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Read Michael Yon Online
If you really want to know what is happening on the ground in Iraq, you should be reading Michael Yon Online. Michael is a former Green Beret now embedded as a free-lance journalist (i.e., on his own dime) in Iraq.
Here is an example of his excellent reporting–this time showing how we are not only saving the Iraqi people from Al Qaeda but from their own brand of thug. The hero of the story is LTC Doug Crissman (pictured on the left). The other two men are Iraqi General Hamid (center) and a translator. Hamid had started out as a very successful general and had been an asset to coalition forces. Unfortunately, power had gone to his head and he had become a terror to the people he was supposed to be protecting.
Yon himself played a critical role in this amazing event. As this picture was snapped LTC Crissman grabbed General Hamid’s pistol and disarmed him. Here is more of the story:
We were outnumbered—at least two to one, but probably closer to three to one. There were police on the roof with machine guns and AK-47s. Based on other information that I had no knowledge of at the time, LTC Crissman believed that General Hamid was taking his posse out to confront those who were gathering to confront him. Right before our very eyes was evidence in support of that theory: seven truckloads of armed Iraqi police and more armed officers on the rooftops to back them up.
When Crissman met Hamid on the ground outside of their vehicles he calmly exchanged the cultural greetings, hugs, and handshakes and attempted to vent the pressure. . . . Suddenly, LTC Crissman asked me if I would like to photograph him and Hamid together. I turned off the video and pulled up the camera for a few shots.
I have written before about how keen Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army officers are to have their photographs taken—particularly with Coalition Forces. Photos of Hamid were plastered over the wall behind his desk. Crissman stood calmly beside Hamid and smiled as I snapped a couple of photos. After the last photo, Crissman deftly grabbed Hamid’s pistol out of his unsnapped holster, smiled, and said, “This hurts me more than it hurts you, but I’m going to need you to come with me, General.â€
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LTC Crissman, acting solely on his own and with no direct orders from above, saw that a bloodbath was about to be unleashed, and pulled a plan out of the sky. Yes, there had been a plan already afoot, but Crissman “fragged†it early, managing to arrest an entire police station without a shot being fired, and using me as a photo-op to distract a proud, some might say vain, general just long enough to disarm him.
This is just one account that shows the courage, bravery, and virtue of the American military as they battle for freedom in Iraq. When I Googled “General Hamid Iraq” I came up with Fox News but no other links to major media outlets on the first page.  The author of the Fox News story? Michael Yon.
If it weren’t for Michael Yon and the new world of online reporting none of us would have known the story of General Hamid and LTC Crissman.
God bless and protect the American military–and Michael Yon.
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