldier, does the soldier have the obligation to protect the journalist? Should Rosen, if captured, have been released or put on trial for aiding or abetting the enemy?
Rosen replied to West in comments, but despite his tone I am not sure whether he doesn’t reinforce the salience Bing West’s original question. Rosen wrote in cool lower caps:
objections to my article have been silly so far. i’m a journalist, not an american journalist. my job is not to serve as a propagandist for anybody, just to tell stories and my advantage is that i can tell stories that are hard to come by … does any of this have to do with mr west’s vietnam generation being bitter about losing vietnam and blaming their failure in vietnam on the media? i’m sorry you lost vietnam. for what its worth, i wasnt born yet and has not the US administration now recognized that the taliban must be negotiated with? just as they ended up negotiating with the iraqi resistance? i came under similar criticism for spending time with the resistance in falluja, but now those guys are on the US payroll. … some of you people take this war too personally. this is not good vs evil, its much more ambiguous, and if anything you should be grateful for my work, for the light it sheds on your opponents
Does that make Rosen a spy on the Taliban? Isn’t providing information that may be useful to the useful to the US military aiding and abetting the coalition? Or maybe those categories of thought, like sides in a war, don’t exist any more. Hey, it’s only a job. I’m just the piano player. It’s not personal, it’s business. The trouble is that everyone can say that. If we do get the premier league of democracies, what are the ideological requirements for membership if ideas don’t matter any more?
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31 Comments
1. Staring In Disbelief:Mr. Rosen is entitled to his (slanted and erroneous) opinions. As a product of modern journalism (and society), his blindness to the differences between the US and its enemies in all those situations is tragic, but not surprising. I have become exhausted trying to argue with the stupefying ignorance of the “Moral Equivalence” believers.
Oh, and if Mr. Rosen and the Taliban unit he is “embedded” with happen to receive the loving attention of an AC-130 gunship during some future Afghan night, he will pardon me for not weeping any tears for his untimely demise.
In the immortal motto of the 4th SOS: “You can run, but you’ll just die tired.”
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:20 pm 2. bobal:This tells me all I need to know. Recall, he flipped off all the women in America, when he flipped off Hillary, earlier.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:23 pm 3. Jeffrey -- New York:For those interested in learning a little more about Nir Rosen, I suggest two pieces I have written on Nir:
The Education of Nir Rosen. Covers Rosen’s path to journalism.
Nir Rosen’s Fistful of Dollars. Examines the strengths and drawbacks to Rosen’s reporting.
*
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:25 pm 4. bobal:Dennis Miller Gets The Creepy Vibes From Obama
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:25 pm 5. NahnCee:If no one buys the places that Rosen’s stuff is printed in then that would kill two birds with one stone: his employer (Rolling Stone) will go bankrupt, as will Rosen when no one is willing to hire him any more.
Then he can relocate to Afghanistan for good and learn how to eat lots and lots of goat.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:27 pm 6. Mark:League of Democracies, indeed. Hugo Chavez, charter member. We must not be exclusionary. We must dialogue.
I will likely not be the only person who will be indulging in some inner karoke Bob Dylan:
“In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there’s slow, slow train coming up around the bend.
“Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:40 pm 7. RWE:Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency
All non-believers and men stealers talking in the name of religion
And there’s slow, there’s slow train coming up around the bend.
“…some of you people take this war too personally. this is not good vs evil, its much more ambiguous….”
Doesn’t that sum it up very well? No good and no evil, just differing viewpoints. People who kill Joe the Plumber for watching TV or for not growing a beard are not evil, but are merely in the same league as, say, people who picket an abortion clinic. Not Evil, just Intolerant.
One of the more perplexingly petty aspects of the Left is it’s ability to translate and transform things. Several years back a gay man stated that the failure to develop methods of cloning people and raising the resultant fetus to term in a bottle constituted “genocide” because it wiped out a whole race of people: the cloned children of homosexual men.
Over the past week I heard an Obama spokesmen state that the Bush “tax cuts for the wealthy” represented a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. So failure to allow more theft becomes theft in the other direction because the people who might have benefited from the theft were unable to.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:53 pm 8. Benj:Well Mark – Figure you might consider that Bob basically endorsed Obama in an interview a few months back. Never come close to doing that with any other presidential candidate. Even when Jimmy C. quoted him and Bill C. sucked up to him…b.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:55 pm 9. gumshoe:re: benj @ #7
i feel bad for Bob.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:14 pm 10. Konyok:Curious that Rosen’s absolutist stance on journalistic objectivity is not shared by many of his colleagues covering the presidential election in the United States.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:34 pm 11. Clioman:As capable as they may be, Predator drones still can’t distinguish between taliban and journalists when they’re sitting on the same prayer rug. Would it be too much to hope that Mr Rosen might become embedded in Afghanistan for good?
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:42 pm 12. Robohobo:“…this is not good vs evil, its much more ambiguous,…”
This stupid statement just goes to show that his moral equivalence knows no bounds. Chances are he believes in no thing. (That is not a typo.) What is the quote?
‘those who believe in nothing will believe anything’
Something like that. Lad, it is good vs evil. That is the whole point. Good vs evil IS the longest running battle going.
Sheesh, what a BOY.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:46 pm 13. Brock:As a witness to events I can see where Rosen is coming from. It is always helpful to know the enemy, and if riding along on missions that were going to happen anyway (though not aiding them) is the price of collecting intel, then maybe that’s the price we pay.
Spies always have this problem. Do they help their assets avoid death, or maintain cover? Winston Churchill surely knew the price he was willing to pay to keep the secret of having broken ENIGMA.
Did Rosen lie? Did he propagandize with untruths, as Tokyo Rose did? Or did he simply report?
Frankly, many “journalists” who actively demonize the ideological opponents have given a bad name to journalists who merely report facts, however inconvenient. Palestinian “stringers” serve only to make Israel look bad and gloss over their country-men’s atrocities, but real reporting on our enemy’s thoughts and guiding philosophies are worth their weight in gold.
I think it’s helpful to realize that our opponents are human, and have human desires. It’s sadly the case that sometimes those desires are so antithetical to our own that war in the only answer, but often it is not. Often we can find a middle ground, as we did with the Sunni Tribes.
That said, I have not read Rosen’s reports or a full account of what he did. Clearly he is skirting close to the line. If he actively helped them in any way to keep access, I would have grave, grave misgivings. I surely would not regret his death if he were shot while taking part in any mission. That’s the risk he took willingly.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:57 pm 14. Tcobb:If we adopt Mr. Rosen’s standards, then who can be the judge, or would want to be, of the person who would put a bullet through his head? That wouldn’t be good or evil, just ambiguous, and who is to judge that?
What most of the people who play with the sword of moral equivalency don’t seem to understand is that it has two edges, and if it cuts them when they wield it the wound may be fatal.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:58 pm 15. outa my league:Wretchard,
The coal industry is neither good or evil, Obama/Rosen would likely say, followed by, we’ve got to bankrupt the evil coal industry.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:09 pm 16. Quig:Mr. Rosen writes like a child.
Turning to the “premier league of democracies”, what indeed are the ideological requirements for membership?
And who, pray, will define “democracy”? In a mill1ue of moral relativism one “democracy” must be as valid as another.
Does one use, for example, The Economist’s rankings? http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/Democracy_Index_2007_v3.pdf
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:12 pm 17. Richard Fernandez:Or some other standard?
I’m not too interested in Mr. Rosen. There’s not much one can do about him one way or the other. Probably the best way to disagree is to go and donate to Bill Roggio or Michael Yon. One should also remember that the a very good venue for direct action is available in the local institutions — libraries, schools and churches. There’s really nothing that prevents us from sponsoring a talk by one of these gentlemen, or Mr. West or anyone at all; maybe even show a video etc. that tries to examine the issues in an objective manner or at least opens up the audience to another point of view.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:22 pm 18. Derek:I’ve not read Rosen, but I like the idea of journalists going to far off places and writing with a critical eye about what they see. Being up front about their prejudices, etc.
I heard such a report on CBC on the weekend. They went to Pennsylvania.
Derek
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:30 pm 19. Pascal:Wretchard. We have come a long way have we not? This is the “progress” for which the Left has worked longingly. For a peek at how things have changed greatly since 1961, consider carefully the following.
Back it 1961, what was revealed about WWII American spy, Howard W Campbell, was with wry irony and regret.
It seems that Campbell’s father-in-law, chief of police of Berlin in 1945, said he always thought Campbell was as spy. But the old Nazi was okay with that? Why? He told Campbell that he was so good at his cover business (propagandist) that he never could have served the other side better than he had served Nazi Germany. Campbell after living 15 years after the war with the ignominy of his propaganda days keeping him a man without a country, and those words echoing in his head, he went on to commit suicide.
As our world “progresses,” do you suppose there is any chance of Rosen suffering from a blot to his name? Campbell’s story was fiction; Rosen’s is not.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:32 pm 20. wretchard:Eric Hobsbawm, the famous Marxist, is comparing the projected victory of Barack Obama with the “Fall of the Soviet Union”. In the view of the left, the currenct economic crisis and Obama’s predicted victory constitutes the long-awaited historical victory.
Personally I disagree. The Left has gained its current advantages by weakening the society on which it is a parasite. Never before have the elites been so distrusted by the ordinary man. I think their triumph is not only illusory but a prelude to a disaster they cannot even begin to fathom.
But however that may be, the current situation creates the opportunity to advance constructive ideas. As I argued in the previous post, there are local institutions through which we can act and practical things we can do to help initiatives we already approve of.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:43 pm 21. Max:Mr. Rosen’s pathological narcissism allows him to claim a place above it all, which really means above us all. Screw him.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:53 pm 22. Eggplant:Wretchard said:
“The Left has gained its current advantages by weakening the society on which it is a parasite… I think their triumph is not only illusory but a prelude to a disaster they cannot even begin to fathom. But however that may be, the current situation creates the opportunity to advance constructive ideas.”
I’m having trouble advancing those contructive ideas while the words “disaster they cannot even begin to fathom” are bouncing around inside my head. Unfortunately, I can fathom what many of those disasters could be and find myself starting to whimper.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:18 pm 23. TJ:Then again, maybe I won’t defend to the death your right to freely speak.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:16 pm 24. RWE:“I think their triumph is not only illusory but a prelude to a disaster they cannot even begin to fathom.”
I look at Obama’s stated objectives, more taxes but only for those who pay them, bankrupting any company that tries to build a new coal fired power plant and with it shutting down the coal industry, not drilling for any new oil either on or offshore, that gas prices were not too high at over $4.00 a gal, and what Da Man himself describes as rapidly increasing electric power rates.
And then what must accompany that. To keep the unions happy some of the new tax money will go to satisfy the union leaders. And unemployment benefits will be expanded and extended. When all this makes the economy falter, new trade protectionism will result. And new programs will be devised to fix the failures of the other programs, and so, ad infitium.
The only short term answer to all this will be massive but quiet civil disobedience. The black market economy will expand greatly and into new areas, such as energy production. Continued long enough, as in the USSR and Eastern Europe, this will produce a widespread disdain for all laws as well as the elites themselves. Stealing your neighbor’s chickens will become just another way of sticking it to Da Man.
Example: New York City has very, very high cigarette taxes. So something like 70% of the cigarettes sold there are black market, hauled up from North Carolina by all and sundry as well as The Mob. Imagine that on a National scale, and not just with cigarettes. People WILL find a way.
How’s that for a vision of the future for you, Eggplant?
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:22 pm 25. Doug:Please see Slade’s comment, and my responses Here » All Saint’s Day
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:23 pm 26. Doug:Obama’s grandmother dies of cancer
The Ultimate November “surprise.”
…I will read to find if someone pulled the plug out of sheer love and compassion.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:34 pm 27. Doug:The Honolulu medical examiner’s office said it did not handle the case, suggesting that Dunham’s death was an “attended death” monitored by a physician.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:39 pm 28. Doug:Hopefully, aunt Zeituni Onyango will get more than her own $264 back from the President before she casts off this mortal coil.
…a shame the Grandkids missed that PROMISED last meeting.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:43 pm 29. Annoy Mouse:Will Reverend Wright officiate at the funeral?
The revolution of moral equivalence has finally vanquished the status quo of good and evil. The most moral men and women can do now is pondered just where in the hell did we go wrong?
I think it may have started in the kindergartens but am certain that it went entirely amok in our colleges. The Left took control of our children and finally the entirety of our national psyche. We will mourn its loss for many decades to come.
Order is not formed from dry clay.
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:02 pm 30. Doug:As the twig is bent, Annoy.
Consider this:
(my post before reading yours)
(It would be a comfort for the girls to be completely familiar with the person performing his duties for their Typical White Grandmother.)
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:06 pm 31. Doug:Don’t forget, Barry was enlightened at the knees of a Drug Dealing Commie Child-Molester.
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:13 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.