Michael Yon’s embed with British forces was canceled for reasons that are still unclear. He writes in his latest post that “the British Ministry of Defence canceled my embed after today’s dispatch. Please Read “Bad Medicine”. My own guess is that his dispatch was too high resolution for the British to be comfortable with, the question being in what respect. Bad Medicine is a textbook example of how a “journalist” should describe a combat scene. You get a sense of terrain, tactical advantages and disadvantages on each side, morale and fire support. You get almost none of these in your standard journalist’s report.
Yon talks about Afghans who patrol with sandals and scrawny dogs, the comical misunderstandings of the battlefield, about civilians who know about Michael Jackson but have never heard of Canada, which kinds of fire support the troops like best , the primitiveness of French airplanes and the valor of their pilots, of British amusement at Southern accents, of the lethality of Death From Above, at what the British Army feels like to be surrounded in perpetuity, about how men who step on bombs disappear never to be found again. He describes a terrain flat as a billiard table, intersected by fifteen foot thick walls that make it like fighting in a maze, with no high ground. In short, he describes the war like a journalist who is also an ex-special forces soldier. And that makes him dangerous from a public relations point of view.
I suspect it is because he doesn’t tell a simple story. He talks about unglamorous death; about Taliban successes and failures; about Taliban gains and the Taliban loss of civilian popularity. In short, about things that are hard to understand, contradictions that have yet to be understood; and yes, about “smashing”. On paragraph goes:
Finally, Axle said, “You Yanks are great. You like to hear stories about us smashin’ the Taliban but people at home want to know how much we miss our families.” We both chuckled, and I asked, “Really? They don’t ask you about smashing the Taliban?” “That’s right,” then Axle said something like, “They only want to hear how sad we are.” Axle and I got along great because I didn’t care if he missed his family and he didn’t care if I missed mine. This part is about smashing people who would help those who smashed the World Trade Centers and blew up people in London and Bali and Jakarta and Israel and Spain and the Philippines and anywhere else they can reach. There is a crucial development and governance aspect to this war, and still a crucial smashing side. Sometimes you’ve got to swap hats for helmets. Mullah Omar is still alive, apparently in Pakistan, and he needs to be killed. Just on 20 August I heard a Taliban singing over a walkie talkie that Mullah Omar “Is our leader,” and they were celebrating shooting down a British helicopter only twelve hours before just some miles from here. There will be time to hug families later. Now is a time for fighting.
In 1942 newspapers ran a picture of US troops half sunk in death on the sand of some Pacific beach. It caused a scandal on the home front, not because it wasn’t true or there weren’t Japanese in the same state, but because politicians don’t like complicated narratives. They want simple talking points and this often goes for both sides of the ideological divide. Afghans are probably funny and vicious, depending on the circumstances. War is hell but the enemy is nasty. Victory is great, but what you must do to achieve it is often unpleasant. War isn’t made for television; it can’t be framed or storyboarded. So for whatever reason, Michael Yon is off the British embed. Our view into the battlefield can be degraded again, down from HD to VGA, and we can go back to reading the simple morality tales that much of journalism had to offer.
But in its own small way, I think the Yon incident raises the core problem of fighting terrorism in the 21st century: the need to be able to take responsibility for our actions; the need to recognize the tradeoffs that are necessary to living in this world. We don’t like to see what we have to do. In the words of one politician, we count on others to do the “right thing” only please don’t tell us about it. In the childhood of the 20th century many of us were taught we could have safety without sacrifice, news without the truth, war without guilt, intelligence without cost. Today we know that we can’t. But maybe we can’t say that without declaring ourselves a danger to ourselves.
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Hope this isn’t too OT: found the link on Dr. Sanity’s blog. Yes, it’s an MSM video clip, but it’s about the “Band of Brothers” in Afghanistan and one soldier’s remarkable recovery.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5000003n&tag=related;photovideo
It’s not a simple story either: the soldier still has a long way to go. As Wretchard says, “War is hell but the enemy is nasty. Victory is great, but what you must do to achieve it is often unpleasant.”
But in its own small way, I think the Yon incident raises the core problem of fighting terrorism in the 21st century: the need to be able to take responsibility for our actions; the need to recognize the tradeoffs that are necessary to living in this world. We don’t like to see what we have to do.
For we are like a man looking at ourselves in a mirror.
For we see ourselves, and immediately turn away, forgetting what sort of men we are …
Is the truth about ourselves so hard to bear, we don’t want to see ourselves clearly?
It is very hard to face, the reality of what war is really like, and what we are asking soldiers to do on our behalf.
My guess would be that this bit, under the seventh photo, was a big part of the problem:
‘Some folks believe such reports are “security violations,” as if the thousands of people living here do not know exactly where the bases are, or do not know exactly where we came from and went to. Operations take place here every day. Civilians are everywhere.’
It’s a bad idea to publicly call a bureaucrat absurd, especially when you’re right.
Amit Green writes: “For we are like a man looking at ourselves in a mirror. For we see ourselves, and immediately turn away, forgetting what sort of men we are.”
In many ways Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” serves as a commentary on the values and corruption of contemporary society, especially among the elites. Dorian Gray’s outer beauty remained the same while his painted portrait began to reflect his inner corruption and habitural debauchery.
Certain kinds of people, a famous person once told us, seek to avoid inconvenient truths. I think he meant that liberals want to avoid having to see or hear anything that challenges liberal orthodoxy and gets in the way of statists exerting power.
Michael Yon is a mensch.
Don’t you see? If Michael doesn’t report it, it didn’t actually happen. No Brits were killed. Most excellent French aircraft. No dependence on the Americans. It’s all going swimmingly.
Really.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
I suspect the title was intentional but “A Rumor Of War” by Phillip Caputo was one of the best books on the Viet Nam war. Cavuto went on to do other foreign reporting, esp Lebanon, but eventually (or at least the last I heard) gave it up after some harrowing experiences, while he was still in one piece. Don’t know what he’s doing now.
My take is the Yon report shows the flag commanders are sending our men (Brits here) to their deaths with no real chance of strategic success in sight.
Unfortunately, I’ve gotten that same impression from many reports from Yon over the years. Petreus turned it around somewhat in Iraq, but apparently not even that much, yet, in Afghanistan.
The Brits were wise to exclude him.
Of course, they’d be much wiser to pay attention to him.
In this day of 24-hour visual media, I can’t see how war can be fought at all anymore. The rabble simply cannot handle it. Thanks to CNN, people now think that teasing is torture. And even though we send our guys over there to seek out & fight an enemy of civilians, a “civilian” death is considered murder.
Yon has had his ass on the line for 5 years… and it does no good. Wolf Blitzer tells it like it really is– from his anchor chair.
Yon is there – support him if you can, his reporting is important.
under this topic, of – rumor of war
perhaps an in depth look at Honduras could be done?
truths – exposed early – maybe key to solutions –
there is the lag, between in theater reality, and in public influence –
if we can close that loop, through blogs – -
perhaps we can shorten the time of result.
wretchard writes:
We want the war to look like some movie where the heroes never die and always win while keeping to the high side of their principles. Which is just the opposite of the truth. This is an ugly business. But I guaran-damn-tee you it will be MUCH uglier if we allow it to come to our front doors. Then these whiskey-version-beta-males and omega women will get to understand the rough alpha-men that they cannot stomach are their only salvation. As they lay screaming in the gutter of their wounds.
I am just about sick to death of them. Truthfully, I do wish a bad end to our enemies.
Yeah, that one paragraph jumped out at me. I don’t assume that it’s what jumped out to the MoD. Or if this one dispatch is the cause of their action. Maybe they hadn’t read it.
This Yon dispatch read more like a first draft. I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t see what’s so offensive about it.
The problem with journalism is that even a genius is unable to grasp complex activities, industries, enterprises, bodies of knowledge, or even just jobs without studying them.
Michael Yon reminds us of what journalism should be.
Our country has perverted the idea of egalitarianism to equate to the idea that “Nobody is any smarter than I am.”
The corollary: “Nothing anyone else does is too complicated for me to master at a glance.”
Just a couple of decades back, there were reporters working for national networks who had law degrees, science degrees, et cetera. They had spent years studying specialized areas of human endeavor, and they knew the histories of most of the people who worked in those areas, had interviewed most of them multiple times. They could discuss the subjects of those specialized areas with other people working in them, at the same intellectual level. Finally, they were reasonably good writers, and storytellers who could sort out the central ideas and provide context and clarity for listeners who had not spent years studying those subjects.
All that has been turned on its head.
Now we have news anchors pulling in salaries that rival many third world GDP’s, but who can’t logic their way out of an open toilet stall.
Shouldn’t be trusted calculating a tip at a diner.
Big hair, capped teeth, and botox.
Sounds like a really awful Law firm.
If they had to button their own shirts, they would have to snip off the extra button at the neck every time.
BAD MEDICINE is an excellent example of what an embedded report should be, in my view since we now these types of reports.How is he supposed to report something like? Everyone sitting around having tea and crumpets at 4:00 PM, having a jolly grand time, the military and the locals having warm and fuzzy moments if the field of battle, war, conflict, where no one ever gets hurt? Many in the public would prefer that sanitized view of war, especially the war on Terror. Oops! Someone turn me in. I used the word TERRORIST and Uncle Obama says thats a no no.
There has never been anything pretty about war. It is messy, bloody, violent and maen and women get wounded and many die. Yon’s report is from a man who was a Special Forces soldier. This is from his perspective and that is as it should be. If you cannot handle then please, go dig your own grave, lie down in it and have someone cover you up.
Do you want these Islamofacist scum bags fighting us over here from the park next door or should we handle it now with all we
have( we have not done this part yet ) and waste them over there before they are really here, worse than they already are? Bravo to Yon and his reporting, and to those cowards who cancelled his tour; your house of sand will crumble if the efforts here and elsewhere fail. They do not know the emaning of courage, honor, freedom and what it takes to really keep us free.
“Sometimes you’ve got to swap hats for helmets.”
and “There will be time to hug families later. Now is a time for fighting.”
are for me the money quotes in the piece about a different type of engagement.
Like I quoted in previous post. ” If you ever come close to the truth there will be consequences.” Politicians have a hard time with truth unless it’s their truth.
I think his comments about a lack of UK helicopters was embarrassing to them, and they looked for excuses to get rid of him.
Of course, our own DOD have been almost as bad with the severe restrictions they put on the military bloggers. Which was probably the best source for creating civilian support for the war.
The Brits and US have decided to withdrraw and don’t want any record of the shame.
Yon is one of those rare reporters who actually knows the subject, being former SF. His dispatches give a better picture than those “journalists” who often forget the fundamentals of reporting (who, what, when, where and why). The MSM has failed miserably in contrast.
If we had only stuck to the strategy of supporting the Northern Alliance instead of “nation building”! IMO we played right into AQ hands when we decided to build a nation. In the case of Afghanistan it is an impossible dream.
Salaam,
m
“french planes are primitive”
OK, but they were/are mirages
now according to this site, rafales are allso operating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_v9IrI04h0
sorry, wrong video
http://armees.com/Rafale-en-afghanistan.html
The best UK blog analysis of the Afghan war is at “Defense of the Realm”. North thinks he has a clearer idea why Yon was banned :
The official version
http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/2009/08/official-version.html
I can’t help but wonder what the British soldiers in that unit, along with their families, think about the canceled embed.
Wretchard – excellent post. Michael Yon is non-negotiable – he doesn’t tell it like it is, but as it is.