5 Comments

Thanks for this. It’s very important that we know what the Army has to say in response to Mr. Yon’s accusations, and it’s unfortunate that, AFAIK, you are the only one to have provided the blogosphere with “the rest of the story.”

To me, this is pretty much a he said/she said thing, and I can’t sort it out. But it does seem that the facts themselves are in dispute, as opposed to the facts being agreed upon, and the dispute revolving around their interpretation.

Just FWIW.

Richard,

The Military have not made a case, pretty good, or otherwise. One Col. has made assertions.

Then there’s this:

“… may have had a beef with certain personnel.”

He definitely had a beef, and he was justified. The Military took his copyrighted photograph, and distributed it all over the world without crediting Mike. I believe they even credited the photo to the Army! They were forced to back down. There’s more, and Mike can tell it better than I.

But, the real question here is why on earth would Mike waste his time creating a problem when there was none; that is, if everybody really were being so all fired helpful? God knows he doesn’t need to create a story, or enemies within the Army.

Let’s see what Mike has to say. I think it will be MORE “rest of the story.” Judging by the dearth of comments two days later, I’d say that’s just what folks are doing.

If I remember correctly Bill Riggio has had some problems with the embedding process too. And yes there are no facts to demonstrate who is being truthful.
I could not find by Googling or checking FOXNews.com any mention of the embed cancellation other than Mr. Yon’s comments.
I would say that since the officer accused Mr. Yon of being the one who caused them to cancel, input from FOX might clear up who is giving the correct story.
I respect the military, having served, but I have experienced first hand what an individual commander/senior officer can do to someone they “disagree with”.
My tendency is to give Mr. Yon support, not the command. The military has legitimate complaints about the media, but in this case I think they are misplaced.

Boylan is a liar. He was the PAO in charge when Mike embedded with Deuce Four. I wrote two lengthly posts late last summer (Sept 27 and Oct 2) describing in detail all the threats and bully tactics he put Mike through during that time. He is driven by his own ego which fuels his need to lie in order to cover his puny ass. Mike was doing too a good a job at making the MSM look bad, something that didn’t sit well with Boylan and CPIC!

Mike would NEVER risk his reputation to lie about Fox’s reason for not embedding…that information was told to him by the Fox journalist that wanted to embed.

As for Boylan —under his watch CPIC threatened Mike to prevent him from posting “Gates of Fire” and engaged in endless bullying tactics in a failed attempt to both intimidate and silence Mike.

Boylan has a history of rewriting the truth to tarnish Mike’s reputation and protect his own.

Basically they want Mike to shut up about the problems within CPIC, and focus on the troops. But the truth is, Boylan and those at CPIC are completely responsible for the emnity the Media has towards the Military, our troops, and our efforts in Iraq. Shifting the blame to Mike is yet another example of how CPIC refuses to take responsibility for their HUGE blunders.

“purposefully attempt to sabotage our overall media relations operations in Iraq .”

This ludicrous assertion proves that Boylan is not only a bad liar, but serves as a fine example of what those in PR call “Spinning”.

Boylan,CPIC, Centcom and now Petraeus (since Boylan shadows Petraeus, he isn’t making these assertions without Petreaus blessing) are blaming Mike for their own incompetence and inept actions which have resulted in a huge rift between the Media and the Military.

It’s clear Petraeus is losing ground in this war—oh yeah he made some headway, but that was short-lived, and now with this absurd attack on Mike’s credibility, he has succeeded in further damaging an already very fragile relationship with the media.

The media battle has been officially lost!

Trying to deflect the blame onto Mike is to acknowledge defeat, while refusing to accept responsibility! And these are the people in leadership positions?

What’s really interesting is that two weeks ago, CPIC insisted Mike had no real cache or influence, in spite of Brian Williams acknowledgment that he reads Mike’s dispatches daily and can’t wait until he posts the next one.

So today, in what is classic Boylan hypocrisy, and a rather pathetic attempt at deflection, he NOW insists that Mike has SO much cache that he alone, single handily, can deter the entire media from covering operations.

This would be so laughable if it wasn’t so pathetically disgusting.

But that’s typical of Boylan.

What he doesn’t mention when he asks that Mike correct the record on those points is that each point had many caveats attached, and each came with a set of alternative problems that did not resolve the situation. I can’t wait for Mike to set the record straight, although I doubt Boylan will be happy! Be careful what you ask for Steve!

All Mike has asked from Day One is that the PAO make available a trailer, not just for himself, but a series of trailers, for all media.

Yet five years into this war, and Boylan, Casey, Ziegler,Johnson, and now Petraeus seem incapable of understanding that simple request, or if they do understand it, they refuse to make it happen. Why work with the media when they can alienate them and then whine about the lack of media coverage never mind the lack of fair media coverage!

Antagonizing the media has been going on since Kimmit was running things in Iraq. Kimmit, Casey, DiRita, SecDef Rummy, are all culpable, denying embeds to assorted media, including CNN, Fox, and NY Times, just for the helluva it, Those guys had a direct hand in pulling plug on embeds…. EVERYTHING had to go that route if it went MSM .

According to Petraeus, if you lose the media war in counterinsurgency, you lose half the battle.

Well, Petraeus has lost the media war - the ONE guy he unequivocably had in his camp who, contrary to Boylan’s lies, had ONLY a positive impact on the hearts and minds of MSM and a large global audience, has once again been alienated by Boylan, CPIC, Centcom and now by Gen. Petreaus,

And to prove a point that I’ve made many times; that it IS Boylan, CPIC, and Brooks that are harboring a vendetta against Mike, I have just been made aware that CPIC denied Gary Sinise’s request to have Mike cover his USO tour in Iraq this May.

This is how utterly childish and petty Boylan, CPIC, Centcom are.

First the Army steals Mike’s photo, then they attempt to bully him while he is embedded with Deuce Four, and when threatened with a lawsuit for infringing on his intellectual property rights over that picture, they increase their bully tactics; but when that fails they then threaten to prevent Bruce Willis from making the Battle for Mosul feature film. And now, in an attempt to inflict more of the personal vendetta they harbor towards Mike, they deny him the chance to cover Gary Sinise’s USO tour, even though Gary personally requested Mike.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a complex feud and I don’t pretend that I can get to the bottom of it. However, Lt. Col. Boylan told me that Michael Yon was paid “a six-figure fee” for the photo in question. Even if the payment was after the fact, it is unfair to call a paid-for photo a theft. Further, it appears the photo was downloaded by Yon onto an Army computer and left there, where an unsuspecting NCO uploaded it along with many other Army photos. When he learned of the error, Boylan made sure Yon was paid. Unless Yon disputes that he was paid for the photo, it sounds like at least the photo issue was dealt with in a satisfactory manner.