Nir Rosen

Will Corwin speaks with Nir Rosen, a freelance writer, photographer and filmmaker who has become a profound and pivotal voice in the discourse around the war in Iraq. Trained in the arts and a skilled painter and draftsman, Rosen traces his current interests to a lifelong passion for adventure. Having traveled through post-invasion Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon and other politically fraught locations in recent years, he discusses the odd impulse to properly frame a photograph even in a hail of bullets, spending 24 hours detained by the Taliban
in Afghanistan, making friends while working out in the gyms of Iraq and being embedded with the military. He also offers an analysis of the health of contemporary arts and culture under both Saddam and the current government, a telling account of the widespread use of steroids among Iraqi soldiers and U.S. military contractors, and an immensely cohesive and a coherent analysis of the varieties of Sunni and Shia splits.



Rosen's book In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq - later published in paperback as The Triumph of the Martyrs: A Reporter's Journey Into Occupied Iraq - chronicles the myriad social, cultural and political upheavals in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled and around the 2005 presidential elections, as the country descended further into civil war. A fellow at The New America Foundation, his articles have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time and The New Republic; he was also interviewed in and contributed footage to Charles H. Ferguson's 2007 documentary No End in Sight (56 minutes).

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