Iraq: Michael Yon on the Firing Line (Again)
As Austin Bay notes here, Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are the crème de la crème of Iraq war bloggers. I frequently link to both in my posts on the war.
Now the Army is (again) telling Yon, who two years ago broke a cardinal rule of journalism and pissed off the brass by picking up a rifle to save the life of a trooper, that he is not welcome.
Michael explains:
A general emailed in the past 24 hours threatening to kick me out. The first time the Army threatened to kick me out was in late 2005, just after I published a dispatch called “Gates of Fire.� Some of the senior level public affairs people who’d been upset by “Proximity Delays� were looking ever since for a reason to kick me out and they wanted to use “Gates of Fire� as a catapult. In the events described in that dispatch, I broke some rules by, for instance, firing a weapon during combat when some of our soldiers were fighting fairly close quarters and one was wounded and still under enemy fire. That’s right. I’m not sure what message the senior level public affairs people thought that would convey had they succeeded, (which they didn’t) but it was clear to me what they valued most. They want the press on a short leash, even at the expense of the life of a soldier.
Don’t get me wrong. This is a cardinal rule that should have been broken under the circumstances in which Michael found himself and I would have done the same thing.
I know first hand that the entire Pentagon public-relations apparatus — from the defense secretary’s office on down to the lowly uniformed flack in the field — is designed to relentlessly push the good news (even if it has to be fabricated), filter out the bad news and, if the bad news cannot be avoided, lie about it.
That should come as no surprise. It’s the nature of the beast. But to exile a terrific journalist and photographer like Michael Yon who has been rather upbeat about the war while not hesitating to call things as he sees them, is wrong.
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9 Responses to “Iraq: Michael Yon on the Firing Line (Again)”
While a certain General who still holds a grudge against Mike tries to prevent him from getting his dispatches out, and eve while CPIC has done a miserable job of winning the media war, Michael Yon continues to win the hearts and minds of the most influential media elites. Not only are his dispatches appearing on Fox News onlinem but even Brian Williams makes reading Mike Yon’s dispatches a priority
“At a later date, I plan to share some residual notes from our travels in Iraq — including some recommended reading. One link that cannot wait another day is the blog of Michael Yon. Michael is a Special Forces veteran who is now a unilateral embedded journalist. His dispatches are the most true-to-life that I’ve ever encountered — raw writing from the soldier’s point of view. He is best-known for one in particular, called Gates of Fire, a gripping account of a firefight that required him to briefly revert from journalist back to soldier in order to save American lives. I had the pleasure of getting to know him on this trip, and it is easy to see why he enjoys near-rock-star status among members of the military, both active and retired.”
[...] Does the Army want to build honest support for the mission here at home? Or would they rather play bureaucratic games with one of the few journalists willing to go wherever our soldiers go? Someone needs a reality check at CENTCOM. (via Shaun Mullen at TMV) [...]
Shaun,
Michael Yon confirmed for me last night who is behind the attempt to have him booted: Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks.
Brooks was Cheif PAO in 2005 when Yon wrote the two articles in your quote from Yon’s post. Brooks is now back in Iraq as deputy commanding general – support for Multinational Division-Baghdad (where Yon is currently cooped up on base), and obviously still carries a grudge against Yon for his reporting two years ago.
CY:
I suspected as much. Talking about pissing in your own boots!
As people who follow Michael well know, he has been substantially more open-minded about the war and the long-term chances of meeting even some of the oft-stated goals than most commentators, and yet he is viewed as an adversary by Brooks and his ilk.
Michael can take care of himself, but I think it is important that anyone who has a pipeline into the Army PAO — and specifically Brigadier General Anthony A. Cucolo, who is chief of public affairs — raise holy heck.
Well at least we’ll have the Lincoln Group for the Iraq war truthiness. Yon and Steven Vincent, up untill his murder in Basra, were reporting on the Pentagons side in favor of the Iraq war. Maybe they can embed Simone Ledeen with a mind control chip for better reporting.
There are actually some legitimate reasons to prevent journalists from picking up arms. They MUST be seen as neutral parties, otherwise their risk of kidnap or murder, even when not attached to US forces. The fact is that while he saved one persons life, he (slightly) endangered every single western journalist in Iraq.
Now I wasn’t there, and I won’t try to second guess his decision, but it seems perfectly fair to me for the military to say that this sort of thing is not acceptable after the fact. Our actions have consequences, even those actions which were made with only the best intentions.
Kevin,
That may have been true in previous wars. But, just google “journalists killed iraq” w/o the quotes.
Even the medics carry weapons in this war, and use them.
Kevin,
That’s only partly the reason journalists are not armed. First of all, 99.9% of journalists have no military training, so it’s not surprising that soldiers don’t want someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing with a gun. Those kinds of people tend to kill themselves or friends more than insurgents.
Secondly, there are legal issues. Journalists are not part of the SOFA and other agreements that allow the military to carry arms, and a journalist would have no legal protection and has no inherent right to engage in hostilities since they are not a party to the war and are not part of a military force.
It should be noted that Michael was no Barney Fife when he picked up a rifle to defend the downed soldier. He is a former Special Forces trooper.