Michael Yon on the Iraq referendum

Oct. 23 - Michael Yon's eagerly awaited article on the Iraqi referendum vote All Quiet on the Baghdad Front in online.

Great read. Michael Yon has the uncommon ability to speak to us - not around, through, over, or beyond us - and reflect those private doubts and fears we allow ourselves to experience only after the fact. He begins by writing about the January elections:

There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I'd been skeptical about Iraq. Not fashionably cynical, merely skeptical. ..But nobody really knew what the Iraqi people had in mind, and the Iraqis were the people who counted most.

The millions who voted sent a message: Serpentine lines of ebullient Iraqis risked their lives--dozens died--to have a say in their futures. ..

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. ..The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

Aw, hell. I am so tired of myself crying when I read these things. I may as well accept the fact that I'm incurable and just sniff away as I write.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I expect that everyone will read this article and I don't intend to do much more than highly recommend it, but I must note the honesty about uncertainty as to "numbers" with which Yon concludes:

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

Some of Mr. Yon's best-known photos and the compelling story of his journey in Iraq are here, and, with all deference to UNICEF and the Smurfs, the following declaration must be placed on the balance scales as to why we are in Iraq and why we give battle:

I've been criticized for using terms like terrorist and enemy in my dispatches. Most critics are a safe distance from the battleground. Up close, its more than a matter of taking sides. There's no value in using imprecise language in a futile attempt to appear objective. There is a difference between Coalition soldiers and Iraqi police officers and the terrorists and criminals they confront. Whether you call them insurgents or resistance fighters or terrorists, the people who wake up in the morning plotting how to drive explosives-laden cars into crowds of children have to be confronted.

That is the reality in Iraq and thus the banner under which we fight. That many do not like the fact that the U.S.A. is in the forefront of this war is a damning reflection on the morally impovershed state of those who would take refuge in their acquiescence to evil; the fact that the proud British, Australians, Italians, Polish, Danes and other those of other Coalition nations are capable of seeing beyond narrow confines of immediate gain today and keep their aspirations fixed to the world they envision tomorrow still fills me with awe and breathless gratitude. The Spanish who fled and those who still stand aloof - and I must include Canada among them,

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

I vote we name Michael Yon as the "Most Trusted Name in News."

Don't forget that you can listen to Michael Yon This Sunday, 9 p.m. ET, on Pundit Review Radio.

Posted by: Debbye at 02:37 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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