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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”