Mike Yon on the Media

Posted By Blackfive

I was at work last week, eating lunch at my desk while working on a report, when my cell phone rang.  I looked at the number, it was Mike Yon calling from Basra, Iraq. I left the office to take the call.

Mike and I talked about a lot of things which I probably shouldn't discuss without his permission, but we did discuss operations in Iraq and the Long War in general.

As for Iraq, Mike was talking to me from Basra to tell me that certain reports about the Brits were not true (we linked to his piece about it here).  We also discussed the end of Al Qaeda and operations about Iran.

Mike Yon writes more about the media here and has an idea to help solve the information gap:

...No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public...

Check out Mike's place for more info and how you can help, and Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee has more, too.

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Mike Yon on the Media

I was at work last week, eating lunch at my desk while working on a report, when my cell phone rang.  I looked at the number, it was Mike Yon calling from Basra, Iraq. I left the office to take the call.

Mike and I talked about a lot of things which I probably shouldn't discuss without his permission, but we did discuss operations in Iraq and the Long War in general.

As for Iraq, Mike was talking to me from Basra to tell me that certain reports about the Brits were not true (we linked to his piece about it here).  We also discussed the end of Al Qaeda and operations about Iran.

Mike Yon writes more about the media here and has an idea to help solve the information gap:

...No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public...

Check out Mike's place for more info and how you can help, and Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee has more, too.

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