Day two since the illegal release of documents, and several things are clear:
1.) The alleged recanting in the testimony released yesterday is no such thing. At no point does Beauchamp recant, and at no point does it sink through the thick skulls of the blogospheric right that when someone is being monitered by a SSG and another and having their conversations recorded and transcribed, they may not feel comfortable to speak completely freely.
I really don’t understand how to make them understand that, particularly when it is clear they do not want to understand. If Beauchamp was telling the truth in his dispatches, he clearly is not going to corroborate them now while standing in front of the full weight of UCMJ. Additionally, it is stated that in later conversations with Beauchamp (after the interview published yesterday), he reassured Foer that he stood by his stories.
2.) It is telling that not one person on the blogospheric right is even remotely upset about this:
Foer said the Army has refused to turn over supporting documents in the case, despite a Freedom of Information Act request, and then “selectively leaked” material to Drudge. In an e-mail to the magazine yesterday, Army spokesman Maj. Kirk Luedeke said he was “surprised and appalled that this information was leaked” and that the military would investigate.
Instead of outrage over what is clear political maneuvering with the private files of a soldier serving in Iraq, the right-wing continues their assault on Foer and the TNR, and refuses to acknowledge that until those files were leaked to Drudge, TNR HAD NO ACCESS TO THEM.
Imagine for a second, if you will, what would have happened if the shoe had been on the other foot. Imagine what we would be reading today if, rather than someone in the Army selectively leaking documents to Drudge the TNR wanted access to, it had been Franklin Foer leaking documents to the Daily Kos that they had been keeping from Army. You don’t have to try really hard to imagine what would be going on today:
Michelle Malkin would take some time off from her new schedule of racially profiling dishwashers and would have 73 updates on this clearly illegal and unethical behavior. Bob Owens would have called every fax manufacturer, examined the kerning of the faxes, and have narrowed down the transmission of the fax to three states. The Free Republic would have posted the annual income and personal details of every employee of TNR, and speculated who would be most likely to be bribed to release the documents. Protein Wisdom would have written six new dick jokes related to the affair, and then issued a 62 page memorandum on why this is a typical narrative of the type of behavior illustrated by ‘teh left.’ The Instapundit probably would have broken a finger after typing ‘heh, indeed!’ ad infinitum while linking to tales of TNR perfidy from lesser known bloggers (“Jake at Minnesota Rambling says he once saw a copy editor for the TNR be rude to a waitress at a sushi bar- and asks, ‘Does their arrogance know no bounds?’ Heh. Indeed!”).
Stop laughing. You know I am right. At any rate, why didn’t TNR discuss this interview, you might ask? Well, we already covered that. Because Beauchamp said nothing new, other than that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore (for obvious reasons, notwithstanding his squad leader standing over his shoulder). Additionally, the military refused to release the documents pertaining to their investigations. In other words, Foer and the TNR had nothing new to work with.
Now, I understand that if you think the TNR is an evil left-wing rag who released these stories only to hurt the morale of our troops in the greatest most epicest struggle of our time, that is not an acceptable answer. To those of us on Planet Earth, it makes sense. Nothing new was covered in the interview, an interview in which they clearly felt their source was under duress, and in a subsequent off the record conversation he reassured them. TNR had nowhere to go, no new information.
3.) It is also interesting that months after this, none of our intrepid investigators has bothered to look into this Beauchamp dispatch:
The next day’s mission set list didn’t include me. I had tower guard from 0400 until 0800 instead. I went to guard shift, then got some sleep. When I woke up, the next day’s patrol had already returned, and, as usual, the gaggle of guys who walked in and out of my room gave me updates on what had happened, who had been shot at, who had fucked up, who had chickened out, who had pulled off some great stunt of ingenuity. One of the privates sauntered in with a somewhat bemused expression.
“Hey, we were in Little Venice today, talking to LNs and shit.”
“Anything happen?”
“Sort of. That James Bond kid you were telling me about–did he run around in an Adidas hat?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Those fuckers cut off his tongue.”
“What? Who?”
“Shia militia, the police, I don’t know. Apparently he had been talking to too many Americans.”
“No fucking way.”
“Yeah. Fuck them, man. I hate when this shit happens to kids.”
We didn’t go back to Little Venice for a raid or patrol or mission of any type for quite some time–maybe a month or two. But when we did eventually go back, I didn’t have to look very hard to find Ali. He was mixed in with the throng of children who waded up to our convoy screaming for us to throw them chocolate or soccer balls. Of course, he wasn’t screaming, but he was smiling and his hands were outstretched to catch whatever a soldier with a generous streak might be kind enough to throw at him. I wanted to yell, “Hey, James Bond! I hope you get to California!”–but I didn’t. I just watched him scramble for the soccer ball that went bobbing away toward an alley and out of my field of vision.
It seems to me, of all the stories, this would be the easiest to verify or disprove.
4.) So here we are, months later. Did someone run over dogs in a Bradley? Who knows? Who cares? I am having too much fun watching Greater Wingnuttia act like insane people. Maybe when they are done with this, they will get on that whole WMD story.
*** Update ***
This whole “scandal” is even funnier when you consider this is the attitude of most folk on ‘teh left’:
As a liberal, I’m wondering why anyone would want to “rescue” TNR? Peretz is such a scumbag and there’s the whole Super War Cheerleader thing that they’ve got going on. Why should I care if they backed a wrong gee?
*** Update #2 ***
*** Update #3***
BTW- Where is the signed confession? Why wasn’t that leaked?
cleek
the Bo-chumps know the Truth. and they know that all information must therefore enforce that Truth. their job, then, is to find out how.
MyPetGloat
Wingnut Logic:
1. assume the treasonous left did something wrong.
2. work backwards from there towards any other conclusion you like.
3. profit
chopper
i expect RW bloggers to come up with a viable means by which the poor kid’s tongue was actually run over by a shia militia fighting vehicle.
capelza
Was checking out some comments from some of the “concerned” blogs.
Firstly..now they are on intimate terms with Foer. It’s like they are old friends, or adversaries…why they’ve been reading him for years!
Secondly, John, don’t you understand this was “blasphemy” and should it be considered “sedition” and “punished accordingly”?
All the actual reports of soldiers doing bad things, they can’t touch..but this…this is worse than everything, it’s the ultimate betrayal! …because..well..I don’t know why.
In every other war soldiers..bored, scared kids have done things they would not do otherwise. From WW2..the picture on the cover of some famous magazine of a girl looking at the Japanese skull sent to her by her GI boyfriend, a scared young Marine in Vietnam killing some farmer’s cow for no good reason (he feels bad now, but he has 35 years to look back)…
Good grief…there is NO perspective from these people. Any honest soldier who has ever in war will admit to things exactly similar to what Beauchamp wrote about and mush worse.
When I tell this story to my friends who were in country, there isn’t anger, but more of a knowing nod…
And AGAIN…it isn’t about defending the honour of soldiers. If it was they would not have broadcast this so far and wide, but ignored it. It’s about bringing down a “liberal rag”…only in their haste, they didn’t get a “liberal rag”, but a “pro-war” one.
Really it’s just crazy…focusing on that one tree while ignoring the entire rest of the forest.
Dreggas
This has been the modus operandi of the right since the “brooks brothers riot” during the 2000 recount. If there is even a slim possibility of the narrative being disrupted by truth (or any outcome they do not like) then attack the source mercilessly using a mob mentality and do not let up in the attack.
There is a corollary to what happened in Salem Mass. during the witch hysteria. Anyone perceived to be different or doing something that was out of sync with the rest of puritanical Salem must be a witch. As a result they were mobbed, given what could only be called a sham trial and subsequently killed. Put the right wing noise machine in pilgrim dress and give them torches and pitchforks and I am sure they would look little different from their puritan counterparts.
pharniel
we all know that leaks to ‘approved’ party members are not leaks, as all party members in good standing are obviously of superior moral character to other individuals that their good standing in the party is enough proof of their dedication and loyalty that no other test need be given, thus they should have access to any and all documents that the military chose to give them access to.
or some such.
i’m sure it sounded better in russian.
wingnuts to iraq
the WMD were taken by secret buses to Syria BEFORE the war! DUH!
And why isn’t Peter Johnson in Iraq?
Wilfred
Back before Beauchamp destroyed the very fabric which weaves together the hopes and dreams of the American people and shattered the lambakin faith we once had in the Sir Lancelot like Good Shepherd ethos of the chocolate-giving American Soldier like so many dried out soap bubbles into the hot, harsh desert sand of Iraq, I read the New Republic. But I don’t now.
Confederate Yankee
John, John, John… you just can’t help being wrong, can you?
It is quite true that Beauchamp didn’t recant, but then, that really isn’t the issue now, and hasn’t been in quite a while. We know that all three of the allegations made in Shock Troops were utterly fake.
There never was a burned woman at either base in Iraq or Kuwait, a fact confirmed by the military investigation and at least civilian contractor. Of course, it isn’t our duty to disprove this (though we have), but Foer and Beauchamp’s duty to prove that the allegation they made is true. They have utterly failed to do so, and should therefore retract the claim.
There was one intact human skull and a femur recovered during the construction of COP Ellis, along with small animal bones (food scraps) associated with household trash in a typical garbage dump. There is not a single account coroboating Beauchamp’s original claim that someone wore skull fragments with rotting flesh on them at all, much less for the absurdly extended length of time he claimed. The official Army investigation also debunks it. Foer cannot support this contention, and Beauchamp will not, and soldiers have stated that the padding in these new helments make wearing skull fragments all but impossible in the first place. There is no evidence support this contention is true, and plenty of evidence and sworn testimony indicating it is false. TNR should retract the claim.
As for the Bradley claim, no one will support that either, and all the drivers and commanders have sworn it did not occur. Local geography precludes the sotry for being possible as described. TNR’s OWN EXPERT that they used to try to support their story, a rep of the company that manufacturers BRadley’s said upon seeing the full claim (TNR attempted to keep him in the dark) tha tis was all but impossible to do what they claimed. Dozens of veterans, including drivers and commanders of IFVs and APC, have called the story technically impossible as well. Once again, TNR has no evidence at all to support their contention, and should retract.
You’re also full of it when you try to claim that “If Beauchamp was telling the truth in his dispatches, he clearly is not going to corroborate them now while standing in front of the full weight of UCMJ.” You deceptively overlook the fact that the rest of his company would be ill-served as individual soldiers in lying to protect him.
If Beauchamp was going to lie, he’d lie to TNR, and TNR only. He faces no penalties from them. They can’t send him to jail for lying. If he lied to the Army, he’s Leavenworth bound.
All of the events he described would have warranted adminstrative punishments for his role in them, or no punishment at all, as long as he tells the truth, or at least stops lying. If he lied in his testimony, it is a far more serious offense, and he could not take the chance that if these stories were in any way factual, that the dozens of other soldiers who witnessed them would have kept quiet about the event he described. IS this too difficult ofr you to wra your mind around? Let me explain.
All his anecdotes in “Shock Troops” were said to have occurred in front of substantial groups of fellow soldiers, from a packed dining facility, to the platoon-grade force building COP Ellis, to the dozens of soldiers in a multi-vehicle patrol in the dog story (not to mention the people listening in at base to the radio chatter he claimed occurred).
The soldiers in the D-FAC in the burned woman story have no reason to lie and face the UCMJ, because Beuachamp is the person doing the supposed deed. Why would they lie, and cover for him? Your argument makes no sense.
The soldiers at the COP, other than the one wearing the skull in that claim, would also have no reason to lie. If Beauchamp was telling the truth–and he obviously wasn’t–they would be in far greater legal jeopardy for lying. The same holds true for the Bradley story. Your argument makes no sense.
As for the story “war Bonds” you cite from, that, just like both his other stories, have already been debunked for rather obvious lies. That kid “James Bond”?
Beauchamp claims to have met him while his fellow soldiers changed a flat tire on patrol and he was pulling security.
Humvees have run-flat tires.
In addition, SOP would be to quickly rig a tow instead of changing tires on the street on patrol.
Keep plugging away, John.
Perhaps one day, you’ll accidentally stumble across the truth… not that you’d recognize it.
Andrew
I get the impression that Confederate Yankee is quite content with himself, in a sort of Flowers for Algernon, fully regressed to retardation sort of way.
Larv
Confederate Yankee:
Anyone got an irony meter they’ll let go for cheap? Mine just started smoking and making weird hiccuping sounds. I think it’s toast.
Tom Hilton
Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee sure did an amazing job of addressing John’s point about information being leaked selectively for political ends.
Oh, wait–he didn’t. He just blathered on and on about a point that John and every other sentient human knows isn’t important.
Snark aside, Greenwald has it exactly right: this is one more incident in the transformation of the military into an arm of the GOP.
vanya
The other bizarre thing about the right-wing’s fixation on Beauchamp is that, if you actually know any Iraq war vets, you’ve probably heard similar stories. Just the other day an acquaintance was telling me how when driving around Iraq he would routinely run down old ladies or drive over peoples’ car with the occupants still inside since they had orders never to make unauthorized stops. This guy may very well have been exagerrating his kill rate to impress his audience, but the point is nothing Beauchamp says is very novel or shocking unless you have no exposure to the real war at all. Which is probably the case for most of these keyboard commandos.
chopper
shorter CY: “i was right about minutia! I WAS RIGHT ABOUT MINUTIA!”
whatever you can do to rationalize the freakout, i guess. the rest of us stopped caring about what beauchamp said the day after he said it, focusing more on watching the RW eat its own ass out of excitement.
Blue Neponset
Confederate Yankee,
You would be more credible if you pretended not to know so much about this. I actually stopped reading your comment about 1/3rd of the way through and laughed out loud.
cleek
your obsession is embarrassing, Yank.
canuckistani
Holy crap John, Confederate Yankee sure nailed you there. Just because you said you didn’t give a shit whether anything Beauchamp said was true or not, he *knew* you lied and *proved* you wrong, and also disproved your assertion that the right wing blogs totally missed the fucking point of whatever it was you said.
As for me, I’m with CY, because American Heroes would never kill a dog or mock a woman.
Wilfred
“, sniffed Heather, as she straightened out her skirt and stumbled from the car.
jcricket
Is there any government institution that Bush and Cheney can’t ruin by appointing completely unqualified and/or religious nut-job partisan hacks? FDA? FEMA? NASA? DOJ? now the military?
Svensker
jcricket Says:
Snark aside, Greenwald has it exactly right: this is one more incident in the transformation of the military into an arm of the GOP.
Is there any government institution that Bush and Cheney can’t ruin by appointing completely unqualified and/or religious nut-job partisan hacks? FDA? FEMA? NASA? DOJ? now the military?
Well, we all know what Atrios would say.
mk
John, there needs to be an award for which website has commenters guaranteed to provoke a reader to laugh outloud before they get to the end of the thread.
I only made it this far: Anyone got an irony meter they’ll let go for cheap? Mine just started smoking and making weird hiccuping sounds. I think it’s toast.
And, if that one didn’t get me, this one would have: “, sniffed Heather, as she straightened out her skirt and stumbled from the car.
Love your site, but your commenters are the best evah!
jcricket
* Unless it were necessary to stop a terr’ist ticking time bomb. Like maybe if they planted a time bomb inside an ugly woman or a dog.
jcricket
Heh, indeedy.
The Other Andrew
I’m genuinely curious as to whether people like CY are in denial, incapable of recognizing irony, or simply happy lying. But, please, keep making honesty an issue, it’ll only remind everyone of the GOP’s Greatest Hits, ranging from WMD to Saddam/al-Qaeda to “There is no insurgency!”…
Randy Paul
I really don’t understand how to make them understand that, particularly when it is clear they do not want to understand.
Make them enlist.
John Cole
Since you are going to start off being a dick, let me ask if you have recovered from the great grill tragedy of 2007? We were all pulling for you here.
Actually, I think a significant portion of the ‘buzz’ yesterday was that he recanted, and if you survey the blogs, many people are interpreting his unwillingness to discuss the issues with Foer and company as tantamount to recanting. Additionally, what you claim to “know” are things you can not possibly know, as the military investigation can not prove these events did not happen. Yes, they can assert that it was false or fabricated, but there is no way to prove the events did not happen. Funny thing about “knowing.”
You could, as a matter of fact, survey half the people in my office and ask them, under oath, if they have ever heard me utter the phrase ‘Bob Owens is a stupid motherfucker who really needs to get a life,’ and you could then put it into a document and state that it was a complete fabrication that I had ever said that at work. I assure you, though, that I have in fact said that. In other words, to make this easy for you- absence of corroboration, particularly under duress, is not proof of fabrication. I know this is a hard concept for you to understand, particularly since you can not understand why you do not use information gained during torture.
However, even given that, I am willing, as I have been all along, to acknowledge the events DID NOT HAPPEN. I think all of the following are possible:
A.) Made every aspect of the stories up.
B.) Some portion of the stories happened and he wildly embellished them.
C.) Any degree of variation in between the stories being completely true and completely false.
What I can not understand, and still will never understand, is why you and others chose to freak out about this relatively insignificant story in a relatively unread pro-war magazine.
And spare me the ‘defending the honor of our troops’ bullshit- there are far more permanent stains on the honor of our troops from real misdeeds than there are from these tales from Beauchamp. In fact, I am willing to bet that you still will ignore all the evidence regarding Abu Gharaib, and still push the administration’s “few bad apples” bullshit. Ask around Baghdad what has stained our troops honor- the notion they may have run over some dogs in a Bradley, or Abu Gharaib.
If the dispatches were true, many of them were complicit and have their own reasons to now lie or keep quiet. This really is not rocket science.
Oh, really. Never seen one mention of it. Why was this not one of the cornerstones of the proof of his lies, if it is so easily and convincingly disproven (personally, I think it is the weakest of his anecdotes/stories/tales)? Why do you not bring it up every time you discuss the case? Why instead focus on the other stories?
And better yet, why did you razor-sharp truth detectors not pick this up before Beauchamp’s later, more evil and insidious lies were told?
The truth of the matter is this is nothing more than an opportunity for you and the rest of the half-wits to accomplish two things: to continue your narrative that all of the media is liberal and full of liars and out to get good, honest ‘Muricans like you, and to continue the clearly false story that it is the “right” and only the “right” that defends the troops, while the dirty liberals eagerly lapped this up because it confirms the worst about our soldiers.
Given that, it is clear why you all can not help yourselves.
In reality, none of us had ever heard of Beauchamp or his tales prior to the freak-out, none of us think there is anything really remarkable about even the worst things he has claimed to have done (some of us on “the left” have read a few books about war through the ages, and running over a dog falls pretty low on the list of war crimes throughout history).
But now, on to the important issues.
Has it occurred to you that TNR may in fact have disavowed Beauchamp had the Army released the investigation to them, rather than refusing to and merely stating it “was all fabrication?”
Has it occurred to you that Foer probably would like to throw Beauchamp under a bus, but can not in good faith do so because of the obstruction of the military (severing communication, only allowing interviews in which information is transcribed and monitored, setting up interviews with other news organizations to show he is not being censored, etc)?
Has it occurred to you, even in passing, that there is a distinction between the level of fact-checking required of someone writing a diary from Baghdad and someone serving as an investigative reporter ala Glass, and that it is possible for TNR to have acted in good faith while still publishing what turned out to be lies from Beauchamp?
Does it at all bother you that someone, most likely an officer, is leaking official documents to right-wing media sources? Will you call for an investigation? Will you recommend full prosecution and punishment under UCMJ? And where is the signed confession that other military officials leaked knowledge of to the Weekly Standard?
Has it ever occurred to you JUST HOW FUCKING STUPID all of you on the right freaking out about this look after spending the past few years telling us that shit happens in war, that war is hell, all the while excusing accidental killings and screaming for ROE to be relaxed? OHMIGOD SOMEONE RAN OVER A DOG. Meanwhile, Blackwater just fucking mowed down what- two dozen people?
Have any of those things occurred to you in your perverse pursuit of “the truth?” My guess is no. More important you keep getting the hits from Malkin and the rest of the mouthbreather right.
Perry Como
Those things are not mutually exclusive.
actor212
This has veered beyond psychosis and careered into abject insanity
Tsulagi
Appropriate post title. But our Malkinette known truthers like CY apparently can’t get enough of their Beauchamp. They want new pages for their reading material when in Minneapolis airport restrooms.
One galling thing in this is the Kerning Brigades’ assertion the STB stories are the greatest blow ever to soldier morale so they must avenge to protect their poor, dear little ones silently crying out for their help. Condescending morons. Trust me, the guys/women over there in OIF are not remotely as dainty as apparently the flag officers in Greater Wingnuttia.
HyperIon
well, at least he isn’t a dik-dik…like Peter Johnson.
John Cole
Michael Yon has an interesting take, and one not very favorable to the TNR.
actor212
They were too busy checking the kerning. Can’t see the forest for the trees, given their limited intellect.
rawshark
Run flats still get changed, they don’t last forever. You just don’t have to change them right away.
whippoorwill
Spent the day yesterday quibbling at wingnut blogs just trying to understand their reasoning on this issue. Came to the conclusion there is no reasoning and they all have quite obviously gone insane.
capelza
So it was always balls to the wall? How did they paint schools and hand out candy then? Or have time to watch Bush pretend to carve that turkey…and mission accomplished!
Sorry that sentence just doesn’t make sense.
rawshark
I can see where his stories are unverifiable but are they false? Isn’t there a difference?
Face
Got a link to this? Otherwise, I’ll assume you just make shit up.
Andrew
I done used this here thingy called goo-gle to find me some polaroids of them hummy-trucks over in Erak and I seen me that they got extra tires on them. Why them need extras if theys is proof against flattening?
Abe Froman
You mean run flat tires don’t last forever? Good for only 50 MPH for a distance of 50-100 miles on a standard automobile.
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/tires/articles/117588/article.html
Pb
If you’re a fan of fantasy, anyhow.
Glad to hear it–what’s the latest good news from Iraq this week, Michael?
Wrong-o; the
keystone kopscitizen-journalists in the Wingnutosphere couldn’t even do that; Beauchamp had to bravely (and stupidly) reveal his own identity when he stood by his words–remember?Oh wait, this Michael Yon garbage isn’t passing a simple sniff test…
Heh. Good luck with that.
Tony J
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the purpose of run-flat tires simply to allow your vehicle to continue moving out of danger until such a time as you can stop and change it?
Anyway, here’s what I’d like to know. Is CY claiming that US vehicles on patrol never change damaged tires? And is he attacking the military in claiming that US troops are so dumb that they’d rather limit the manoeuvrability of two vehicles in a combat zone than risk stopping for an easy repair? And is he furthermore providing aid, comfort, and propaganda value to the terrorists by implying that the streets of Baghdad aren’t safe for heavily armed American soldiers to stop on for a few minutes?
Of course, it’s not up to me to prove that there’s any grounds for me to ask these questions. No, it’s up to CY to prove to my satisfaction that I should belive anything he says. Because that’s the way he likes it, he said so.
Setting shields to repel blah-blah BS. Ting!
Pug
Michael Yon’s take was interesting. The bottom line is Mr. Beauchamp, whether he lied his ass off, exagerrated or whatever, is a soldier serving in Iraq in a brigade that has sustained 70 deaths to date. It’s time for the right-wing haters to lay off.
This alleged liar has more courage in his toe nails than does the Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee (I like that), whom I would bet has never served a day in the uniform of the United States.
Bruce Moomaw
Nary a peep from C.Y., I see, on the most relevant point — namely, that whether Beauchamp is a liar or not, he’s equally willing to tell stories (also possibly untrue) that are FLATTERING to our troops, and TNR is equally willing to publish them.
Wilfred
It’s time to start the run-flat-tire blogswarm. Some commenters have questioned the truth of ConWank’s observation that run-flat-tires (RFTs) are not changed.
Ridiculous, Laughable, Left-Wing, Commie, Hysteria Bullshit – not one fucking tire has ever been changed on a road in Iraq.
SOP is to sit inside the vehicle until Michael Yon comes.
Tsulagi
Actually, it does for me.
All Yon is saying is get some perspective. The degree to which Beauchamp is or isn’t a shitbird is best left to those in his unit. NCOs in his chain can provide any appropriate remedial guidance. And that his CO is politely asking the flag officers of Greater Wingnutter blogs to back the fuck off his soldier. Good on that CO.
As for TNR, Yon wasn’t quite as charitable. But still I think the overall tone of his post was get some perspective and get a grip. The whole STB/TNR saga was not the great threat to the republic nor deserving anywhere near the amount of ink/bytes it got.
Anyway, so Beauchamp was given the choice to stay or go, and he chose to stay. And apparently his unit as well as his CO support that. Curious to see how many “Only We Support the Troops!” patriots give him a nod for that.
BruceR
John Cole:
“setting up interviews with other news organizations to show he is not being censored”…
That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that in comments as part of the Army’s campaign against TNR that you allege. Not sure how that follows from a reading of the transcripts, though.
The soldier’s communications with media were ordered to be severed, pending the investigation and reprimand. Sounds like his PAO took a bunch of interview requests in the meantime, in addition to TNR’s. Beauchamp was given the option of not doing them, and ultimately didn’t. There’s no evidence the army was acting maliciously there.
I also think your saying that no claim can ever be falsified is a fascinating position (“absence of corroboration… is not proof of fabrication”) but of doubtful utility in the real world. There has to be a burden of proof, and it should never rest with the doubters. If the flat-earthers want to establish that Galileo was wrong, they need to prove it, not me.
Also, connecting people who want claims to require evidence with a pro-torture position seems wrong. If anything, it’s the opposite. It’s because tortured confessions are effectively non-falsifiable by themselves that they’re largely useless for establishing the truth of anything. You’re suggesting the opposite, above.
James
Fucking A, John. If you gave your takedown of the Confederate Yankee to Samuel L Jackson, you’d have the next Tarrantino movie.
…And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger…
Kicking the knowledge! Keep it up, man.
Pb
Tsulagi,
Yon is a gullible, incompetent hack who swallowed the right-wing narrative on Beauchamp whole and regurgitated it all over the beginning of his piece. Note, for example, the specific inaccuracy I mentioned regarding his inane and imaginary “treed ‘coon” BS, to say nothing of his endorsement of the unsupported and fact-free wingnut blog “real story”. And after that BS, I see no reason to read him further–he may as well himself be puttering around in a sandbox moving toy fighting vehicles around, seeing as how that is the “story” he’s uncritically accepting as fact.
tBone
So rightwing blogs = Galileo in this scenario? Wow.
Peter Johnson
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting. With Frank Foer at the helm, every shred of journalistic credibility is gone. It’s sad, because TNR used to be a good magazine. It’s sad that the need to get more liberal subscribers turned them from principled supporters of the war to Krazed Krugmanite Kossacks.
Anything for a buck, I guess. That’s what’s gone wrong with journalism today. The same reason MSDNC lets “KO” spew his lies.
capelza
Okay…spoof.
Peter Johnson
And you’re so unbiased, right? You don’t think your own hatred of George Bush has something to do with your defense of Beauchamp, do you?
Pb
Peter Johnson,
Yes, Mu, and Mu; get thee behind me, incompetent spoof.
Peter Johnson
Huh?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
But Brawndo has what plants crave! Brawndo has electrolytes.
(Mr. Cole, I’m sorry…I like money.)
In The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell, John Crawford writes about a small Iraqi street boy who introduces him to a beautiful young Iraqi woman, who he befriends. Eventually the Muslim extemists discover the “relationship” and burn down the woman’s house. Crawford never knew for certain what happened to the woman or the boy, but the reader is left with the likelihood that they were killed.
When I read the Beauchamp stories, I read them in the same mindset that I did Crawford’s book. Some stories may be true, some may be imagined and some may be composites of experiences from the war.
To read the comments like those posted by the Confederate Yankee blows my mind. John Cole is right in asking, “just how fucking stupid” are these people?
Tsulagi
Pb,
Going to have to disagree.
Personally, I think Beauchamp embellished some of his experiences a tad going for a point that war desensitizes soldiers. Clearly one of the greatest secrets of all time. Funny watching the nutters jumping on that like it was a violation of OPSEC, sedition for sure.
As I commented WAY TOO MANY Beauchamp posts ago, do I know Beauchamp spiced up his stories? No. Do I know there is anything at all false in his stories? No. Do I really give anything approaching two shits either way? No.
I found Yon’s visual analogy of a treed ‘coon workable. Beauchamp being the raccoon with the tree holding him up from the dogs being TNR, and of course the barking dogs being the Malkinettes like CY. Don’t know if Yon designated the tree being TNR; don’t care.
Funny thing is the raccoon has left the tree and is safe. But the dogs keep going bug-eyed batshit crazy barking at the tree while slobbering all over themselves.
Timb
Defend Beauchamp versus tell demonstratable lies about “progress” on Iraq?
Defend Beauchamp or defend an embedded reporters “stories” about happy Iraq?
I think I know what side I’d be on
John Cole
Not to mention, the “defenses” of Beauchamp to date appear to be “Yeah, he may have made it all up and is totally full of shit? Who cares? Why are you people so insane?”
That is a particularly vigorous defense, ehh?
John Cole
Fair enough- I interpreted the transcript as them having set them up to demonstrate he is not being censored. If that is not the case, then I am just wrong.
Pb
Tsulagi,
My point there being, the incompetent “citizen-journalists” in question never actually managed to expose his identity–he had to do that himself. And then for Yon to continue on and uncritically accept the rest of their dubious narrative… well, I’m not going to make my point again, it’s also in the other two posts.
As for Beauchamp’s stories, remember, there’s also TNR’s investigation to contend with. Even if you think that Beauchamp may have “embellished some of his experiences a tad”, do you think TNR made up all that stuff about interviewing soldiers, too? I don’t. I don’t see where Yon addressed that, either, except to swallow the insane Wingnutosphere narrative whole–and really, that’s all I needed to know about him.
jcricket
I believe the scale for the right-wing blogosphere and the 24%ers now actually starts at psychosis (on the left, as it were), passes through insanity (in the middle) and ends up in the Aryan Nation (on the right).
keatssycamore
The only “fact” in Yon’s article (that Beauchamp returned to his unit) would seem to confirm John’s original narrative that Beauchamp generally told the truth.
Why would Beuchamp go back to his unit if he had maliciously libeled them? He had a choice to leave according to the Yon story. If he wore the Scarlet “L” for liar, I’d have thought (at least to hear the wingnut commentosphere tell it) he’d have been a prime candidate for a fragging, or at least a really vicious short-sheeting.
My take is he went back because he was well liked and had written a generally honest diary about a soldier’s life in Iraq and then had the brass all over his ass. Most of his peers probably sympathize to one degree, or another.
This would also seem to explain why the superior officer Yon interviewed felt the need to be so protective of Beauchamp. For immediate unit morale. The big brass can shit all over the little ones, but the immediate field commander probably needs them. This seems to me at least as plausible, if not more plausibe, as Yon’s weird, and to my reading, strained reading of the superior officer’s comments.
Basically, I don’t think the Yon article is bad for Beauchamp. It’s just a reflection of Yon’s own 24% biases (psychosis, have we agreed it’s moved into psychosis at this point?).
BruceR
tBone:
“So rightwing blogs = Galileo in this scenario? Wow.”
Um, what? No. Maybe a bad example.
The point is the original maker of the claims was Beauchamp. These claims were, whatever their veracity, an attempt to add to the public’s picture of Iraq. They were challengable on that basis. The burden of proof always lays with the claimant. To say one can “never know” whether a claim is true or not, without reference to who has the burden of proof and where the preponderance of evidence lies, is to say nothing is ever knowable. Fat lot of good that does any of us.
I agree the jingopundits were guilty of excesses here. I too found the story initially plausible. But now there’s been an official investigation, and we have to balance an uncorroborated claim by a private with a clear financial motive to lie under (at the time) the cloak of anonymity against the reported signed statements of numerous more experienced soldiers. Keeping in mind the various influences that are in play, Beauchamp and TNR cannot be said to have met any reasonable burden of proof on the matters investigated, whether he has officially recanted yet or not.
In any case, Beauchamp’s been punished, lightly, so that matter is effectively over. The question of what if any punishment TNR deserves is the active one.
As to comparing Galileo and jingopundits, hey, lots of stupid people believe the earth is round, too. That by itself does not mean the earth is actually flat.
BruceR
keatssycamore:
“If he wore the Scarlet “L” for liar, I’d have thought (at least to hear the wingnut commentosphere tell it) he’d have been a prime candidate for a fragging, or at least a really vicious short-sheeting.”
You have some odd impressions of soldiers. The fact that a soldier is welcomed back into a unit after receiving disciplinary action does not indicate that the disciplinary action is seen as unfair or unwarranted.
I know a guy who stole a unit vehicle and wrecked a civvy car in an accident. So he went to army prison for a while, and his subunit lost some privileges briefly. When he came back, hey, he’d done the time, so we all moved on: doesn’t mean we somehow doubted that he deserved it.
BruceR
Pb:
“do you think TNR made up all that stuff about interviewing soldiers, too?”
Well, the army is the only side to have actually named names of their interviewees to this point.
As for Beauchamp’s identity, the fact is that one of the “wingnuts” had the day before his coming forward announced that “Scott Thomas” was a deployed soldier whose wife worked for TNR, based on a leak from a TNR staffer (who was promptly fired)… it’s reasonable to assume that Beauchamp or his wife would have concluded that their time of anonymity was coming to an end, so they chose to pre-empt.
Jim
Actually, Yon’s account doesn’t just make TNR look bad. Though not mentioned specifically, the jackals on the right who simply won’t let the matter rest when Beauchamp’s fellow soldiers seem to be moving on look even worse. And, of course, there is the simple fact that Beauchamp’s ass is still on the firing line while the keyboard warriors continue their lynch mobesque howlings for his and TNR’s blood while safely ensconced in their cushy office chairs. Malkin, NRO, Confederate Yankee, et al., are truly repugnant.
tBone
I think they should be forced to hire a bunch of hack writers and pseudo-intellectuals. Oh, wait . . .
Hart Williams
Not all of us. But you’re right about “most.” This is a much bigger story when the lens is turned around: WHO is pushing this vendetta against a small magazine and a lowly private?
Hart Williams
more at link.
Grover Gardner
Whew. That “Heather” snark. Too funny. But your resident troll needs to hit the mental Soloflex.
Bruce Moomaw
Peter Johnson: “With Frank Foer at the helm, every shred of journalistic credibility is gone. It’s sad, because TNR used to be a good magazine. It’s sad that the need to get more liberal subscribers turned them from principled supporters of the war to Krazed Krugmanite Kossacks.”
Which — yet again – naturally explains why Beauchamp’s first piece for TNR in February was gushingly pro-military. *sigh*
Pb
BruceR,
The question there being, are the interviewees happier that the army did name them, or that TNR didn’t name them…
Yes, and then the wingnuts in question were proudly celebrating that there was no such solider, and therefore, that TNR made the whole thing up (sound familiar?)! That’s because they are incapable of doing basic research. But no, Beauchamp had to stand by what he wrote, and therefore, blow his own cover, and subject himself to this ridiculous public grilling by incompetent partisan hacks.
harkin
TNR looks ridiculous by refusing to disclose the phone call in Sept where they talk Beauchamp out of talking to the WaPO and Newsweek. They claimed the ARMY was keeping him quiet.
If the transcripts Drudge released are accurate than it’s game over, TNR duped (almost willingly) once again and those defending Beauchamp with egg all over their faces.
The fact that so many are insisting that the outsome is still in doubt or (better yet) it ‘doesnt matter’ are hilarious.
Hart Williams
When I see a tank pointing its cannon at a cat, my first thought isn’t “What horrible thing did that cat do?”
No: my first thought is, What kind of idiot brings that kind of firepower to bear on a cat?
The New Republic’s circulation? 65,000. The author in question? A private, serving in combat.
But the editor, Franklin Foer, is the first American writer or editor I can recall being hounded BY NAME in this manner since Clifford Irving. Of course, Irving was a hoaxer who stood to make millions off a bogus best-seller.
And Foer, as editor of a magazine with a circulation of perhaps 65,000 is not pulling down as many dollars as he has readers, I can assure you. But why the sheer vindictive firepower brought to bear on him? (Butt Plug Bob Owens, now being lionized in the Rightie Blogosmear™ now is preaching “forgiveness” of Beauchamp, of giving him “a second chance.” (How magnanimous! He only wants the wings torn from ONE fly!)
Have you actually READ the three pieces in question?
So: what possible excuse by the Rightie Blogosmear™ for this exercise in McCarthyesque denunciation and personal destruction?
When I see a tank pointing at a cat, my first instinct is not to wonder what the cat had done to enrage the tank.