Through Yon Window Breaks
By Mitch Berg
Michael Yon is pissed.
Yon’s been in Iraq covering the war as a freelance embed for almost three years now. As a rigid independent – unbeholden to either the administration or the media’s agenda – he’s not ever been a shill for the Administration.
It was Yon’s intensely critical reporting during the worst days of the pre-surge war of attrition that reportedly got him eighty-sixed from the Sean Hannity show. The Administration will no doubt not be thrilled about Yon’s current prognosis for Afghanistan.
But today, he turns his scathing pen from bumbling generals and crusty Command Sergeants Major to…his fellow reporters.
All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters. It’s like the difference between holding the remote control during the telecast of a volcanic eruption on some distant island (and then flipping the channel), versus running for survival from a wretch of molten lava that just engulfed your car…No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.
Whatever your views on the war – right, wrong, iies, campaign to safeguard the nation – it’d take “Joe Isuzu”-level intellectual dishonesty to not figure out that things have changed, largely for the better, in Iraq in the past ten months.
And yet the media are still stuck in Abu Ghraib mode. The other night, MPR’s lead story was about a squabble between the Army and the Iraqi Interior Ministry about civilian casualties in a disputed firefight, complete with unctuous sarcasm from the reporter during the Army’s side of the story.
Did I mention he’s no cheerleader?
I came to Iraq in December 2004 specifically because friends in the military had been telling me about the disconnect between the situation on the ground and the media coverage about it. This is partly why I have remained focused enough on this problem to write about it dozens of times, beginning with an early dispatch about how many news reports “from” Iraq are generated . Later I described the expensive and exasperating embed process that makes long-term on-the-ground reporting next to impossible for most small or medium media outlets, and just plain impossible for most freelancers and independents.
I’ve written about the small and petty ways the military’s Public Affairs Offices can sour even the most earnestly and positively-inclined reporters. I’ve written about how the military’s entire approach to media has failed utterly to serve both the particular mission in Iraq and the greater cause of an informed and vibrant democracy. I’ve written about reporters who got the story right, about those who got it all wrong, and also about those whose reports, good or bad, never saw the light of day.
But the villain in this report sits in a corner office on Broadway:
But it wasn’t until I spent that week back in the States that I realized how bad things have gotten. I believe we are witnessing a conspiracy of coincidences conflating to exert an incomprehensibly destructive force on the free press system that we largely take for granted. The fact that the week in question also happened to be when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were delivering their reports to Congress makes me wonder if things are actually worse than I’ve assessed, and I returned to Iraq sadly convinced that General Petraeus now has to deal from a deck clearly stacked against him in both America and Iraq.
Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour. Why wouldn’t they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from grace.
And, finally, he’s got a plan, and needs your help.
So read the whole thing, and warm up your phone and keyboard.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Mitch,
First, I agree things have changed for the better in Iraq in the past 10 months, though I wouldn’t attribute it to any ‘surge’, but in reality to the change in approach that Patreaus brought, namely, to embrace and encourage the local leadership, rather than condescend to it. I’ve said that many times, here and elsewhere – as have many others. The media has reported the drop in military and civilian deaths in September AND October.
The valid question regarding the first point, though, is, how much “things have improvied.” Until the report on casualties in Baghdad came out yesterday, there was little tangible evidence of marked improvements in civilian deaths. Now there is some, though not overwhelming. Making a claim ‘Things are better” – an objectively provable fact even – is just a bland meaningless statement without context. If you owe $1,000,000 and you pay off $10, things are better, but they’re a LONG way from fixed.
Second, Yon, like Gen Sanchez, pillories the media. They deserve it, quite often. This isn’t news. But they deserved it EQUALLY as much for opting into the administrations spin, deceipt, miscalculation, distortions and errors for the first 4 years and more. They, AND YOU, were complicit in the opposite direction. They minimized or under-reported the fact that the ‘insurgency’ is really not about terrorism, but about a Shiaa faction dedicated to getting us OUT, getting it’s pound of flesh from the Sunnis, all made much worse by the bombings of Mosques by Al-Zarqawi’s (and now other’s) terrorist acts intended to bring about strife between Sunni and Shiaa. They under-reported, or didn’t report at all, the attrocious conduct of our private security forces. They’ve NEVER reported the costs for employing Haliburton to employ a subcontractor, who employs yet another, taking what would be costs to employ at $20-$40/day of some Pakistani/Iraqi/India, up to $1500/day. They didn’t even really report – at least not until MUCH later – that Al Qaeda in Iraq is a US invention – meaning the name – as there WAS no such thing as AQI prior to our invasion, Al Zarkawi was a different group entirely. A FEW sources did, but not the MSM – Not NBC, ABC, CBS, and sure as hell not Fox. The media has beaten itself up for being too ready to buy ‘shock and awe’, and so now the pendulum swung the other way, but I never saw you complaining about it being swung in your favor, why is that?
I think the Press is doing a disservice in not cheerleading Patreaus more, but after four years of cheerleading the President too much, too blindly, can you really blame them? For that matter, since you rarely (if EVER) did anything BUT cheerlead for the President whenever even the merest glimmer of good news appeared – doesn’t your post, yet again, constitute yet more ‘do as I say not as I do’ rhetoric?
October 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
“since you rarely (if EVER) did anything BUT cheerlead for the President whenever even the merest glimmer of good news appeared ”
It sucks when people root for the home team.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
America’s the home team, Master of Bation. Bush is the crappy manager who should never have been signed to an eight-year deal.
Too bad we can’t eat the final year of the contract and let China sign him.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Master of None: HA! And right on!
Although, things aren’t looking great for my 2008 Fantasy Terrorism League picks. Or. . . are they?
October 24th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
As always, I’m not going to try to set myself up as an expert; merely refer to those who are.
I wouldn’t attribute it to any ’surge’, but in reality to the change in approach that Patreaus brought, namely, to embrace and encourage the local leadership, rather than condescend to it.
I’ll start with Robert Kaplan, who digest a ton of the history of counterinsurgency, from India through Afghanistan, in Imperial Grunts. The distinction between the two is artificial; without the flood-the-zone security of the surge, the “hearts and minds” approach would have foundered (as it has for most of the last three years) on the threat of terrorists killing the “local leadership” off. Without the hearts and minds approach of “embracing and encouraging” of the local leadership, you’d have had what we had during most of the Vietnam War – where we tried to do with firepower what we should have tried with winning hearts and minds – or, for that matter, what happened in Iraq from 2004 through 2006.
doesn’t your post, yet again, constitute yet more ‘do as I say not as I do’ rhetoric?
I have no idea what you mean by that.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
“I have no idea what you mean by that.”
I think it should be a new SitD policy to have a comment reading “I have no idea what you mean by that,” following anything scrawled by Peev.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
That ‘Victory is just around the corner’ rap is still a surefire winner. Keep at it all the way to Nov. 2008. Please . . . really. . .
I wonder what Michael Yon knows that the 1.5 million Sunni refugees from Iraq in Syria don’t?
riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#3939951753835220137
“It is estimated that there are at least 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria today. I believe it. Walking down the streets of Damascus, you can hear the Iraqi accent everywhere. There are areas like Geramana and Qudsiya that are packed full of Iraqi refugees. Syrians are few and far between in these areas. Even the public schools in the areas are full of Iraqi children. A cousin of mine is now attending a school in Qudsiya and his class is composed of 26 Iraqi children, and 5 Syrian children. It’s beyond belief sometimes. Most of the families have nothing to live on beyond their savings which are quickly being depleted with rent and the costs of living.”
October 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I mean by that, Mitch, that you are complaining (via Yon) about a media that irresponsibly under-reports the successes of Patreaus, while you spent, and spend, 4 plus years under-reporting (if you call it that) the failures of the President to lead this police action responsibly.
Is that clear?
If you choose to complain about the press, then complain when it fails ALL the time – or at least all the important times – not just when it suits you.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
The other thing Mitch, you CERTAINLY could have had success withou this ‘surge’. You’ve got no proof otherwise, frankly, to make the claim, you need to prove you NEEDED it, I don’t have to prove you didn’t. You need to tie one to the other. Some daffy author isn’t going to cut it. Get some credible authority – maybe some General (Sanchez, Abizaid??) to say it’s tied, then MAYBE I’ll by it – til then, maybe you can next quote G.Gordon Liddy as an authority on Iraq?
Again, you’re asking me (or someone) to disprove a negative, maybe you’ll go down that fool’s errand, but I won’t.
The bottom line though, Mitch, is that it’s small potatos, and more than that, it’s 4 plus years too late. The POTUS is not an OJT position, and sure as hell, using our military to carry out ‘violent diplomacy’ isn’t. You wanna give this scewup a 4 year pass on being utterly, completely, helplessly and totally clueless, that’s your call, but until he hired Patraues, he made one colassal f-up after another, I don’t ask me to do nip-ups now that someone with half a brain has figured out that shooting civilians pisses the survivors off. I’m not sure why you didn’t get that – for four years – but pretending you’re now some sort of savant – I’m just not buying it. Iraq’s going to be a big damned mess for many more years, even if they get a decent cooperative government in place – but the cost to us (beyond $1Trillion in new debt) – in animosity within the (muslim) world, will be reaped for decades. The fact that the media isn’t blasting Bush for being a total screw-up, that it took him 4 years to figure out that Rumsfeld and Odierno were the worst choices possible – where exactly is your ire?
October 24th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
“If you choose to complain about the press, then complain when it fails ALL the time – or at least all the important times – not just when it suits you.”
I know I’m still in the shun box, with all the shame and degradation that entails, but I thought I’d point out, AGAIN, to the Peevish one:
This is MITCH’S BLOG. It is his to do with as he pleases. If he wants to write about a specific baboon’s ass, he can do so freely and without constraints, and he certainly wouldn’t be beholden to your demands that he write about ALL baboons’ asses.
Additionally, your “right” to comment here is completely up to Mitch. You should pause and try to appreciate how amazingly tolerant it is of him to even allow you to bloviate here in that endless droning way you’ve so perfected.
So, again, because it’s a point that you simply can’t seem to internalize: This blog = Mitch’s, not yours’. Mitch gets to write about whatever he wants, Peev protestations and criticisms be damned. Now, if YOU want to start a blog dedicated to complaining about the press when it fails ALL the time, that’s certainly you’re right, and Lord knows you’d have gobs of material to work with.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
The fact that the media isn’t blasting Bush for being a total screw-up, that it took him 4 years to figure out that Rumsfeld and Odierno were the worst choices possible – where exactly is your ire?
Joking, right?
The media HASN’T blasted Bush over the Iraq war?
Did you lapse into a coma prior to February 2003 and have now just woken up?
October 24th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Oh, and another thing, Peev. You’re a man of integrity, correct? If so, then I’m sure you’re going to the leftyblogs and holding them to the same standard. That is, you’re asking them “where exactly is your ire” when the media doesn’t report the positive aspects of Iraq.