MICHAEL YON profiles Omar of Iraq the Model.

Plus, a disturbing commentary on the political situation inside Iraq. “It bears repeating, despite the incredible progress that has been made in Iraq; we are in great peril of losing the war entirely.” I hope that people in the Pentagon are reading this stuff.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here, plus some interesting thoughts in the comments.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Yon emails: “Thank you for not shying away from the peril in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most people are trying to pretend it’s not happening.”

Well, the fact that Big Media can’t be trusted to report honestly on the war — and in large part, they can’t — doesn’t mean that it isn’t important to get bad news when there’s real bad news. As I’ve said before, my problem isn’t with the reporting of bad news, it’s with dishonest and slanted reporting. A press that we could trust would do tremendous service by accurately reporting problems, since those kinds of reports bypass the chain of command, where there’s always a tendency to make things look better as they move up. Unfortunately, we don’t have a press that we can trust. We have a press that runs fake photos, makes things up, and wants to hurt Bush more than to do its job. That’s not only unfair, but robs us of the very benefit a free press is supposed to provide.

Bad news from trustworthy people — like Michael Yon — is a different story.