St. Yon, Profiled.

Oh, this is interesting:

In an interview, [Yon] said that when he first went to Iraq, in December 2004, “I knew we were losing the war,” and that “it was worse than the news was portraying.”

He said that in the early going, the military mishandled both the fighting and the press, and that among field commanders, “I started finding quite a few that seemed to be dialed in and knew what they were doing, and I found quite a lot that were quite clueless.”

Little of that dark view made its way into his dispatches, especially in his first year.

Huh. I'm so confused. Here's what Yon told Glenn Reynolds in July 2005 [pdf]:

GR: What are you trying to accomplish with your reporting? What will the final result be? A book?

MY: I am chronicling my observations of this war over an extended period. My independence is important on many levels. I am beholden to no agency and I don't need to produce copy on a deadline. So I can write about what I am seeing and take time to do so properly. Journalists of many sorts fly through here for short times, and there are a handful of semi-permanent reporters from a few majors such as CNN and Time. Some of these are good and serious folks, but I think they are hobbled by working for agencies and are not free to roam and follow their instincts. Being completely independent allows freedom to roam the battle field from North to South, from Iran to Syria, and to describe without filters what I see....

Sanctimony, thy name is Michael Yon.