Michael's Dispatches

Ice Horse in Iraq

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Details: Published: Monday, 09 November 2015 14:03

09 November 2015

Ice Horse in Iraq Ice delivery in Baqubah, Iraq, during operation Arrowhead Ripper

Truth Wanted: $10,000 Reward (Update 14 December 2015 -- Reward is now $20,000)

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Details: Published: Monday, 02 November 2015 14:18

02 November 2015

I offer $10,000 (now $20,000) to the first person who can prove Laura Hillenbrand's allegations of this massive Japanese War Crime on Tinian Island in 1944.

From her book referencing Tinian island in 1944:

Afghanistan: General John Campbell -- I do not trust him

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Details: Published: Wednesday, 07 October 2015 11:58

07 October 2015

General Campbell is commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. After this devastating Kunduz hospital airstrike, I again withheld judgment until more facts came in.

Our HQ in Afghanistan, under command of General Campbell, told me explicitly in writing that our troops were taking fire from the facilities. This turned out to be false. Our side continues to change its story.

As a writer and war correspondent who covered those very battlefields, I have seen endless media stampedes during which a rush to judgment led to bad outcomes for everyone.

Be a Palm Tree: Tobacco, Rebel Flag, 2nd Amendment

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Details: Published: Monday, 13 July 2015 13:57

13 July 2015

A few palm trees remain standing in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), the most powerful storm in history. Tacloban, Philippines. (1)

Michael Yon
Tokyo, Japan

Opinion

Across the globe and many cultures, the humble palm tree has been a symbol of wisdom, resilience, and the successful warrior.

There is a reason why great banana farms are not found in areas prone to frequent typhoon strikes: Banana trees are soft and they bend too much and break and are flattened by a tropical sneeze.

Likewise, harder trees such as pine are flattened by the thousands during storms, while the palm tree, hard, but bending with the winds, remains standing even by the very edge of the sea the morning after a hurricane.

Central Washington University Earns Failing Grade in History

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Details: Published: Monday, 15 June 2015 16:50

15 June 2015

(The unnamed Author was a witness at CWU and is known to me.)

The scene last April, as noted by an observer at the event, “was pure agitprop straight from a religious revival or political rally.” Staff stopped and redirected visitors; teachers entered the rival event and cajoled students to leave, making faces and sounds to signify disapproval and to influence the audience's perception of the speakers, and coordinated ad hominem attacks and improper comparisons to Nazis. Rather than allow academic freedom and reasoned inquiry into an issue, Central Washington University (CWU) looked more like a propaganda theater run by Stalinists than an American institution of higher learning.

Detailed Review of the Film “Scottsboro Girls”

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Details: Published: Wednesday, 10 June 2015 13:53

A film in Defense of Japanese Honor in the Face of Condemnation over alleged World War II Sex-slavery

10 June 2015

Bottom line up front: I strongly recommend that this film not be promoted to western audiences. It will be counterproductive. Anyone who is serious about presenting the truth on the Comfort Woman issue to an educated western audience should distance himself or herself from this film.

This critique is not about filmmaker Yujiro Taniyama as a man, but of his film. It is a disaster that needs to be edited with a chainsaw, or tossed out entirely. Filmmaker Yujiro Taniyama is not dishonest in his product. I am familiar with the World War II comfort women subject. The facts he presents are accurate. His presentation is a disaster.

I first watched the film months ago in Tokyo, and had another copy sent to me in Thailand for this review. On a factual basis, Yujiro “Yuji” Taniyama does not commit any errors to my knowledge. However, at least 90% of the material needs to be remade or hacked out of the film.

Email from a US War Hero and former POW in Vietnam

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Details: Published: Wednesday, 25 March 2015 13:31

25 March 2015

Mark Smith web

Major (retired) Mark Smith, United States Army Special Forces

In many cases skill identifiers or other terms are used to describe the soldiers of today. My mind always goes back to a bus station in Cincinnati Ohio in the dark of the night after I had been shown the door by my Christian boarding school in Kentucky. Thrown out for being too “California” in my senior year I figured my life was over before really beginning. Being on the honor roll could not keep you in school if the girls across campus liked you because that was verboten and you had been sent by Satan to tempt them. Late that night the dregs of the earth came out of their lairs with ‘Where you heading boy?’ Then a clear voice of authority; “Leave him alone or I will stomp you into the cement with these jump boots.”

Comfort Women Scam Splashing in Canada

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Details: Published: Friday, 20 March 2015 16:48

20 March 2015

The comfort women statues are all part of a giant scam perpetrated by Koreans and Chinese. The ultimate goal is to cause frictions with our alliance with Japan, and to keep Japan weak. China is on the march. Korea is their puppet.

Please see this letter:

March 18, 2015

Mayor Derek Corrigan
City of Burnaby
4949 Canada Way
Burnaby, British Columbia, V5G, IM2

Honorable Mayor Corrigan,

It is my understanding the City of Burnaby is going to be considering approval of the installation of a Korean Comfort Woman Statue Monument within the limits of the City. To grant a permit for such a controversial international monument is certainly not in best interest for the City of Burnaby. It will be detrimental and damaging to the fine relationship of the city with Japanese companies and the many Canadian and Americans of Japanese ancestry residents in both the City of Burnaby and elsewhere in Canada or the United States.

To offer the objection from the perspective of a Japanese American Korean War Veteran, I would like to introduce myself. I have been a resident of Buena Park, California for 30 years and prior to that lived in nearby La Mirada for 23 years and have had a Land Surveying business in Fullerton for over 30 years. I am a second generation American of Japanese Ancestry born, raised and educated in Redlands, California.

Al Jazeera on the World War II Sex-Slave issue

1 Comment

Details: Published: Monday, 16 March 2015 14:35

16 March 2015

This issue will come back to haunt the USA. I have been explaining this on Facebook and in many interviews. Please join my Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage

From Al Jazeera today:

"Perhaps the most high-profile American recruit to the cause is Michael Yon, an award-winning writer and photographer who gained a degree of prominence for his on-the-ground coverage of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ferguson Shooting: Why did the officer not shoot Brown in the legs?

14 Comments

Details: Published: Sunday, 30 November 2014 16:37

30 Nov 2014

Photo-18-SGM-Prosser-standing-with-prisoner-down-web

My original Facebook post has gone viral: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/photos/a.235978145664.135781.207730000664/10152528709400665/?type=1&theater

Slightly edited version:

Many people innocently ask why Officer Wilson did not shoot Michael Brown in the legs. The answer could stretch for pages. More succinctly, a couple handfuls of reasons:

1) This ain't the movies

2) Most police do not fire their weapons much. Most are not great shots.

US threatens to cut $10 million aid to Thailand (not a joke)

23 Comments

Details: Published: Friday, 23 May 2014 14:38

10310957 10152149086570665 8928350597989348957 n US Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney

23 May 2014

[Taken from Michael Yon's Facebook page]

This is like threatening to trim a single hair off an elephant. Thailand will not notice that $10m any more than Florida would miss a cloud in the sky.

More important is the silly posturing by the United States Government, threatening Thailand, along with what might be the most idiotic US Ambassador ever, anywhere.

Andrew MacGregor Marshall, Former Journalist.

24 Comments

Details: Published: Monday, 05 May 2014 14:50

05 May 2014

Andrew Marshall.

Over the years an unwelcome retinue of stalkers appeared at my heels. Only a few stand out. Just why I suffer from stalkers is a mystery: I am no Brad Pitt or Justin Bieber.

My latest stalker is Mr. Andrew MacGregor Marshall. This former Reuters bureau chief is infamous in Thailand for maligning the Thai Royal Family, his combative and insulting misconduct on social media, and his infatuation with prostitution.

Writing such a dispatch as this is a displeasurable experience. It feels like dirty work. Something that causes one to wash hands and the keyboard after it is finished. The subject is what it is.

ผู้ชุมนุมไทยรุนแรงหรือไม่?

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Details: Published: Sunday, 04 May 2014 15:15

20 April 2014

IMGM4383 ผู้ร่วมอยู่ในเหตุการณ์เมื่อวันที่26ธันวาคา2556 ที่ดินแดง กรุงเทพฯ

คำถามนั้นตรงไปตรงมาแต่คำตอบไม่เป็นเช่นนั้นสิ่งแรกเราต้องจำแนกผู้เข้าร่วมหลักๆเสียก่อนในงานเขียนชิ้นนี้เราจะพิจารณาผู้ชุมนุมที่เรียกว่ามวลชนนกหวีดส่วนเสื้อแดงนั้นเราจะวิเคราะห์ในงานอีกชิ้นหนึ่ง

Read more: ผู้ชุมนุมไทยรุนแรงหรือไม่?

Anatomy of Current Thai Protests

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Details: Published: Sunday, 27 April 2014 14:32

27 April 2014

To understand this dispatch in context, please read the previous dispatches:

Are Thai Protestors Violent?

Whistleblowers: A Meta Organization

We begin:

PDRC members after a deadly grenade attack on a PDRC march. The grenade landed near PRDC leader Mr. Suthep Thaugsuban. Security told Mr. Suthep to get in a car to be whisked away, but he refused to leave and continued marching.

A smaller Whistle Blowing ally of PDRC is Kor Por Tor: KPT is the Student and People Alliance for the Reform of Thailand. Various groups have both English and Thai names and acronyms. In English language newspapers, KPT is often called NSPRT.

KPT has separate leadership and methods, but they ally with PDRC. KPT also allies with aggrieved rice farmers due to their common goals. KPT is the only pro-reform group willing to wage open battle.

Whistleblowers: a Meta-Organization

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Details: Published: Tuesday, 22 April 2014 14:44

22 April 2014

PDRC leader Suthep Thaugsuban: PDRC crowds are easy to spot by the whistles and Thai flags.

To understand this dispatch in context, please read the previous dispatch:

Are Thai Protestors Violent?

We begin:

PAD and UDD crowds are easy to spot: PAD = Yellow Shirts. UDD = Red Shirts.

Yellow is the King’s color. PAD is strongly pro-Monarchy. UDD leadership is sharply anti-Monarchy, though many individual Red Shirts do love the Monarchy.

Again, Yellow Shirt and Red Shirt gatherings are easy to spot: large numbers of people wear Yellow or Red shirts. It can be that simple.

Are Thai Protestors Violent?

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Details: Published: Sunday, 20 April 2014 14:01

20 April 2014

IMGM4383 Witness to the 26 December 2013 fighting, Din Daeng, Bangkok

The question is straightforward but the answer is not. First, we must delineate the main participants. This dispatch will primarily discuss the Thai protestors known as "Whistleblowers." The Red Shirts will be analyzed in a separate piece.

French Facing IEDs in Mali, Africa

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Details: Published: Monday, 31 March 2014 13:25

31 March 2014

This French military document is in French language. The images are easy enough to understand.

mali-ieds-copy

Military Options for Ukraine

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Details: Published: Saturday, 29 March 2014 02:42

28 March 2014

The Red Barbarian is massing on the Ukrainian border. A hundred thousand Russian troops are said to be preparing to invade Ukraine. Russians can easily prevail against the tiny Ukrainian military if Ukrainians stand their ground. But a larger guerrilla war can be another story. We easily beat back the Iraqi Army and masses of Taliban, only to face long, bloody guerrilla wars.