Michael Yon: “Right now we are in a state of war”
Interview with Dr. Li-Meng Yan. Transcript.
The Voice of Dr. Yan September 13, 2023 podcast episode
“America’s Most Experienced Combat Correspondent Michael Yon”
https://www.americaoutloud.news/americas-most-experienced-combat-correspondent-michael-yon/
DR. LI-MENG YAN: In this episode I’m so happy that we get a very great guest, Michael Yon. Most of you already know his name, because in a previous episode I mentioned his work in the Darién Gap, along the southern border, [his] investigations in very dangerous areas and report[s] [about] the illegal immigrants who enter the U.S. every day, and the potential risks from this illegal immigration.
(1:00)
Today Michael Yon joins us not only to talk with our American audience, because for my broadcast there are a lot — millions of Chinese audience, even based in China, they will listen to it or read the transcript in Chinese. So we are also going to let our Chinese audience be more familiar with Michael Yon.
There are so many people, when they heard that Michael Yon will come to my broadcast, they are very excited and they have a lot of questions. So, before I invite Michael Yon to talk to us, I will briefly introduce Michael Yon.
(1:51)
Yesterday when I asked Michael Yon to send me a brief bio, Michael Yon wrote to me, “Michael Yon, author, analyst.” And I said, that’s too simple! Can I get a little bit longer bio? And so he sent, “Michael Yon, War Correspondent, author, analyst, alligator hunter.”
OK, now I know your full identity, thank you so much Michael!
…
So, Michael Yon is a very special person. He is a combat correspondent, author, photographer, he provides an unfiltered record from the frontlines of the world’s most complex and chaotic global conflicts.
Based on another bio I found, “Michael Yon is a former Green Beret. He is a native of Winter Haven, Florida, who has been reporting form Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004. No other reporter has spent so much time with combat troops in these two wars. Michael’s dispatches from the frontlines have earned him the reputation as a premier independent combat journalist of his generation. His work has been featured on Good Morning America, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, ABC, Fox, as well as hundreds of other major media outlets all around the world.”
(3:35)
Thank you Michael and welcome to the Voice of Dr. Yan.
MICHAEL YON: Thank you. Of all places in the world I’m actually in “sin city” Las Vegas, Nevada, right now. I’m here for a conference which has just ended. But before this I was down at the Texas-Mexico border where we’re being invaded, and watching child trafficking unfold. The United States government is deeply involved in child trafficking. The United States government does not hide what it is doing, actually putting children in a former Walmart Supercenter in Brownsville, Texas, among many others, flying these children out by commercial flights and charter flights all over the country. Putting these children into homes which have not been vetted, sometimes with people that are very suspicious.
(4:26)
Tens of thousands of children, at a minimum, are disappearing, nobody knows what happens to them, and the government just hides everything — every attempt you make to look into this the government threatens and hides … But while they’re — interesting! — while they’re threatening and hiding, they’re also doing it in plain sight. It’s kind of a weird world where they’re actually doing it in front of you. For instance this morning, I had two sources that were in the McAllen airport in Texas, literally videotaping children that are being trafficked today — right in front of God and everybody — and being put on flights. And so, you know, it’s happening in plain view.
(5:12)
But at the same time, when my sources were asking questions, someone called the police on them. And the police actually responded and started hassling them — to a small extent, not to a large extent — and the police right on video … from Anthony Rubin, Muckracker. The police are actually on the video, knowing they are being videotaped.
Children are being transported through McAllen airport, every day, in small numbers and large. Infants to teenagers. This is, again, it’s a simultaneous process of doing this right in the open, right in everybody’s faces.
(6:01)
For instance, that one facility, the former Walmart Supercenter, which is right downtown there in … Brownsville, it’s not hidden. And then flying kids out of Arlington Airport in Texas, and McAllen Airport in Texas, flying them to places like Orlando Airport, Jacksonville, Tampa, New York City, all over the place. Right in front of everybody.
(6:23)
Two days ago, Ann Vandersteel, my friend, was getting on an airplane … from Las Vegas to Florida, and she made video of some aliens coming in that were being put into first class seats on the airplane, right in front of everybody. And with children and that sort of thing, one young child was apparently afraid or something, I don’t know what, but the child was screaming at the top of its lungs going on the airplane….
(6:55)
This stuff happens daily around the country. Children are being taken to addresses for people we don’t even, nobody knows where these children are going. Maybe our government knows, they have the addresses. We have a bunch of the addresses. We have thousands of the addresses. From a four-month period of these addresses leaked out of just a single facility. So we have information about 8,600 of the child deliveries in places like Orlando, Florida; Austin, Texas; around Gainesville, Florida; Jacksonville — all over the place.
(7:30)
What’s happening to the children? And where do they go after they turn 18? Some people bring up organ harvesting and that sort of thing, I don’t know. I simply don’t know.
But what we do know, at this point, is that nothing is off the table. Nothing is outside the Overton window, so to speak. Nothing is off limits. We know that some of the children definitely are being sex trafficked, that’s a done deal. Taking it the next step to organ harvesting? We simply don’t know, but where are they disappearing to?
(8:03)
And where are these children coming from? Some are clearly coming across the border. Two inside witnesses from Brownsville and some other facilities have said that some of the children cry at night in the facilities. For instance that former Walmart Supercenter. We’re not exactly sure who owns the property. Not because it’s difficult to find, but we have been going 24/7 on so many issues. But the former Walmart Supercenter in Brownsville, Texas, [is] filled with children who barely see the light of day. These children are not allowed to leave.
(8:38)
That makes them prisoners, right? Why are these children prisoners? Why are they being kept in there? Where are they being taken? Where do they disappear to when they turn 18? Are they being put in the Army? Are they being organ harvested? Are they working in fields somewhere, or factories? We just don’t know.
(8:56)
DR. LI-MENG-YAN: [Thank you] for updating the latest discovery, that you have investigated. And I hope you will continuously let us know what’s going on on this. I mean, this sounds very horrific, if so many kids are kept somewhere and if this is illegal, or if there’s something illegal related to that, even one kid get hurt, that is so sad. And that is terrible, so we definitely [want] to know the update about the situation. We care about the kids, their safety.
(9:40)
So, for this kind of big issue we do hope more media can focus on it and also can cover it because, as you mention, like, 1,000 to 1,500 kids are held in the same place. And then they are sent to different addresses … so what happened to them? Who are these kids? Do they speak English? Do they have family members in the … these kids come here and they get protection and they will be sent to school, to continuously complete their study in the United States and get a new life, away from their previous — maybe miserable — life?
(10:20)
Or, it’s just the opposite? These are all things I think our audience really care about. We want to know more about that. Thank you for updating this information to us.
…
MICHAEL YON (10:45): Some of the children, two witnesses that worked in these facilities, told us the children are often crying at night, crying to go back with their parents in their countries of origin. Countries like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. But I see a lot of Chinese children coming in. Definite Chinese children. Mandarin speakers. I don’t know where they are going. These do not seem to be going into the Brownsville facility to my knowledge. I’m not saying that they’re not, but to my knowledge they are not. They could be, I just do not know.
(11:20)
But keep in mind there are many facilities. That’s just one of many. Most of the Chinese children that I see coming in appear to be coming in with their actual families. But I don’t know if that’s the truth. But the ones that I see — you know how a mother and a child interact in a special way together. Or a father and his own child, right? … With the Chinese, it looks like they are with their own children. That’s the way it appears to me.
(11:45)
But with some other groups, sometimes it looks like it’s their own children and other times, I’m [thinking], that child does not belong with that parent. Sometimes I go out there with mothers with numerous children, I mean Americans, and I just, I’m quiet, you know, I listen to them, I don’t even say a word. And I don’t even prompt them, what I’m listening for. Are they gonna say something to me about the interaction of the mother and the children?
(12:14)
And very often these American women that I’ve taken out, who are mothers, will comment, hm, that woman’s not the mother of that child. Their body language isn’t right. Look at the way she’s moving the child by the shoulders instead of holding its hand. Look at the way, when the child’s face, the way he’s looking at the woman, he’s not looking at the woman the way it would look at its mother. And I see that too. But especially a mother can spot things very quickly.
(12:44)
I think if you go down there, you’ll see what I mean. But the Chinese. You’ll see a lot of Chinese come across … they come all across the southern border, they come across in Texas, New Mexico, in Yuma, Arizona, they come across at California.
Many of these Chinese have their own ecosystems. Some will go up to the Bronx, in New York, others will go to Manhattan … Florida. But the Chinese typically are not … like the Haitians will come in, single actor, right? A single Haitian will come in and … go off to where other Haitians are.
(13:20)
But Chinese tend to be more methodical. They know how to get there, they know what hotels to stay in. And they already have phone numbers of people to link up with. And so they go into an actual ecosystem that’s waiting for them.
(13:34)
Some will be more high-level, others will be going to work in a restaurant, or working [as] farm hands. We know that many Chinese actually are coming in to work on marijuana farms in places like Oklahoma and Oregon. Some of the Chinese coming in are getting into the illicit drug trade…. There are many different sub-ecosystems as well. Not everyone coming in is a farm hand, not everyone is a physicist or a virologist either…. There are massive numbers of people coming in, and so there’s … a big spread of people on the spectrum of capabilities. And intentions.
(14:15)
A lot of the Chinese coming in are clear intelligence sorts or military sorts. That’s quite obvious. I mean, I’m down there all the time seeing it. Some are probably just coming up as economic refugees, or whatever. But there are some, I feel like I’m at Fort Bragg or someplace like that — these are very serious people. They don’t talk, they don’t want to talk, they don’t even want to make eye contact. They don’t want anybody putting cameras on them.
(14:40)
Which is not normal for most of the aliens coming through. Most people don’t care if you photograph, or they’ll give you a thumb’s up, or even want to talk. But they don’t usually hide. The ones who hide typically are … for instance, Venezuelans who hide are tattooed from head to toe. Your gangster sorts, right? But most of the Venezuelans don’t care. The ones who are not all tattooed up, they don’t care. But the gangster types, they don’t want their faces [shown]. A lot of the gangster type Haitians, they don’t want any photography and they even threaten people.
(15:18)
And it’s similar with Chinese. You remember Lushan Zhao, he was very threatening, he was a clear sort of intelligence type, he even admitted it. His English was perfect, his body language was nearly perfect. He had clearly been through extensive intelligence training, and we found him coming through the Darien Gap, and he was talking a little too much that night.
(15:43)
You know, some spies will talk. Some people say a true spy will never talk, but the people who say that know nothing about this line of work…. But some spies will actually tell you who they are occasionally. In this case, he was very hungry, he was tired. We intercepted him coming out of the jungle, it was late one night. He was itching, he was scratching all over his body because he was covered with [insects]…. They get all over you. At first you don’t feel it, but later you really itch badly, and you’ll have thousands of little bites on you….
(16:53)
He came out scratching and itching, all over, his legs, he kept bending down to scratch his ankles, and he was hungry and tired and he was emotional. At nighttime when somebody is alone, they will often talk. At nighttime, when they’re alone, and he became angry, and he was also hungry. He was in a perfect state to talk, and he just started bleeding information.
(17:20)
And so we talked for an hour and a half. He told a huge amount of his story. Compromised a large part of his network. These things happen from time to time. Not every spy is a great spy. He clearly had been through a great deal of training, he knew a lot about American — he could do American body language almost perfectly, I think he would have fooled at least 99 percent of Americans, he could have fooled them that he had been in the United States for at least the last 20 years.
(17:46)
But according to him he had never set foot in the United States. And I believe him. I believe he probably never had been in the United States. He more seemed like someone who was very well trained in the language, in the cultural aspects, in the body language.
As you know, I went to military language school, as well, but the language school I went to, Defense Language Institute, we were just learning to speak the language. Some cultural aspects, just enough so … that you don’t come in and basically insult everybody in the country by accident and make a fool out of yourself….
(18:22)
But Lushan Xhao’s training was not just enough to be polite, it was enough to blend in. If you talked with him on the phone, and did not see his face or his body language, you would probably think that he was an American, straight up American.
…
(18:50)
He said he bought a boat in the Bahamas from a Scotsman for $5,000. He was heading to Florida, but he ran out of gas. He said he was with his “father.” And he was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard, according to him.
Now, checking with the U.S. Coast Guard, he was definitely picked up. So, he did get picked up. And somehow he ended up back in the Bahamas, deported. And they were deporting him to China, he said. He was connecting in Cuba. And in Cuba he changed his flight to Quito, Ecuador, which is where many of the Chinese go…. And then they get on a bus for two days, they go to a place called Necoclí, Colombia, which I’ve done this, I’ve gone to the Necoclí part.
(19:33)
So in Necoclí you get on a boat and ride for an hour, hour and a half … and you end up at Capurgana, Colombia…. That’s where he enters the Darien Gap…. And then you cross through the Darién Gap and exit the Panama side.
We caught him as he exited the Panama side. He was very tired, hungry, itchy, angry, calmed him down, and he talked. He talked about … trying to get to Florida.
(20:13)
Now, if he had made it to Florida, all he had to do was come with that boat to the beach in Florida, run up off the beach, get into town, immediately change clothes — which could have brought with him, or just buy in one of the stores — and then he would have blended in immediately. He only needed to be in a bathroom for one minute to change clothes, come out and he’s a new man. That’s all he needed to do.
(20:40)
And there’s hotels all over the place in some of these places, like Jupiter Beach, you just run right in, run out. Or in some cases just get in there, you have people that already have hotel rooms. So, you’re not necessarily just running up the street, going somewhere. You just have to get to a car that’s waiting, or get inside of this hotel, get into a room very quickly, change cloths, come out with a haircut, you’re a new man. Who would know? His English is perfect.
(21:12)
DR. LI-MENG YAN: You met him in March, this year, right? And later, remember I have shared with you some things that some people talk … around May, they predict, oh, later the Chinese immigrants come through southern border, will be reduced, but they will turn to go through Florida from the sea, from Cuba, from [the] Bahama[s].
And we do see this kind of report recently. They say more Chinese immigrations come through the sea to Florida to go into U.S. and we don’t know how many of them already arrived [in] Florida, or how many percentage of them are not detected or found by U.S. government. But this really make me feel it [is] definitely not [an] individual case, that is more like someone try[ing] to see whether they can take the boat from Cuba or Bahama and go to Florida and somehow Lushen Zhao could be one of the leading person and maybe ran out of fuel, and get caught and get deported by the National Guard, but later, somehow, they found out that that route really is available, and then something new started. That’s why we can see the reasons for the recent report. What do you think about that?
(22:40)
MICHAEL YON: Almost certainly, Zhao, at least part of his mission will always be reconnaissance. If you’re an intelligence person, and you’re going somewhere, part of your mission to get to that area will almost always be reconnaissance and report back the events along the journey in, to update your headquarters on that route.
For every reason, and sometimes just general information, they want to save in case it’s useful. But in this case it’s clear that it is more than that. The Chinese Communist Party now has a large embassy in Bahamas, very large, and an increasingly large presence in the islands of the Caribbean.
(23:18)
It’s clear the Bahamas and Cuba are … China has big plans for those places. Florida, obviously, where I’m from, is, I mean, there’s a huge amount beaches there, and there’s only so much that you can stop. It’s just a matter of time, doctor, and this is just a guess on my part, but … my paradigms have been fairly accurate.
Let me talk about paradigms for a moment. If at any time you feel surprised at somebody doing something or some government doing something — I don’t mean surprised, like by a snake or something, you know that’s a shock — I mean a surprise insofar as, you know, “I can’t believe the government’s leaving the border’s open.” Right? You’re surprised by that.
Every time you feel surprised, stop and ask yourself, audit yourself, ask why am I surprised? If I’m surprised, that means they’re doing something I did not expect from them. That means my paradigm of them is incorrect. I need to recalculate my paradigm just like your GPS recalculates your route when you get lost. You know, when you take the wrong exit, recalculating directions.
(24:31)
Every time you’re surprised you need to stop. Why am I surprised? Recalculate paradigm, tweak it a little bit, or tweak it a lot. So that, now, your paradigm should leave you with at least two situations. One is, you’re not surprised by anything. And you’re far more predictive than chance, and you’re far more accurately predictive than the average person. In other words, right when Biden was installed into office, I immediately flew to El Paso, Texas, because I thought, under my paradigm, people would start to rush the border. And they did.
(25:10)
And then I went to Darién Gap, Panama, because I thought, if my paradigm was accurate, that the United States would start opening a route — there has been a route there for many years, but they would really start opening the route, in a big way, through the Darién Gap. And they have.
Why was I able to predict that? I was able to predict it because my paradigm was accurate. My paradigm is that the current U.S. government is completely captured or mostly captured — sufficiently captured. The critical mass is captured to destroy the United States.
(25:42)
The current government’s job — mission — is to destroy the United States. And that includes some of the state leaders like the so-called governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. I call him the World Economic Forum sector chief for Texas. His job title is governor of Texas. He’s clearly working on behalf of destroying Texas and the United States, leaving the borders open while pretending that he’s closing them.
(26:11)
He’ll send busloads of people up to places like New York, and the New York governor complains, and the mayor of New York City complains, blah blah blah. And the people from Texas say, Yay! He’s giving them a taste of their own medicine. But what is he really doing? Let’s step back and go to a little bit higher altitude with a satellite picture, instead of in the emotional weeds, right? Let’s get out of the emotional weeds, like, “hey, we’re happy, we’re sending people to New York, to the blue state that wants this stuff.”
(26:37)
And now lets go orbital, and be detached from it. What Biden and Abbott are doing are not fighting each other. They’re both meat puppets, they’re both meat on strings … they look like they’re fighting each other but Abbott is actually taking busloads of people and sending them deeper into our bloodstream. He’s sending them away from the border and into our extremities and into our heart. He’s clearing the decks for more to come in.
(27:09)
That’s what it looks like from an orbital view. I’m constantly going orbital view — intermediate view — and I’m down in the grass right down on the borders, in the camps, I’m in Colombia, Panama, Morocco, Lithuania, Greece, Netherlands, China — well, they’re not going to let me back in China…. Japan, I’m constantly in these places. I was just over in Armenia, and I was in the country of Georgia next to Russia, I’m constantly looking at the edges, I’m constantly downrange.
(27:40)
A lot of people look at the U.S. Border Patrol as an A1 source. To me, they are a source, they are an important source, but they’re only one source, and they only know the eggshell. The border is the eggshell. Most of the Border Patrol I speak with are serious people, patriotic people I think. But they are “just doing their job, sir.” They do continue to load them up on the busses.
(28:06)
World War II, the Nuremberg trials — “hey, I was just following orders.” They’re just following orders, loading up these people, letting them in the borders, loading them up on busses, processing them through the camps, and getting them into the interior of the United States. They are still acting on behalf of the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party. They’re “just doing their jobs.”
(28:26)
And they’re working for the enemies. So, even though they’re patriotic, they’re like a gear in a clock. Their job is to be a gear and turn the teeth to the right, maybe, you know, and that turns the other gear to the left, which turns the other …. And then Big Ben does this thing, bing bing bing. But their job is to be a little gear, don’t ask questions why, just turn to the right, and that’s what they’re doing — the organizational structure dictates outcome. And right now the organizational structure is captured, it’s clearly destroying the United States, and a lot of patriotic people [are] “just doing their job, sir,” instead of actually blocking the busses coming into the interior. Or letting the air out of the tires. You know what I mean? Like, “hey, I’m not gonna let these people in! I’m gonna block the bus.” Or, “I’m just not gonna show up to work,” you know what I mean?
(29:18)
They’re not doing it. They are part of the invading army, they’re part of the logistics train. Our Border Patrol is part of the logistics train. When I ask Border Patrol — which I do constantly — about the Darién Gap, as an example. Maybe five percent of Border Patrol know about it. I’m sure many Border Patrol people will watch this … and [if I] ask them, have you heard of the Darién Gap? Maybe one out of twenty will have heard of the Darién Gap, if that. And if they have, mostly, they’ve only heard of it.
(29:50)
Maybe one percent will actually know anything about it. Most of those, of those one percent, they know me. They know my name because they’ve been following my work…. They don’t realize how all this is happening, they just know their eggshell, the eggshell [is] the border. Inside the egg, they’re not really paying attention. They’re just making all their money at Border Patrol, or whatever agency they’re working for, and then they’re going to their children’s baseball game — which is great, it’s what they should be doing — helping their kids get through it, that’s what you should be doing in life.
(30:38)
You should be doing your job, and getting your children through school, and helping them with sports and those sorts of things. And teaching them about the world…. But right now we are in a state of war. And now, you need to know what’s going on, or you’re going to die. And I mean really die. I don’t mean you’re just going to lose your job, I mean you're going to be dead, in a hole, or in an incinerator.
(30:50)
That’s clearly what’s coming. It’s coming. For a lot of people, from a lot of different cultures. As you know, many of the Chinese that are in the United States will also be targeted by the Chinese Communist Party. And it’s not just the Chinese Communist Party, it’s also Hezbollah, and all these other people that are coming in from different ecosystems. For instance, many Hezbollah … grew up in places like Venezuela, they speak Spanish, completely fluently, natively, they speak Spanish natively and their body language is native, they grew up in Venezuela. And they’re Hezbollah, and they’re going to be hunting down Jews in the United States.
(31:25)
These things are coming. They are here. So you’ve got all these different ecosystems of people that are coming in, unvetted, many are never detected at all. Some are coming up on Florida beaches or they’re coming through the northern routes through Canada. They’re going into Alaska, they’re going into Hawaii. They’re going all over the place….
(31:48)
I spend a lot of time in Europe, the same is happening in Europe. The same is happening in Armenia, in Georgia, in many other places that are even further outside of the eggshell.
Big days are coming ahead, including massive food shortages….
DR. LI-MENG YAN (32:44): This is so helpful. I do agree with you, this is a very important issue and people have to fully pay attention…. A lot of things we need to solve, we need to stop, we need to prevent as soon as possible because it is really related to national security, homeland security….
[commercial break]
DR. LI-MENG YAN (37:40): Michael Yon … really see[s] the situation there. He provides knowledge from the front line to everyone to understand the things most journalists won’t tell you. Because there are very few people so capable to survive and also communicate well in such dangerous areas. They need to be very brave, they need … to have great skills for communication, they need to know how to protect themselves, they need to be very vigilant and sensitive, and also have their own critical thinking. These are all very special skills, and we value it.
(38:18)
My broadcast is not only to talk to [an] American audience. We also have millions of Chinese [listeners] they will see a Chinese transcript, later, to understand what I want to tell people. They are really interested in your story because you are legend. You have been through so many dangerous places, you have a lot of very interesting experience in your life. For example, we have seen that, according to the introduction online, you previously, for a while, being the security staff for Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson, for Chinese people, is very, very special.
(39:10)
Because he, for Chinese people, I can tell you. His songs and his stories are kind of forbidden. He previously — during the early 1990s — China, at that time there were some people [who] tried to invite Michael [Jackson] to Beijing for a music concert. But somehow at last step the CCP government denied it, because they are worried about Michael Jackson is on behalf of American culture, American spirit, so that will make Chinese people know too much about real American spirit and also democracy, freedom, all these kind of values.
(39:57)
So that’s why, later on, Michael Jackson is highly discredit and kind of suppressed in China. However, among Chinese people, he has huge amount of fans and they want to know more about him. So, do you think it’s available for you to share a little bit things you spend with Michael [Jackson] at that time in his Neverland ranch, and, for example, what kind of most impressive things you have with him. And we also know he has very high standard for people work with him. So why you can get this work with him, get this chance to stay with him, to know about him — can you share a little bit with our audience?
(40:45)
Actually I had left the Army, I was not in special forces any more, and I was in school studying, I wanted to become a physicist, that’s what I was studying, mathematics, quite a lot. Someone actually offered me a job, and they would not tell me what the job was, other than they thought that I would be interested. But the person who offered the job was a serious person. I thought, I’ll at least look, but … why won’t you tell me what the job is? I’m not going to do anything illegal.
(41:30)
He said, no, it’s nothing like that, it’s something that has to be kept under wraps. So, they took me out to Neverland, and I said, “oh, Michael Jackson!” I’m one of the only Green Berets that actually liked Michael Jackson. As I was growing up I liked his music. And I said, what does the job consist of? Basically just make sure nobody breaks into Neverland.
So I said, “basically I could do my mathematics homework and get paid to make sure nobody hurts Michael Jackson or Neverland, right?” He was like, “that’s it.” So I took the job.
(42:07)
Actually it was an interesting job, I learned a lot of mathematics, and I learned that Michael Jackson had a lot of stalkers. A lot of people were really kind of crazy for Michael. And, you know, I felt sorry for the guy, actually. I know he was super wealthy, but he couldn’t really have any friends. Could you imagine a life where you can’t really have any friends?
(42:36)
I have friends that I grew up with. One of my closest friends is somebody, we were born in the same hospital three days apart. We are still friends. And very close friends. So I have a lot of friends from childhood, that I knew from kindergarten, and high school, and later in the army. And we’re still friends, I get messages from them all the time. Or I just call them up to say, hey I’m in crazy Las Vegas right now, you gotta see this crazy place, you know?
(43:02)
But Michael Jackson could never really have friends like that. Because he’s like an object to people. He must have been very lonely, actually. Loneliness is one of the ultimate pains, right? He must have gone through his life just feeling … I might be the only person in the world that felt sorry for Michael Jackson, but I was just there at Neverland and I thought, he could never have a close friend without being suspicious.
(43:33)
Anyway, he’s gone now, I’ve often wondered what happened with him, with the children, that’s something on everybody’s mind. But also, you know, we see the world we live in, accusations do fly around for every reason in the world — I have no idea. I know one thing, I’ve never trusted the press, and I’m not going to start trusting them.
(43:55)
There’s something called … a psychological term that one physicist made up … the term describes a tendency in people — he noticed it in himself — when he would read about physics in newspapers and that sort of thing, and they would always mess it up. And he would turn the page to read about global events or international affairs and he would just completely believe it.
(44:25)
Then he noticed it in himself, he was like, wait a minute — they always get it wrong in physics, so why would I believe them when it comes to anything else? International affairs, foreign affairs that sort of thing.
That’s what a lot of us tend to do. Every time the media talks about something we truly know about, they tend to get it way wrong. But then you turn the page and you just believe it….
Same with Michael Jackson. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, but I’m not believing the media, that’s for sure….
DR. LI-MANG YAN (45:10): Thank you for sharing with us your stories with Michael Jackson. We want to let people know more about your experience as the best, bravest war correspondent in war, in Iraq and Afghanistan, because you have seen so many things, you know so much, [such] as what you have seen in the Darién Gap, and southern border, now. You have your very special knowledge through war.
(45:38)
Here is one photo we have, we will also post it on the article later to show to our audience. So, this photo is actually well known, it is taken by you. It is of one U.S. soldier holds a girl that was hurt during the attack by a suicide bomber. In this photo taken by you during your time you were an embedded journalist. Unfortunately this girl finally didn’t survive.
(46:08)
So, you have reported so many things. Did you [record] this precise moment to the audience, from the front lines? Unfortunately, as Chinese people, when we’re in China, we’re not allowed to receive such information. And you may [have] heard — or maybe not — In China, Iraq and Afghanistan were used to be very important propaganda contents to [promote] anti-Americanism.
(46:40)
So … China government will use these wars to be the examples to describe America’s hegemony, and also they will say this is, if Chinese want get democracy, human rights and freedom, this will be your future. As Iraq people or as the Afghanistan people, end this war and Americans will kill you and they will torture you.
This is totally different from what we see from the photo you tried to deliver to us. This is what we see, the humanity, we see the love, from an American soldier, he’s sad about the hurt girl, and we know that you feel sad about this girl who got injured and finally died in that area. So could you, share more about your insights from the wars and what is different from CCP’s propaganda? Can you let our Chinese people know more about your unique [perspective as] a battle correspondent?
MICHAEL YON (48:00): I took that photo in May of 2005, in Mosul, Iraq. A suicide bomber hit one of the vehicles in a unit that I was with. There were children all around the vehicles, the bomber could have waited just a couple of blocks and hit our guys there, but he did it while there were children around.
Because that’s how they roll. Just like the people that hand out the death jabs. They also put it into the children. But he could have waited, to just wait, wait, wait, just one kilometer away, or even two blocks away, and the children wouldn’t have been hurt.
(48:35)
Farah is the name of the girl that Mark [—-], the name of the American soldier is Major Mark [—-] . Her name was Farah. She actually died that morning. And then another young boy beside her also died, and some others were injured. It blew out the windows, and started some fires all over the place. And, like normal suicide bombers, they want to go to heaven, and they don’t care who they kill to get there.
Just like the people in these cults, the death jab cults, and the masking cults. They don’t care who they hurt to get to their version of heaven. They don’t care if the children get hurt by these fake vaccines. They don’t care, because they’re in a cult mentality.
(49:16)
And so, that’s what we’ve had, time and time again, and throughout time. We’re going to see it more, now, as these borders are wide open, which is going to lead to massive warfare within the streets of the United States. But, for some people, in pursuit of whatever their holy grail is, of “wokeness,” it’s ok with them. Bottom line is, I saw many days like this in Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflicts, Thailand. So many. And Hong Kong — luckily I didn’t see deaths in Hong Kong, there were a few but I wasn’t present for those.
(49:54)
I saw a lot of injuries that the communist police put upon the good students of Hong Kong, who were resisting the Chinese Communist Party. Communism is a cult. It always has been a cult, since it was inspired by the cult leaders, Marx, Lenin, and so many others. There’s been a lot of communist cult leaders over time.
DR. LI-MENG YAN (50:18): Mao and Xi Jinping.
MICHAEL YON (50:22): Yeah, and it spread to Stalin, and over to Mao. You know, nobody has killed more Chinese than communists —
DR. LI-MENG YAN: Exactly.
MICHAEL YON: — especially communist Chinese, like Mao. They like to blame Japan. In reality, it has not been Japan that has been the biggest enemy. It’s been communists, right?
DR. LI-MENG YAN: Yes.
MICHAEL YON (50:44): Straight up communists.
DR. LI-MENG YAN (50:48): And they also blame Americans. They blame everything for American. From Covid-19, from the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan war, from Tiananmen Square — all these things they blame Americans. So people like you, as a very brave correspondent recording these things from the front lines, that’s why it’s so important because if Chinese people can get the chance to know the real things. They know definitely how to gather information from people like you.
And then at that time, CCP’s all these lies, all their propaganda, can be immediately refuted. But of course China won’t allow people to have this opportunity, and that’s what we’re fighting for.
(51:34)
Time flies so quickly and before we finish this broadcast, we do have one more question. For Chinese people, we know that in China we are not to have a journalist like you in the — not on behalf of the government — to go to the front lines and to report things. And Chinese journalists who stay in the Iraq war or Afghanistan war, they are the loyal CCP members. So when they go there, what they report, they do have their political direction.
They have to show that all these things connect to anti-Americanism, pro-CCP, pro-communism, this kind of ideology. So, our people, Chinese audience wonder whether you can go there as a war correspondent on behalf of yourself, or not independent but maybe work with a civilian group, or you also have to be like part of the government, federal agency, to go to do this kind of report? And do they censor your content?
MICHAEL YON (52:46): They would cause me many problems, the United States did. At times they were helpful, when I was writing things they liked. And then when I would write something they didn’t like, they became very aggressive. So, often when I was writing things that they did like, it was coincidental. [laughter] If I happened to be writing the truth. I mean, we were winning at certain areas at certain times, and I would be saying that truthfully.
Or I would be saying, truthfully, how professional most of our soldiers are. Most of our soldiers are quite professional, actually. They actually made me proud as an American, in most instances. With some sharp departures from that. But otherwise, the vast majority of the U.S. troops — the Navy, and the Air Force, and the Marines, and the Army — Coast Guard, I was never actually out with the Coast Guard, but I was out with the Army and the Navy and the Marines quite a bit. And the Air Force. And they’re very, very professional.
(53:40)
And they actually did make me proud. And I would write that. And that made the military like me. But I was just telling the truth. But then when soldiers did things that would make people ashamed, or not proud, I would publish those things as well.
A lot in the military liked it. They were like, wow, you’re actually saying stuff that we want to say but, you know, there’s no way we can say it, but thank you for saying it.
DR. LI-MENG YAN (54:05): Thank you so much for sharing so much information and insights. This episode is not long enough … but definitely I hope you can return to my broadcast in the future and continuously share with us your knowledge.
And could you let people know how they can find you, or if they want to support your work, what should they do?
MICHAEL YON: I can be found on Truth Social at MichaelYon1776, or on Twitter @michael_yon or on locals.com … and Substack as well.
DR. LI-MENG YAN: And if people want to support your work, what can they do?
MICHAEL YON: Actually I’ve been reader supported since 2005. That’s how I can say so many wild things that people know to be true but they feel unsafe saying them because they might be fired from their newspaper or from whatever they do … So I’ve been reader supported, like for instance Paypal, Venmo, just different methods. Givesendgo. So many different methods. Some people send bitcoin. So, I’ve been reader supported, usually 5, 10 dollars, sometimes 100 dollars, and those are extremely helpful because they do add up. And occasionally someone will give 500 or 1,000 dollars, which is particularly helpful especially, in these few very expensive hotels, occasionally, I have to get an expensive hotel because of the location. Other times I’m out sleeping in the jungle. My life is strange, it ranges from five-star hotels to sleeping in a hammock with mosquito net.
DR. LI-MENG YAN: We will publish links in the article after the broadcast. Thank you so much for coming to the Voice of Dr. Yan. We air every Saturday and Sunday at 4pm eastern time on America Out Loud network, or I Heart Radio. And after that you can listen from various apps for free….
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