A Discussion On Michael Yon And His Coverage Of The War In Afghanistan

Photo: Michael Yon

In Defense Of Michael Yon: An Open Letter To Milbloggers -- Captain's Journal

My friend Michael Yon has had some difficulties of late. From his Facebook page, an embed has been halted. He has also expressed deep reservations about the senior leadership in Afghanistan, weighing in with some fairly hard hitting prose (pieced together from Facebook and NRO):

Today, I do not trust McChrystal anymore than some people trust the New York Times, Obama or Bush. If McChrystal could be trusted, I would go back to my better life. McChrystal is a great killer but this war is above his head. He must be watched … Crazy Monkeys: Senior Public Affairs people often make me think of crazy monkeys. (Like some monkeys I’ve seen in India.) They break into the cockpit and start flipping switches with no idea what the switches do. They keep doing it until something breaks or you beat them back. And just when you think you’ve beaten …them all back, another monkey slips in. (This time by name of Admiral Smith.)

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My Comment: What is my take .... when I read up on Afghanistan every morning, I go through at least a dozen main stream media outlets, official military outlets and press releases, the major news outlets from Russia/China/Pakistan and India, and at least a 15-20 bloggers .... with Michael Yon (when he posts) being one of them.

I have been following Michael Yon's work for years (Instapundit was the first blog to give me a heads up on his work), and I have always found Michael's analysis and reporting to be an accurate assessment of what he sees on the ground. But .... his observations are just that .... an analysis of what he sees from the small corner of the world that he is reporting from. My respect for him is that even though he is operating in these dire situations, he is still able to post some of the most thoughtful and accurate reports on the war in his part of Afghanistan. I only wish there were 30 more Michael Yons reporting in Afghanistan .... but unfortunately we only have him and a few bloggers and news reporters who are brave enough to go beyond the wire.

Michael Yon's absence and/or limiting his reporting on the scene will punish all of us who are always starving for information on the war. I do not know why he is no longer being embedded (beyond the official reason), but I do know that we are all poorer for it.