I have received many interesting emails in the past 24 hours.

More emails than I ever receive while running around Iraq and more hits than I ever receive when filing reports from Iraq.

I want to point out something interesting.

The only post to get nearly the traffic as my comments on the Joe the Plumber is this one .

In the Spring of 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the war in Iraq was lost.

I was in Iraq at that time and was able to point to facts showing the contrary .

No one complained about my embedding then.  Well, Glenn Greenwald did, but time has proven him wrong.

I was the first civillian to see the Anbar Awakening spread down the Euphrates river valley from Ramadi toward Fallujah.

I was the first civillian to see it jump the Euphrates to the Kharmah region .

No one complained then.

In fact, I was the much linked and cited counter-point to Reid and others.

When Joe stated, "I don’t believe they need to be in the front lines with soldiers, I don’t believe they need to, uh, you know, be bothering the military for information or for access to certain areas," he made a very blanket statement.

A statment that said he felt I should not have been embedded and covering the Anbar Awakening in 2007.

If you agreed with Joe, you felt I should not have been covering the Anbar Awakening and therefore should not have been a counter-point to Reid.

Which makes me wonder how many people who are celebrating Joe now, cheered me in 2007?

You see the conundrum.  It is impossible to cheer the reporting of a Michael Yon, or Michael Totten or John Burns or the countless other even handed embeds and then support a blanket ban on embeds.

In my blogs I pointed out how ending the embedding programs would be a strategic mistake and how Joe's support for such in a sit-down, on-camera, on-the-record interview showed he did understand the importance of the media battlespace.

I never criticized his reporting work.  In fact I was complimentary of it.  I never stated he should not be there.

I did clearly state that on the policy of embedding he was wrong and his opinion of a blanket end to embedding showed that he did not understand what he was talking about.

In modern warfare, the media is its own battlespace.  Something will fill it.

Saddam's execution was closed to the media, but we all watched it.  It was recorded with a cell phone camera.

If embeds are eliminated, the information void will be filled by whoever is walking by with a video camera or cell phone, or the enemy.

You could argue that the military should be the only source, but then you will have press conferences and power-point presentations competing against video shot by local stringers or the terrorists.

We can all guess who will win that battle and it isn't the guy with a flip chart.

I took Joe's statement at face value and I took it personally.  When I first went to Iraq with elements of my old Marine Corps unit I did because I knew if I didn't cover them, no one else would.  Because I went with them, their story was told on several network TV affiliates and then those reports became my first documentary.

When someone intimates that their story should not have been told, I take it very, very personally.   

I have since been informed by Roger L. Simon, who I trust and respect, that Joe is revising and extending his remarks on embeds.

Will all of you who sent colorful emails be willing to do the same?

And to those of you on the left and the MSM who are using my disagreement with Joe on one policy position to bash his reports, let me be clear by quoting Les Grossman :

"First, take a big step back... and literally, FUCK YOUR OWN FACE! I don't know what kind of bullshit power play you're trying to pull here, but [South West] Asia Jack is my territory. So whatever you're thinking, you'd better think again! Otherwise I'm gonna have to head down there and I will rain down in a Godly fucking firestorm upon you! You're gonna have to call the fucking United Nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I'm talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I WILL FUCK YOU UP!"

Now, I have to get back to planning my next expedition to some crap hole war zone and practicing my Pashto. 

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