Another View of Michael Yon

Here's another viewpoint of Michael Yon and his recent blog-war going on... an excerpt from The Atlantic.

The most pressing question, then, is can Michael Yon be trusted? His dispatches from Thailand have been acclaimed and widely read - certainly not the work of a man on the ledge. And history tends to vindicate Yon's judgement. Never afraid to put his reputation on the line, he was among the first to call Iraq a civil war in 2005, among the first to single out General Petreaus as the man to save the war, among the first to report the success of the Iraq surge, and among the first to report the collapsing campaign in Afghanistan. Yon's credibility was bolstered last week when his Canadian nemesis General Daniel Menard was relieved of command for an inappropriate relationship with a member of his staff, proof positive to Yon of his unsuitability for key leadership.

If Michael Yon was right about everything else, should his word not be heeded when he writes, "McChrystal is bent over the coffin of the Afghan war with a hammer in his hand and a mouth full of nails"? When asked for his thoughts on the general state of the war, he says one must be intuitive rather than deductive. "Innumerable wild cards are always flying and so the best that one can do is study hard and watch and listen and give it time to mix." If a reliance on feelings alone is hardly the metric from which one should draft a war plan, consider the recent words of General McChrystal. The purpose of the Marjah operation was to create an "irreversible feeling of momentum," but, "You don't feel it here but I'll tell you, it's a bleeding ulcer outside."

Yon believes the war can still be won, but that a change of command is in order. At this level of warfare, he says, "McChrystal is like a man who has strapped on ice skates for the first time. He might be a great athlete, but he's learning to skate during the Olympics." Yon adds that publicly denouncing the commanding general of a war is not an easy thing for him to do, especially considering it means crossing swords with General Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, two men he greatly admires. Indeed, if anyone can turn this war around, Yon believes it is General Petraeus. He concedes such a return to the battlefield is unlikely, and suggests another general whose name fewer people have heard. "General James Mattis from the Marines. I get a good feeling about Mattis but I don't know. General Petraeus is a known entity and he is solid gold."

By: Brant