This is obviously preposterous. No democratic country, especially the U.S., which just idealistically wants to spread democracy around the globe, would countenance repeated acts of pure and simple murder.

Bear in mind, though, that he’s also criticizing the U.S. government’s current policies in Afghanistan. And for most of 2005, at the time when the administration was screaming that the Iranians were arming the insurgency, he was, at that time, saying that there was very little evidence of Iranian involvement.

While I actually think Yon’s reporting is quite good, and I do respect him for putting himself out there, the key point in your point above is that he is pointing out how much earlier actions were counter-productive – compared, of course, to the surge. If the surge passes and a more “forceful” effort appears, I have no doubt that he would also report how counter-productive the current efforts were. The point is that he is reporting the narrative that the establishment wants people to hear – yes, we screwed things up a bit in the past, but our current approach is guaranteed to work. Yon fits right into this narrative, and always has done.

Hmmm—now I don’t understand. Having dug up the report (which I’d not seen) it seems grossly inaccurate to suggest Yon was an ‘uncritical peddler’ of the story. He reports than an Iraqi official made that claim—that’s all. And, in fact, just before that account, he explicitly says that it’s difficult to know for certain whether or not Al Queda was responsible for a particular massacre:

Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here seem convinced of it.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm

Not exactly the words of an uncritical peddler of Al Queda horror stories.

Yes, the ‘baking their sons’ story does seem preposterous and Iraqis do seem somewhat prone to propagate wild stories and conspiracy theories. But on the other hand, before the war, I would have thought many of the indisputable horrors of Al Queda in Iraq to be preposterous.

So is it your position that Al Queda in Iraq really isn’t as bad as advertised? Or that the widely known atrocities of Al Queda are not already sufficient to ‘get the conservative blogosphere buzzing’?

Ah, such is the irredeemable vileness of WordPress.

But why should he be trying to show something – anything – by this sort of rumor-mongering, if he is supposed to be an even-handed truth-telling reporter? Would he report a rumor about US marines baking a child and feeding him to his parents?

Fair point. But I still think that you simplify his take a bit. After all, a lot of his recent reporting in Al Anbar takes pains to point out how counter-productive a lot of the Marine Corps’s earlier, more forceful actions were in alienating civilians who might not otherwise be inclined to sympathize with the various insurgencies.

As for the whole cannibal business, is it anti-Arab racism if you’re writing about something that was done to Arabs? >Thinks a bit

Has he ever asked himself why he’s still there getting shot at when the politicians he idolises promised the mission was accomplished back in May ‘03? Compare his writing from Diyala with, say, Phil Carter’s, who was there as an actual soldier.

andrew r.: Yon unquestionably has the courage of his convictions, and deserves a lot of credit for repeatedly putting his money where his warblogging mouth is. he has been willing to report some bad news from Iraq in the past. however, he was the uncritical peddler of the tale that had al-qaeda in iraq feeding people their own children, and there’s nothing like some anti-arab blood libel to get the conservative blogosphere buzzing! further, he seems to have the view that if people around the world could just understand how personally heroic and well-intentioned individual US soldiers are, they’d stop thinking the US is a blundering bully fucking up people’s shit around the world. this is…fundamentally misguided. I also never see him address the fact that he must embed with US forces and can’t possibly just go walking around in iraq reporting on ordinary life. why not? because he’d get killed, and wit a quickness. this should be a more salient point in his reporting.

And maybe by next year he’ll be reporting from Iran.

Just out of curiosity, have you actually, you know, read Michael Yon? He’s about as far as you can get from an uncritical war booster. For example, in 2005 when Diyala was going to s**t, he was one of the few people outside of some Knight-Ridder reporters to chronicle it as it was happening. The man is about as far from his caricature as you can get.

In Britain, America-bashing is so bad that I fear for my safety

Carol Gould
Saturday October 16, 2004