23 April 2010
Am I obliged to weigh in on the Michael Yon issue?
I really don't know enough to weigh in on the controversy surrounding military blogger Michael Yon. I will, however, propose that the upcoming saga be henceforth referred to as "The Yon and the Restless". It's about at that level...
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6 comments:
No.
I follow Michael but I think that we’re in about the same place on this Starbuck. I don’t blame him for being upset about his peremptory disembedding. I’d probably be p*ssed too and would vent about it as well. As for his assertions of command pressure or whatever you want to call it, I’ll withhold judgment until he presents his evidence — and that’s what the rest of the milblogging community ought to do as well. There has been at least anecdotal evidence that others who weren’t writing happy smiling things about our heroes at war were being intimidated indirectly by means of one of the oldest trick plays in the Army’s playbook: a sh*tstorm of Article 15s for minor uniform violations and that kind of thing. If that is in fact happening in Afghanistan, that’s a legitimate story not only for Michael and other milbloggers, but mainstream media as well and the Army will not come off such a story looking good.
Uh yeah, and the fact Yon publicly and repeatedly called on the Canadian battlegroup commander to resign for a failure of security that had nothing to do with him or the Canadian Forces' AOR last month did just TONS for Yon's credibility. Surprised Wired didn't have anything to say about that one. I guess Wired was just waiting for the public apology Yon promised on his blog that he would issue after his general and specific ignorance of coalition operating procedures was pointed out, but then we're all waiting to see that apology.
Ian:
I agree. His recent tirades against a Canadian general are...puzzling to say the least. Same with his vendetta against Gen. McChrystal.
I think I've been reading Yon for just about as long as I've known you and the last few months have definitely been quite odd. A lot of the commentary the past few weeks has seemed to have forgotten the confrontations he's had with airport security people as well. He has definitely been saying some odd things. I tend to be skeptical of statements about people that he hasn't actually interacted with much (such as McChrystle and the Canadian general), but I think that a lot of his other readers who don't have any military experience are much more likely to take him at his word, and that is unfortunate.
His pictures are gorgeous, and his dispatches are usually excellent. Some of the personal commentary on his Facebook page, however, is over-the-top.
Two weeks ago he was accusing a Canadian general of having a negligent discharge of his weapon (I think there might actually be proof, though). However, now, he's accusing the same general of sleeping around with his troops. Sorry, but if you're going to make an accusation like that, you're going to need to have some strong evidence.
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