Posted on 06/01/2010 11:08:34 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
It began with a bridge. On the morning of March 1, a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated on Tarnak River Bridge near Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing multiple civilians and one American soldier. While the destruction of a single bridge might ordinarily pose a mere inconvenience to the U.S. war machine, in the oppressive terrain of Afghanistan it became a logistical chokepoint, halting ground-based operations for days.
War correspondent Michael Yon sought the answer to an uncomfortable question: who was responsible for the security of that bridge?
Yon is no ordinary reporter. A former Green Beret with U.S. Army Special Forces, he has spent more time embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other journalist. His dispatches have produced some of the most memorable combat narratives of the war, and a large share of its most iconic images. Make no mistake; Michael Yon is not a dispassionate observer of the Columbia J-School variety. When writing about U.S. forces, he says "we." When writing about insurgents, he calls them terrorists or Taliban. And when reporting failures in the war effort, he names names. This has earned him both the respect and ire of senior military staff. In the case of the Tarnak River Bridge, the name most repeatedly mentioned as responsible for its security was Daniel Menard, the Canadian brigadier general in charge of Task Force Kandahar. Yon went public with this information.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The current administration won't tolerate any of that...
In a rational world Mr. Yon would have a shelf full of Pulitzer’s by now.
Yon often strays into commentary and hyperbole and that is not a good fit with independent, just-the-facts, journalism.
His commendable openness is no substitution for objectivity and not many PAO's in country were open to him or frankly, his lack of professional journalistic training.
He just plain wore out his welcome in many ways.
I see a grim situation for General McChrystal, and not one of his own making, but one that goes back to the very beginning of the Afghan Occupation-Pakistan War.
From the onset, Afghanistan was a depleted, failed and chaotic state, comparable to Somalia today. After pushing out the detestable Taliban brutes, there was a need to recreate Afghanistan from scratch.
While the US poured reconstruction talent and money into much more civilized Iraq, we pretty much ignored both our lessons learned in Iraq, and to assess what Afghanistan needed to rise from the ashes.
The Iraq lesson was that every institution we tried to preserve was a disaster, and every new institution we introduced was a success.
In the case of Afghanistan, it had *no* modern or functional institutions, so we foolishly tried to cobble together a bizarre, “culturally appropriate” government. Phooey. What a mess. Instead we should have done the following.
Built a great big western style school in Kabul, and give a modern education to every orphan child in the country. With the idea that they will eventually become the new government.
At the same time, give them a MacArthur (PBUH) constitution, filled with familiar western ideas, like liberty, freedom, and the importance of the individual. Alien ideas in South Asia. Then have western bureaucrats run the country for five years, tutoring Afghans to do their jobs, then watching over their shoulders for another five years.
This will give a tolerable government until the orphans grow up to run the country.
As far as the US-Taliban-Al Qaeda fight goes, every unemployed man in southern Afghanistan should have been rounded up, and put to work on massive national infrastructure projects, for Afghan minimum wage. This would give them years worth of pay, boost the economy, feed them and their families, etc. And we could hire them all for the relatively small amount of $1B a year, because their wage is tiny.
Had things like this been done at the beginning, by now the war would be winding down in Afghanistan, if still lively in Pakistan, and they would have had a strong government working to restore their nation.
But we didn’t do things this way.
Loved it! :)
Please, enough with the comedy.
McChrystal couldn't even figure out or get the Tilman accident right, then self admitted lied about it. Yon is a threat to ...puffery, passive words, flacks, hacks, dolts, time keepers.
The mil bureaucracy wants virgin embeds that wouldn't crap from shinola.
All embeds must have a sponsoring media organization, publisher, etc. to demonstrate their interest in gathering and reporting news. Otherwise war reporting becomes a chaotic stampede of self-interested, thrill-seeking wannabee hangers-ons that want to BECOME the news instead of reporting it.
Who is Yon's sponsor?
Yon is no ordinary reporter. A former Green Beret with U.S. Army Special Forces, he has spent more time embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other journalist. His dispatches have produced some of the most memorable combat narratives of the war, and a large share of its most iconic images. Make no mistake; Michael Yon is not a dispassionate observer of the Columbia J-School variety. When writing about U.S. forces, he says "we." When writing about insurgents, he calls them terrorists or Taliban. And when reporting failures in the war effort, he names names.
He is sponsored by - nobody.
He makes profits and lives off of the revenues off of his books and any donations that are made to him directly through his website.
Mr. Yon does not have an ulterior agenda, as sad as this news may be for you.
Michael Yon is sponsored by - nobody.
He makes a living off (if you can even call it that) of revenues from his photographs, books, and whatever donations he receives through his website.
You can be forgiven for anything but being boring. I am only sad for those that sponsor his second-hand reporting about Afghanistan ......while he lives comfortably in Thailand.
There are any number of unpaid bloggers that are better.
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