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MICHAEL YON POSTS ANOTHER REPORT FROM IRAQ: Warning: The photos, of what Al Qaeda did to a village and its inhabitants, are pretty graphic. It's interesting to contrast his first-hand reporting, with names and photos, with what we're getting from the A.P.

Hah! See, this is funny, because the rightwingosphere is once again showing us that things are going super duper in Iraq, and maybe there were only, like a few people decapitated, not a few dozen. Well then.

Curiously, Prof. Reynolds fails to highlight this section of reportage from Mr. Yon:

Later in the day, some of the soldiers from the unit I share a tent with, the C-52, told me that one of their Kit Carson scouts (comprised of some of our previous enemies who have turned on al Qaeda) had pointed out an al Qaeda who had cut off the heads of children. Soldiers from C-52 say that the Kit Carson scout freaked out and tried to hide when he spotted the man he identified as an al Qaeda operative. Just how (or if) the scout really knew the man had beheaded children was unknown to the soldiers of C-52, but they took the suspected al Qaeda to the police, who knew the man. C-52 soldiers told me the Iraqi police were inflamed, and that one policeman in particular was crazed with intent to kill the man who they said had the blood of Iraqi children on his hands. According to the story told to me on 30 June, it took almost 45 minutes for the C-52 soldiers to calm down the policeman who had drawn his pistol to execute the al Qaeda man. That same policeman nearly lost his mind when an American soldier then gave the al Qaeda man a drink of cold water.

Ohhh-kay. So we're getting this jumbled story third-hand from some soldiers who tell Yon that another "scout" had said that he'd heard that an al Qaeda guy of some sort had been responsible for beheading children. Or something. Michael Yon doesn't know whether this is true, just shrugs his shoulders and mumbles: "Maybe, maybe not." Please, Prof. Reynolds, explain to me how this is any better than what we get from the dread AP.

As an aside: Is there any doubt that if the preceding Yon post (complete with photos of muddy, decaying Iraqi corpses!) were written by someone not named "Michael Yon" that said author would be accused of aiding the enemy sapping our soldiers' morale?