michael yon, on washington journal, said he's independent, but he works for the neocon weekly standard and comes off like a hawk, which sounded contradictory when he talked about how bad things are getting in afghanistan and predicted it will get much worse.
he also said the afghan poppy crop brings in about $3B a year, which he called a "drop in the bucket" compared to the $8B we spend on war every month.
i agree. that's why i say we should outbid drug traffickers and buy up the crop rather than subsidize alternative crops as yon advocates. agriculture will diversify on its own when chaos diminishes.
if we're going to be free-marketers we need to think like free-marketers and do so creatively.
the alternative: keep being merchants of death.
1 day ago
Michael Yon DOESNT work for the Weekly Standard...try paying attention to what he said. He didn't write the article for the Standard. He wrote it and the Standard wanted to publish it.
ReplyDeleteMichael Yon IS an independant...he doesn't sound hawkish..he sounds honest.
If you'd stop filtering through the lens of your personal bias you be able to actually comprehend what he said during the interview,and comprehend what his piece in the Standard was actually about.
Since its clear you make false assumptions about Mike when the facts speak differently..everything else you write or suggest is questionable at best.
dear anonymous:
ReplyDeletei saw part of the c-span interview. on-screen bar identified him as
michael yon
weekly standard
so blame c-span not the blogger.
i looked it up, and he's only had 2 articles published by them in the last year, so you're right he doesn't work for them, at least not regularly.
here's 3 quotes from the article "censoring iraq":
"I feel no shame in saying I hope that Afghanistan and Iraq 'succeed,' whatever that means."
"I believe now as I did then: The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us."
"If our military cannot win the easy media battles with writers who are unashamed to say they want to win the war, there is no chance of winning the hearts and minds of Afghans and Iraqis, and both wars will be lost. And some will blame the media. But that will not resurrect the dead."
clearly he is highly critical, but his criticism sounds "constructive"--intended to support the war effort. he doesn't appear to question the rationale for the iraq war.
that's at least a little hawkish.
when you say "everything else you write or suggest is questionable at best" you also "make false assumptions," because you wouldn't say that if you read this blog much.
aren't you doing the same thing you call "filtering through the lens of your personal bias"?
that idea of buying the poppies sounded pretty interesting to me.
my response is here.
ReplyDelete