Please be a gracious reader

My apologies to those who came here looking for one of my usual eccentric or silly posts. I’ll try to come up with something later, but I think this is important, so I’m changing the time on this post so it will stay at the top all day.
As most of you know, I don’t especially like quoting what other people say when I have nothing to add, and as I’m not a war blogger, there’s not much I can say about Michael Yon’s latest dispatch from Afghanistan. Besides, Glenn Reynolds quoted the post in its entirety the other day, which means most readers here have already seen it.
If you haven’t read it though, please do. If you have read it, may I suggest donating to Michael Yon? As you know, there’s no tipjar here. What I do doesn’t cost much, and I don’t need help. But what Michael Yon does is expensive and dangerous, and he needs money to continue doing it. I’ve contributed to him regularly over the years, as he’s one of the few reliable sources of inside reports. And as we all know, we are in a real war there now. What shocks me is that so few people care. As Michael Yon says, ominously, “reader interest is low.” (Hence this post, and hence my request that you go over there and donate.)

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…

Yes, please do click, and please do be gracious. Thanks.