New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | October 20, 2005

Michael Young braces for impact as Lebanon awaits the release of the Mehlis report on Rafik Hariri's assassination.

Comments

|10.20.05 @ 4:06PM|#

one has to wonder how long Mr. Young has been sitting on that headline waiting with the glee of a small child to use it...

|10.20.05 @ 4:18PM|#

I've noticed that a lot of posters do not like Michael Young, or at least do not like his articles,

Can someone fill me in on why?

|10.20.05 @ 4:34PM|#

It was a lone gunman. No conspiracy here, move along.

|10.20.05 @ 4:38PM|#

jf,

I wasn't aware that Young was generally disliked.

theOneState|10.20.05 @ 4:52PM|#

I've seen a couple of general attitudes against Young:

1) "This is a libertarian magazine, I just want to read about drugs and stupid regulations. I don't care about Lebanon or the middle east."

2) "My name is Justin Raimondo...."

|10.20.05 @ 4:53PM|#

I've noticed that a lot of posters do not like Michael Young, or at least do not like his articles

Insufficiently supportive of an anti-Israeli dicatatorship. That always brings the lefties out of hiding.

I don't always agree with Young, but I find his articles to usually be intelligent and useful.

|10.20.05 @ 4:55PM|#

theOneState,

I guess it could be written that I don't give a tinker's continental for Lebanon.

|10.20.05 @ 5:15PM|#

I've noticed that a lot of posters do not like Michael Young, or at least do not like his articles

Young really hates the anti-war movement and classical Arabists, and supports the idea that the Iraq war has opened up a great possibilty for freer Arab societies. That and being a Lebanese or half-Lebanese Christian, he really has it in for Syria.

He used to be critical of the neo-cons, at least on his now defunct blog, but I don't recall him saying bad stuff recently about them. He's not a full Bushero guy like GOP John or TallDave, but his outlook is causes most of that criticism.

|10.20.05 @ 5:21PM|#

Make that:
his outlook causes most of that criticism.
Hard to type when the boss is around.

|10.20.05 @ 6:03PM|#

Can someone fill me in on why?

I don't think any Reason staffers escape the hoots of the peanut gallery completely, sometimes people genuinely disagree with Young's opinions and arguments.

...but, I think, a lot of commenters are hostile to Young because he seemed to support our efforts in Iraq. ...It's the same wrong-headed hostility that I often see directed at Raimondo just because he opposed our efforts in Iraq.

The conditions appeared to have been leaked by the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, to scuttle any understanding.

...after my comments above, I suppose I shouldn't direct anything hostile at Bolton, but...

We don't need a special prosecuter for this, but some reporter somewhere should put Mr. Bolton on the record. ...and if Mr. Bolton did this, at the very least, I think Americans everywhere should write him and tell him that he stinks. ...How did he ever get to be our ambassador?!

That's why the aftershocks of the Mehlis report mean a bumpy road ahead in U.S.-Syrian relations, and why Americans may soon have to add Syria to their already cluttered Middle Eastern radar screens.

I'd like to hear more about good things that happen over there that don't suggest a need for American involvement.

|10.20.05 @ 6:47PM|#

I've always given Mr Young the benefit of the doubt about his optimism re: The Middle East. After all, the man is there, I am not. I also don't know much about Lebannon or Syria, other than the former had a brutal civil war and the former doesn't seem to get along with anybody.

But I figure, if you lived in Lebannon, you might indeed be hopeful that our misadventures there may end up being a good thing for the country (Lebannon) and the rest of the ME.

Not that I agree with him, just that he mainly gets a pass from me.

Raimondao? He's just so intense, he comes off a little, well, off.

|10.20.05 @ 7:44PM|#

I think Mr. Young has a unique perspective on the middle east, the kind you get by living there. There aren't many English speaking voices that comment on how the people feel about these particular events in Lebanon. Mostly we hear how the people on the street feel from news companies like CNN or the BBC. I fear most of these reporters seek out those with the most extreme views to interview.

I think Mr. Young filters observations through his own world view, but honestly thats what everyone does.

|10.20.05 @ 8:02PM|#

I for one value Michael's views, even if I don't always agree, just because he is there. It's an input I'd like to keep.

|10.20.05 @ 9:55PM|#

You people love to press your luck, don't you? His name has now been invoked twice on a thread, one more time and he'll pop up pulling his Beetlegeuse routine.

|10.20.05 @ 9:56PM|#

That or he googles his own name multiple times a day, wouldn't put it past him.

|10.20.05 @ 9:57PM|#

Um, who is this imposter jf? Although, I too have noticed that Michael Young's posts draw far more criticism than other writers here.

|10.20.05 @ 10:02PM|#

I'm one of the critics.

And generally, my criticism centers on the fact that Mr. Young engages in false choice logic that completely ignores the actual position of many libertarians: He buys completely into the neo-cons' "you're either for nation-building or you support tyrants."

I'd be more accepting of his viewpoint if he at least made an attempt to address the libertarian position of not expanding "defense" in a similar manner to what has happened to "general welfare"...

|10.20.05 @ 11:19PM|#

quasibill:

I agree with your criticisms based on your argument, as I have noticed the "false choice logic" myself. I've generally just stayed out of Michael Young comment threads, because they usually don't contain much to which I can add.

|10.21.05 @ 12:52AM|#

my criticism centers on the fact that Mr. Young engages in false choice logic

Sometimes, yes. But,

He buys completely into the neo-cons' "you're either for nation-building or you support tyrants."

I don't agree that this is a fair assessment of where he's coming from. You'll have to listen a little closer. I think he isn't as opposed to libertarian ideals in principle as you suggest.

My impression of his overall message has been more like -- if the stupidity of invading Iraq is going to happen anyway, he's at least hoping for the best.

Maybe, my impression is wrong....but that's the sense I got, especially from some of his articles just before, and early on in the invasion.

|10.21.05 @ 1:31AM|#

I feel honored to be the topic of so much learned debate, but on a more useful front: the Mehlis report is out, and while I would like to post a link to it, for the moment all I have is this NY Times link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/21/international/middleeast/21syria.html?hp&ex=1129953600&en=d9453e1b0b9fa483&ei=5094&partner=homepage

|10.21.05 @ 1:56AM|#

You could have posted a link like this

|10.21.05 @ 2:03AM|#

From the piece Mr. Young kindly linked...

John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said, "After an initial read, the results are clearly troubling and will require further discussion with the international community."

For once I agree with John Bolton. ...Now, whom should we use to engage the international community?

|10.21.05 @ 8:28AM|#

"I've generally just stayed out of Michael Young comment threads, because they usually don't contain much to which I can add."

I have, as well, after voicing my criticisms once or twice. But I usually read his articles, because he clearly does have some insight not in the mainstream sources.

I'm eagerly awaiting the events in Lebanon and Syria, now that the report has placed blame. If I understand Young correctly, he believes this will cause a collapse of Syria, or at least Syria's control of Lebanon. I have my doubts, but I acknowledge that Mr. Young has a better "ear to the ground" on this issue than me or almost anyone else. Doesn't mean he draws the right conclusions, but he is usually operating from a superior knowledge base.

|10.21.05 @ 10:02AM|#

Michael Young is so flagrantly dishonest, so plainly writing to try to influencen events while assuming the role of a neutral journalist, that he makes me ashamed when I find myself on the same side of an issue.

Take his statement, immediately after Hezbollah staged the largest march in Lebanon's history (a couple weeks after the "people power" march in Beirut): Hezbollah has just demonstrated that it is political irrelevancy in Lebanese politics. There is no truth behind that statement: it is just Mr. Young joining (or trying a start) a drumbeat and make Hezbollah a political irrelevancy through his writing.

Or his sudden embrace of a Lebanese politician he had long scorned, who miraculously became a revered truth-teller when he started to parrot the neocon's line about the Iraq invasion changing the Middle East - a couple weeks after he had said exactly the opposite, and at roughly the same time that he was attempting to place himself at the head of the US-supported "people power" movement.

I don't like political operatives who pose as truth-telling journalistic crusaders and they do the bidding of politicians.

theOneState|10.21.05 @ 10:31AM|#

Joe, as I recall, his point was that the march was more of an anti-foreigner march than the pro-syrian march that had been asked for by the Syrians. It was much less anti-American than it was expected to be, and it inflated its pro-Syrian numbers by rounding up SYRIANS in Lebanon (by, e.g., telling them they would be fired if they didn't march).

You can make a case for irrevancy around those details.

And remember the "no foreign interference" and similar signs that oddly didn't single out the U.S.? Young's statement might have been too optimistic, but it wasn't as dishonest as your retelling of it.

And I don't remember him being a Jumblatt cheerleader, even if he was a little giddy that the important figure had apparently made some pro-Bush remarks. It's a weird political situation there, and it was a very strange coalition that formed in a wake of Hariri's death.

Weird that he's gotten under your skin so much.

If you're looking for someone to scorn, this whole business with Bolton sounds disgusting. (Odd that this political operative posing as a journalist would print something damning about Bolton.)

|10.21.05 @ 10:38AM|#

"Weird that he's gotten under your skin so much."

It's been a rough few years on the journalists-acting-as-shills-for-those-in-power front.