Look over Yon-der

In the middle of his latest explanation on why more violence in Iraq is a sign — like everything else — the surge is working™, reporter/blogger Michael Yon states:

In Basra to the south, where al Qaeda always feared to tread, the situation is even worse. Practically speaking, that city has been ruled by an uneasy coalition of rival Shia gangs for years.

And yet last October, when Newsday published a story on the power of Shia gangs in Basra which said, in part:

The British troop pullout from Iraq announced yesterday leaves Basra, Iraq’s second largest and most strategically important city, in near total chaos both politically and militarily.

It comes at a time when at least four Shia militias are fighting over the city, which is surrounded by most of the nation’s tremendous oil reserves and provides Iraq’s only gateway to the sea.

Wingnut blogger Confederate Yankee posted a rebuttal from the very same Michael Yon who insisted:

Basra is not in chaos. In fact, crime and violence are way down and there has not been a British combat death in over a month. The report below is false.

Yon is treated by Wingnuttia with a deference typically reserved for those possessing true Godlike infallibility, like General Petraeus or George Bush before the 2006 elections. But I guess as long as you stick to telling clueless people what they want to hear — namely whatever the fuck we’re doing in Iraq is working great, or “the surge is working™” for short these days — they can overlook little details like whether Iraq’s second largest city has been run by violent criminal gangs for years or crime and violence is way down.