1 I gotta wonder if his one confirming soldier isn't Beauchamp himself.

2 Foer is lying simple as that.

The incidents could not have happened as we know.

It's "Fake but Accurate"

3

Who gives shit if he has "one confirming soldier"???  Until the "confirming" soldier identifies the disfigured woman that no one else has ever seen, can identify the skull wearer, the sight of the alleged childrens cemetery, and the dog -killing Bradley driver - there is still no factual evidence any of this ocurred.

From the sound of the Sgt denying the incidents, and others previously - my guess is the unit and/or individuals Thomas alleges committed these crimes are going to turn over every rock that moron pee'd on, and every hole he shit in before they are done with him.

The truth will out.

 

 

 

4 Nah, it can't just be Beauchamp-- Foer wouldn't claim that.  He's not suicidal.

It could be a buddy, it could be a guy giving a very lame "confirmation."

For example, someone sent me an email, supposedly from a soldier in Beauchamp's company, who claimed that he had not seen or heard any of what Beauchamp claimed, BUT that he also did not doubt it, because, he said, he sees crap like that all the time.

It also could be a solid witness, and beauchamp might be vindicated.

Still wouldn't vindicate Foer, though.

5 Bigger question.  Is this the way journalism truly works?  If it is why won't journalists publicly tell us that?  Is it that if they do it will reduce their power?  Are they afraid to give up thier juice as the world's most effective advertising agency?  Does guild trump truth?  It certainly seems to, doesn't it?

6 As for the woman--

Here's the thing.  The woman is the most repulsive episode, I think, but that was all Beauchamp -- Beauchamp was reporting HIS mockery of her, and his buddy's laughing at his cruel (and fucking LAME) jokes.

The confirmation could come from that buddy for the woman.

I guess people should just remember none of this stuff was ever disproven.  Doubts were cast upon it due to unliklihood.  But the unlikely does happen.

Did a guy manage to pull a quick right to kill a dog in his blindspot?  It's not likely, but it's also not *impossible,* and I think claims to that effect are overstated.

The investigation is ongoing; we'll soon know.

7

At this point I suspect the larger question deals with journalism itself.  What we have seen from TNR, what we have seen from the AP, what we have read from Ace's sources.  What was reported by Instapundit regarding his communications with a reporter... is that all true?  If it is the American public's preception of journalists, what they do, how they do it and why they do it is completely wrong.  Wrong because journalists have misled them.  The industry (left and right) cannot maintain any crediblity about anything else and continue with that deception.  At least, it shouldn't.

8 Would someone, preferably a journalist, argue otherwise?

9 (owing, as he says, partly to his marriage to a TNR staffer)

No, owing to her magic Va-jay-jay that bestows truthiness on all that enter.

10 I mean that.  I want to hear the other side to this.  The side that doesn't involve wrapping onself in the first amendment, claiming infallibility and caling the rest of us facists.

11 Here's the thing.  The woman is the most repulsive episode, I think, but that was all Beauchamp -- Beauchamp was reporting HIS mockery of her, and his buddy's laughing at his cruel (and fucking LAME) jokes.

You have to wonder why one, he would be such an ass, two, why he would report it, and three, why his wife would allow him to report it. Then again, he was engaged to two women at the same time and his wife had to know about it.

12 At least one soldier in the unit had already confirmed the events described, Mr. Foer said

I wonder if that confirmation is similar the one in which the discovery of a children's cemetery was confirmation of a Saddam era mass grave. Perhaps at least one soldier has confirmed that a dog was indeed run over by a Bradley or that a woman was made fun of. Apparently, given that the discovery of the cemetery is accepted in some quarters as proof that Beauchamp's description of the behavior at the supposed mass grave was accurate, such confirmation will be accepted as vindication by some.

13 Yea, I heard about all that shit...

...from Beauchamp.

14

Look, this is important, and as entertaining as pointing out Beachump's repulsiveness might be, it doesn't go to the main question, one journalists, on the right and the left are stonewalling furiously.  Is journalism simply advettising with delusions of granduer?  Have the delusions (the media's fact checking and objectivity) been sold to the rest of us dishonestly?  Are journalists simply selling us their political point of view (or the politcal point of view of thier employer) as opposed to soap.

Beachump's allegations true or not change nothing about the soldiers in Iraq.  their courage and professionalism are the greatest the world has ever seen, and even if Beachump's is telling the unadulterated truth he will still be an ass and the TNR will still be sleazy beyond words in its methods and its performance.

The question is this, is the TNR performing within industry standards.  If it is, the industry is not what it makes itself out to be.  For it is obvious beyond words that Beachump was hired to report on specific way and one specific way only.

15

..."in a million-man military you're going to have your fair share of psychopaths, criminals, and general assholes....

Ace - Your statement is slightly inaccurate in that a lot of psychopaths, criminals and general assholes would LIKE to be in the military, but can't get in.  The military has less than it's fair share.

The Army has standards, and the real freaks can't qualify.  That's just another myth spread by the left..... that the military are the dregs of society. You know what they think:

 "Not much call for baby killers in the general economy, but there's always the military if you like that sort of thing" (he,he,he)

This isn't to say that nuts and psychos don't exist, but there are not as many as in the general American population.  Statistically speaking, significantly less. .

I was in for five years, so I like to think I can speak with a little perspective on this.  The real crackpots never get in, and the edgy crackpots get tossed out - and go home to become KOS posters......

 

 

 

16 We contnue to allow journalists to stonewall us on this issue at our own peril and at the the peril of our nantion.  We are at a critical and dangerous time.  If all the reporting we receive from the war, and everywhere else is designed to bring us to deciisons that represent the reporter's point of view, and if reporters are picked upon their willingness and facility in creating those decisions in the public we (the decision makers) need to know it.  and we need to know it now.  Beachunmp's allegations are a side show.  a way for journalists, I suspect, to stir partisan passions, without allowing any sun light to shine upon the things they do.

17 I disagree with you about the possibility that these rip-roaring tales of his can be confirmed. The stories are bogus because they are impossible. If Beauchamp wrote about visiting Jupiter, it wouldn't matter who else "confirmed" it, it would still be fiction.

There was never a dog sliced clean in half by a Bradley tread, because that's impossible.

There was never a mass grave by COP Ellis that he and his buddies found and nobody else noticed, because that's impossible.

He didn't find square-shaped Glock bullets in Iraq or anywhere else on earth, because that's impossible.

He didn't see a burned-up woman every day at mealtimes, whom nobody else ever saw, because that's impossible.

The "fact-checking" is over before it starts. I guess it might bolster the case against him to ask a hundred guys if they ever saw these impossible things happen, but it really isn't necessary. His columns are false a priori.

18

I would love to hear how a journalist feels about all this, even anonymously.

19 As far as I'm concerned in L'Affaire de Beauchamp,  the only fact checking that will be credible is that which is done by the military investigators.  Beauchamp can't not answer their questions. So, if he can't supply information to verify his accounts, they are untrue.

Any guesstimates as to how long it will take the Army to conclude their investigation?

20 Is there a journalists ( on the left or the right) with any input on this at all?

21 As Ace points out, the 'burned woman' episode is Beauchamp ratting himself out as a complete dick. Do I think this man is capable of being a complete dick? I do. It also seems obvious he is nothing like a typical soldier, so this self-report -- in the wider context of how he wants to portray his peers -- means dick.

The other two incidents...well, I'm guessing somebody's pressing Pvt B real hard right now to name him some names...

22 Remember, the burned up woman was wearing a tan uniform, sitting right next to them, and he couldn't tell if she was civlian or military. Impossible! The whole point of the uniform is to identify clearly one from the other. It is a violation of the Geneva Convention otherwise, and even if what he said were true, if she were military he ran the danger of offending a superior officer. It's almost as if he said he couldn't tell if she were military or civilian as a hedge to make his story more difficult to prove to disprove. Scratch that. It's exactly as if.

23

...I don't think two more weeks or months, in which TNR fact checked their source, would have ruined the news value of Beauchamps diary. TNR didn't factcheck because : 1. It was what they expected was going on. 2. Nepotism of the Plame kind. 3.  They couldn't imagine anyone would take this seriously enough to question the truth of it.

  It takes most folks years to develop healthy, probing skepticism. Most don't. TNR hasn't.

24  The stories are bogus because they are impossible. - Sean Gleason

I agree the stories are impossible as Beauchamp has presented them, but I expect their "confirmation" to come by way of soldiers confirming the "grain of truth" scenarios I mentioned before. Then we'll all be told to shut up because we've been proven wrong. Just as we've supposedly been proven wrong because Beauchamp exists or because the children's cemetery was found.

25 >>>There was never a dog sliced clean in half by a Bradley tread, because that's impossible.

I still think it's very unlikely, not "impossible."  As for spotting issues, who knows, he could have had a buddy telling him "Pull right."

>>>There was never a mass grave by COP Ellis that he and his buddies found and nobody else noticed, because that's impossible.

His defenders say, correctly, he never actually used the words "mass grave."  He strongly implied it by saying "an old dumping ground from the Saddam era," which is a virtual synonym, but he can claim, correctly, he didn't say mass grave.

This is a pretty big one as far as dishonesty.  I think it's pretty obvious he knew what he was digging in was just a cemetery, but that's not juicy enough; hell, we have cemeteries back home, right?  To give it that patented Beauchamp War Journal flavor, a cemetery becomes "an old dumping ground from the Saddam era." 

This is a hard one to actually make stick, though, because he can argue it's all just semantics and well, what is a cemetery but a "dumping ground" for corpses, yannow?

I think it's a case of intentional dishonesty, but good luck trying to make that stick and hang him with it.

>>>He didn't find square-shaped Glock bullets in Iraq or anywhere else on earth, because that's impossible.

He or his editor seem to have gotten the nomenclature wrong on this; he seems to have meant "dimpled with a square firing-pin indentation."  His goofy terminology suggests either he really doesn't know what he's talking about or was unable to express it to his editor.  This one I think is a lost cause.

His claim that the Glock ammo proves the Iraqi cops did it is silly, but that is not an error of fact, but a stretched to the limit conclusion, so he'll skate on that.

>>>He didn't see a burned-up woman every day at mealtimes, whom nobody else ever saw, because that's impossible.

Foer said he "confirmed the woman."  I don't know what that means, exactly, but we'll have to see.  But I don't think it's the case that "nobody else ever saw' -- I don't remember reading such a sweeping statement, and I'm not sure how anyone could make it confidently.

It seems unlikely that a woman who should be a medical evacuation is still eating lunch every day at a FOB -- why isn't she back in the rear areas or in the Green Zone; hell, why isn't she at Ramstein or an American hospital? -- but who knows?  This is another one that is unlikely, but unlikely is not the same as outright impossible.

And Foer says he "confirmed the woman."  What he means I do not know.

I'd be curious if Beauchamp actually saw this woman convolescing in GERMANY, but switched her location to FOB Falcon.  But how Foer could then claim he "confirmed the woman" eludes me.

26 It's not merely blanket skepticism. It's that this is exactly how TNR believes soldiers behave. They have too many preconceptions and don't know enough soldiers to have any other opinion. Haven't they been shocked at the furore this made among military people?

See, they understand that soldiers can behave in a way that would shock some civilians. So they're not getting why the tone and tenor of these particular allegations seems off.

27 A small magazine such as TNR, he said, has neither the resources or even the inclination to actually "fact-check" as most would understand that term to mean.

Right, and this is why  the quantity of "fact checking", however it's done, is not nearly so important as ideological diversity among the editors.  If TNR had even one conservative editor with input into their decision process, none of Beauchamp's fabulations would have made it into print.

28 Yo ace.

"And while that will mean we owe Beauchamp an apology"

From you, perhaps, but from me if Beauchamp is NOT lying, then he deserves even less of an apology and more of an ass-whooping. He would then be, admittedly, a sadistic asshat who went to Iraq merely to bolster himself and while there acted cruelly and inhumanely, all so he could project his own inhumanity on the rest of the troops.

29 It just seems that this Beachump character, considering his past, and his past writings, was hired to tell a particular story in a particular way.  Ace, did the journalist guy that told you to grow up comment on that?  Is that the way these things are supposed to work?

30 I'd be curious if Beauchamp actually saw this woman convolescing in GERMANY, but switched her location to FOB Falcon.  But how Foer could then claim he "confirmed the woman" eludes me.

To me it is unclear where he and Reeves were married. If they were married in Germany, maybe the wife is the confirmation. Makes it even creepier, though.

31 >>>It's that this is exactly how TNR believes soldiers behave.

Ironically, it is proof of exactly how ONE soldier behaves -- Scott Beauchamp himself.

Beauchamp was so super-psyched about the metanarrative of the miltiary turning ordinary men into monsters he rushed the process along and became a monster before he ever made it out of basic training.

It has to be noted:  This guy, from what we can tell, was not in combat or in too many dangerous missions.  (Every mission in Iraq is dangerous, of course, but I'm speaking relatively-- if he faced a lot of combat and shelling we'd have heard about it, I trust.)

And yet these not-terribly-soul-tearing experiences turned him into the sort of man, by his own claim, who would cruelly mock a horribly disfigured woman to her fucking melted face.

If I suffered some horribly traumatic PSTD I guess I could lose a good deal of my empathy and do such a thing.

But what PSTD did Beauchamp suffer to mitigate this senseless cruelty and heartlessness?  Do rejection letters from poetry reviews cause shell-shock?

32 PTSD I mean.

33 I guess what I'm wondering is this.  Are reporters hired because of their politcal leanings as opposed to in spite of them?

34 As opposed to an disturbed and imaginative asshat who went to Iraq merely to bolster himself by projecting his imaginations about what other military people are like on to them.

35

CJ Burch

 A good starting point would be to take everything a journo tells you with a grain of salt.My personal opinion is that 90% of them are scum of the earth Liberals,and we all know libs have no problem lying.

 Oh,and I have plenty of un named sources to back me up on that. 

36 I take my posts back. Regardless of the truth, Beauchamp is an asshat who deserves nothing good.        

37

Tim,

I hear you, brother.  But all of them aren't liberals.  Do we believe those who aren't at face value because they are on our "side" and speak to our market share?  In that case Ace should have listened to Jpod and shut this whole enquiry down.  In that case Rich Lowry was right in helping pull the AP's fat out of the fire during the Jamil Husein dust up.

It seems to me that there is something very wrong with a profession where one's truthfulness and marketability are controlled not by their work but by their political leanings and who their writing pleases.

In fiction that would be fine...in non fiction, not so much.

38

Beau don't rate an apology, and I beat bryan to the punch by almost a full day in your comments section whith why this is a big story, and also why you are wrong for ever thinking beau might deserve an apology, he might deserve a correction, but not an apology, he was the creater of one story, and by his own words a participant in two others, as well as a bad fucking soldier in all of them for never reporting any of them.

Not an apology, but maybe a correction.

Also, I still say the "burn victim" and the dancing yarmulke guy are complete bullshit.  The others can be "no shit" stories that he conflated, but scott specificaly placed himself in the setting of those other two.

39

And is the fact that the TNR sprinted to the NYT with this latest bit of news more evidence that journalism is simply politcs without the rules against soft money?

By the way, it would also be interesting to figure out who wrote this latest article at the NYT about the TNR.  Is it the same reporters whose quote of Foer kept magically changing?

40

And foer is a bad American for not having contacted scott's chain of command for confirmation or at least a request for investigation based on a coming article, as well as for obvious violations of the UCMJ.

Foer is a BAD AMERICAN!

You can publish that Vandenheuvel.

41 "very little is checked in the media at all. If a reporter says it, it's presumed true. No checking. If a reporter's source says it, it's presumed true, at least if the reporter presumes it true."

This plus an political bias built into most of the MSM editors and reporters means they are running disinformation operations not news reporting. It could even be called a "Double Cross" as if you believe what they report it leads you astray, disbelieve all they report and you then led into a wilderness where truth is impossible to find. At least it used to be like that. Now there are the blogs but that requires a lot more work to establish what happened. Almost like having to have a  trial  to determine every fact.

42

"...they are running disinformation operations not news reporting."

That's what I'm getting at Geoffb.  You've cut to the chase better than I ever could.  Is this the way the industry really works?  If it is how does it benefit the Republic at all?  Isn't it simply a tool of  whatever politcal party or NGO the editors in question happen to be feeling sympathetic too? 

43 Well I'd owe him an apology for calling him a liar.

If he's telling the truth, he's a malicious, heartless bastard, and I wouldn't owe him an apology on that score.  But then I haven't made that case strongly, as I believe that he's lying.

44 And are reporters hired and assigned based on the disinformation they are known to spew?  Or more likely, can reporters figure, by observing the powers that be, what disinformation will get them stories, raises and bonuses?

45

"""And while that will mean we owe Beauchamp an apology"""

I highly doubt this second secret source can confirm that Glocks have square casings or that only Iraqi police carry Glocks. 

I also highly doubt that this guy can confirm a women, long after sustaining an injury is walking around with melted hair on her head.  One would think the hair would be cut-off and removed during surgery, but hey, if they could get a picture of the melted hair, I am willing to believe.

"Or, rather, it had more or less melted, along with all the hair on that side of her head."

Or this:  ""she sat down next to us", " freak behind us!" and ""I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.""

I highly doubt he can explain how this ghost women managed to sit NEXT to them, and BEHIND them, and he could see her eyes and mouth from behind.

Then of course there's the magical dog that managed to have a 15" Bradley track run over him at top speed and he's still raising his head smiling.

And then there's the Saddam era corpse that still has tissue on it.

I'd love this second guy to come forward and sign up to being crazy and testify about all the shit his fellow soldiers did. 

46 Wouldn't the confiriming witness open himself up to disciplinary action, too. Beauchamp is facing charges for not reporting incidents of unmilitary behavior. The witness would have the same trouble. Somehow I don't think JAGs are going to be handing out immunity in this one.

47

To give it that patented Beauchamp War Journal flavor, a cemetery becomes "an old dumping ground from the Saddam era." 

I agree with Bill B. in that I suspect that there will be grains of truth in the stories so that some will try to claim they are true. But, Ace, when this idiot wrote about finding layers of personal belongings before finding bones...that's just not a cemetery. That requires such a degree of spinning that no one in their right mind would believe it.

 

48

"It has to be noted:  This guy, from what we can tell, was not in combat or in too many dangerous missions.  (Every mission in Iraq is dangerous, of course, but I'm speaking relatively-- if he faced a lot of combat and shelling we'd have heard about it, I trust.) "

 

Ace, I guarantee you this guy was the squad shitbird, and his platoon sergeant got him fapped out to every shitty detail there was.  Every unit has that guy who's only around maybe a week out of every month, because he gets fapped out for guard details, or police sgt, or chow hall details....etc etc.  When I was in Okinawa, there was one guy in our detachment who was actually with us maybe once every three or four months.  He got sent to the chow hall, to s-1, to s-4, to motor stables, and so on.  Beauchamp's writings actually remind me of this guy - a self-styled brilliant intellectual who was just too smart for the rest of us poor dumb assholes....except that we actually were useful to the mission, whereas he was a useless lump of shit who couldn't perform ANY aspect of his job without his corporal standing right there watching him. 

49

Its all kind of silly, he was basically forming his own Kurtz in the jungle meme with his stories.  He knew what he wanted to write and has only had difficulty getting the terminology right.  Its pretty simple, he wanted to paint the Iraqi army as killers, so he made up some gobbledygook about glocks.  But he really didn't get it right.  He wanted to show basic cruelty, and isn't animal cruelty a classic psychotic warning sign?  Oops, but his description defies logic and basic operationing parameters for armor in an urban environment.  He wanted to show how that cruelty expanded to insulting woman, so he created a pitiable creature, who somehow noone stood up for and, apparently, was never seen again.  If noone called him on it, he would continue to make shit up.

Also, maybe I am wrong, but didn't he write about cutting out a kid's tongue? 

Can someone whip up a simple time line?  When did he get in Iraq.  It would make autopsying his descent into madness easier.  Right, he was in country for 1 week when he decided that war had hellishly made him become a crazed man.  Its like John Kerry being in the Swift Boats for only 3 months, but managing to get hand selected for a secret mission to Cambodia on Christmas where he was shot at by drunk Buddhist monks while listening to Richard M Nixon on the radio.

Finally, what Barnes over on Amazon said is right, this guy writes too much like a MFA.  Additionally, his stories have almost no other flavor.  Not any stories about what the bad guys do.  He apparently never gave a candy bar to a young Iraqi.  He apparently hasn't shot his weapon in anger.  He only writes nihilistic, we are bad crap.

50

News is not news if it's reported two weeks later due to genuine, serious vetting and confirmation.

Sure it's news. Let's say a reporter learned -- to take a silly example -- that President Bush played poker with Rep. Pelosi yesterday during an unannounced meeting in the Oval Office. We didn't know that, so it's news whenever it is reported -- even two weeks later, two months later, or two decades later.

Of course, the news is probably more interesting -- and certainly more valuable to a newspaper or weekly magazine -- the sooner it is reported. So there is a tension between getting it right and getting it quick.

And there are a number of reasons why you might risk your credibility by reporting something without doing genuine, serious vetting and confirmation. One reason I can think of is the profit motive: Beauchamp's exclusive "reporting" close in time to the supposed events he describes may garner more readers for TNR. Another reason perhaps is that it fits TNR's predetermined narrative about what our soldiers are doing in Iraq.

Whatever the reason, it's sloppy journalism. Unfortunately, it seems to be a sloppiness that much of the media exhibits and that much of the public tolerates.

51

Grains of truth about the child cemetary?  Maybe a lucky break for STB.  But, still, he just makes stuff up.  If his timeline overlaps with the disinternment of the bodies, then good for him.  But likely story is he wasn't there.  It didn't happen, he just made it up.  And for real, double true, he never witnessed that behavior. 

So fine, why didn't he just get TNR to publish him as a fiction writer?  Apparently, there is no real difference.

52

Ah, I went to that link, The Foxhole.  Its amazing what happens if you don't whack a troll, the comments section is filled with one asshole just insulting everything.  Yeah, Tillman got killed by his squadmate because Tillie had insulted Jesus.  Damn Christians.  And on and on, just layers of crazy delicious craziness being cranked out by one or two posters.

Thank you Ace for bringing out the banning stick.

53 It isn't responsible news, to re-report a story that was already written after two weeks of vetting that followed, rather than preceded the publication of the "news" if the news outlet is only doing that vetting based on the fact that they have been called on their lies, and their faith in a shitty fiction writer as a serious journalist, only because that source (actually PAID JOURNALIST, he's not a source if you print him in full and give him a pseudonymous byline) happened to stick his dick in one of  your editers on a few occasions.

54 #35 Tim said,
"A good starting point would be to take everything a journo tells you with a grain of salt."

True but there is a problem of where do you go to find the truth. Just disbelieving what is reported leads into a hall of mirrors.

In intelligence work disbelieving a source can lead you a far astray as believing them, even if the source is bad. Somewhere there has to be a place where truth is to be found. The blogs can provide that if used well. They also can spin off into Lala Land faster than a speeding bullet so to say.

Multiple sources checked against each other and with no one afraid to say they were wrong is a way check things. Blogs do this well with their comments and links most of the time.

55 I think it's pretty obvious he knew what he was digging in was just a cemetery, but that's not juicy enough; hell, we have cemeteries back home, right?

Who is this Beauchamp clown and why is he giving us a bad name?

56

Wicked,

Agrred, but it sure seems that the profession works that way doesn't it? 

57

I've stuck my dick in doctors, I'm not a doctor, and none of their heads of medicine would have hiered me.

I've stuck my dick in nurses, I'm not a nurse, and none of their head nurses (heh) would have allowed me to be hiered.

I've stuck my dick in officers, and I still got court-martialed.

I've stuck my dick in teachers, doesn't make me a teacher.

Also, I've stuck my dick in a sock, and I'm not a sock.

...  Handkerchieves (not the ones with my monogram), not a handkerchief.

... Paper towels, I'm not a paper towel, not even brawney

... old T-shirts (lets not discuss that one, there are some bad "next day" stories that go along with that.

I've stuck my dick in investment bankers, System Admin's, A FUCKING ZOOLOGIST, a couple physicists, a post grad chemist, and I'm sure a bunch of other professions.

I don't work in any of those fields, and was never asked to work in those fields, because the reason I stuck my dick on those individuals is cuz I could, not because I was a worthy colleague.

58

I personaly think that that is the sort of good wickedpinto crazy I've been looking for to generate more posts at the hostages!!!!

Lets hope I find some more lighthearted references to create a hostage-o-lanche-linky whatever the fuck it is  

59

I'd also like to know why he wrote the Zombie Dogs piece in June 07 regarding events he claims happened to him the prior December.  I thought this was a diary.  I think pretty much every paragraph of that peiece is fabricated.

He's so dumb he even fogets that there next stop was supposed to be the Iraqi policestation (The whole point of the article was Iraqi Police had murdered someone due to a Clouseau type glue of a square bullet casing).

Yet he claims, they didn't talk again until they got back to base.

And Zombie Dogs that only eat brains...is this guy a 14 year old?  Or did he see Resident Evil too many times....

60 What truly and genuinely confuses me about this whole affair is why TNR would want to print these stories, let alone risk the paper's reputation (along with Foer's own career) by so  vigorously  defending them.  (Let's not forget, after all that Rather was criticized by the "independent" CBS investigation and ditched from the network largely for his zealous defense of the National Guard stories and his refusal to retract in the face of strong contradictory evidence.)

So what went through Foer's mind when he decided to print a story from a "reporter" which primarily focuses on that author's own depravity, inhumanity, and dereliction of duty? 

At best(?), TNR is giving venue and voice to a psychopath, and at worst(?) they are printing baldfaced lies, compromising the publication's credibilty.  How is the decision to print these stories a good editorial position?  And how is the vigorous defense of these stories wise in the long or short runs?

61

Poppy,

Remember this is the middle east, Dog's in general are not treated as a part of a pack.  I saw a dog approach a dead body once (a car accident) and though the dog didn't belong to the dead person, the dog sort walked a perimeter, and wimpered.

But that was in the US where Dog's understand and learn that Humans aren't just people who feed them, but are also caring members of the pack.  In the Mideast, dog's are filthy animals, so dogs that are roaming there, might be decending to scavenger like convenience, rather than reverting to their natural pack hunter mentality.

However, the story pretty much proves that little scotty likely never owned a dog, or has absolutely no issue with ignoring the taboo of allowing human remains to be defiled.

62

Nessuno?

Foer IS a bad American, I have no doubt about that.

Little Scotty Thomas IS a bad American, I have no doubt of that either.

I am curious as to what Beinart, the golden boy of TNR has to say, and he ain't said SHIT!

I think that THAT speaks quite strongly.

63

And while I disagree with beinart, I don't dislike him.  He seems to actualy want to be a serious person.

Not journalist, a serious PERSON!

64 >>>Ace, I guarantee you this guy was the squad shitbird, and his platoon sergeant got him fapped out to every shitty detail there was.  Every unit has that guy who's only around maybe a week out of every month, because he gets fapped out for guard details, or police sgt, or chow hall details....etc etc.

Radar,

Oh, I have no doubt.  His shitty attitude of overweening entitlement and juvenile persecution complexes suggest as much.

And let's not forget:  A year in a half in, he's a buck private.  And he had some college (and may be a graduate; not sure), so he has advantages in advancing. 

Apparently he WAS a private first class in the past, but now is a buck private again.

He came into the military to undermine it, and now he's pissed off even more at the military for not rewarding him for his efforts.

65 To paraphrase Mark Twain:  There are three type of Lies:  Lies, Dam Lie, and New Republic Lies

66

buck private

Is that phrase still in use?

Birds are for the DoN, I don't know what the Army calls them.

But, in another personal story I shared before, I gotta say one thing.

It's AMAZING! how quickly the birds are able to congregate into a single unit, If they can't find fellow birds, they find the little weak willed individuals (cuz birds aren't generaly weak willed, they are just lying hypocrites) usually fresh in service and they work to convert those individuals to the birds point of view.  It's not a lasting condition, but it's significant enough to explain why military just is as harsh as it is. 

"WTF!?!?!?! you mean he said I said? that? and I'm gonna lose rank, 6 months pay and be ostracized for the rest of my life?  FUCK!!!!!  No, it wasn't like that at ALL!!!"

Is how the bird associates tend to react.  I know, I was court-martialed (summary) and I wasn't a bird, but I screwed up, none of my friends, many of who testified against me, didn't change their story, but pretty much everyone who was "out to get me" (which isn't fair, but thats how I felt at the time) ALL of them did.

I had a 2 day summary court martial, it would have been more, if it wasn't for the fact that my witnesses didn't already offer up enough evidence against me     and 2 days, is a long time for a summary, it's called "summary" for a reason, for it to stretch two days because of accusers, is kinda funny, as long as you aren't the one about to spend a month in the brigg.

67 TNR gave the impression that ST was just some soldier serving in Iraq.  It never informed us that, oh yeah by the way, this soldier was less a veteran soldier than a veteran activist, a Deaniac in Baghdad.  TNR also failed to mention that he was "part of the family."  Instead, it let an air of mystery hang over the pseudonymous writer.  It was as though the manuscripts just appeared from the void, unsolicited.  These failures to disclose served multiple purposes, including the insulation of TNR from responsibility for the cruelty and criminality described in them.  They did not serve the purpose of informing the readers or giving them a valid frame for assessing the material.  Instead, TNR chose to hide information that many readers would have considered essential to understanding the stories.

Even piddly little magazines like TNR can demonstrate honesty about where they're coming from, and thus earn the trust of readers.  Just like the big media:  We trust that writers are trying to be objective - or at least we used to - and especially that a reporter with a huge conflict of interest will be taken off a story.  That didn't happen in this case, whatever else Franklin Foer tries to claim. 
 
I can't imagine why anyone would ever trust anything coming from TNR again, and every day that goes by without the editor admitting just how badly he screwed up - even apart from all questions about the factuality of the Shock Troops stories - makes it that much more unlikely that he and the publication will recover. 

68

I just finished watching Men of Honor, the true story of Carl Brashears.

Honor indeed.

Then here to read about this chump.

69

Actually we don't trust big media, cuz big media does the same thing.  The most prominent weekly Television magazine (other than all of the celbrity Vzines) is 60 minutes, and 60 Minutes did basicaly the same thing, with the whole Bush lied, f90's never flied, or whatever it was called Bullshit, as well as them offering cover defaming the swiftboaters, not "swiftboaters" cuz everyone who hated kerry was IN FACT a SWIFTBOATER, not a (QUOTE)Swiftboater(endquote) (really these fuckers make 6 figures a year, can't the realize that "quote unquote" is incorrect?  If you "un" something, then the first thing that is being "un"'d never happened it isn't "quote unquote" it is either "quote, end quote" or "quote close quote" though I think close quote is mostly used in the programing comunnity, not vocal language, I can't be sure, I don't have a degree, so I'm not driven by ideaology).

So did Dateline with their ninja exploding car, and I'm sure many others.

70 I fucking hate the media.

71

Apparently he WAS a private first class in the past, but now is a buck private again.

Do we know that for sure? I thought he claimed on his blog he was a higher rank, but that don't make it true. Maybe I missed something...

72 I don't get that "at least one" bit; one doesn't usually have to guesstimate on numbers when the number is one or two. Usually one can tell the difference between them.

C'mon, Ace, cut Front-page Frankie a little slack here.  You know the problem he has:  all "those people" look so much alike with their blotchy, unflattering clothing, floppy hats and big sunglasses.  Why the same guy could have talked to him five or six times just be leaving the room and coming back with a new nametag velcro'd on.

73

MamaAJ,

if he was or wasn't doesn't matter, his blog, dates back 2 years, and if you are a PVT after 2 years, you are a SIGNIFICANT fuck up, I know, I was a PVT after 19 months, of course I was a Cpl about 18 months after that.

74

There was one specific time after my particular and rather significant fuck-up (my court-martial) that I fucked up again.

I offended damn near everyone in the office, I was in the same room as all of the SNCOIC's but two, and actually one of those two was present and that other was the one I was pissed at.  I threw a tantrum, there's no other way to describe it, I was tickling the lines of respect until finaly I said "I'm sorry top, but I need a smoke!" and I was yelling (the story is actually VERY complicated, but that doesn't excuse my behaviour) My MsSgt said "yeah you better!" or something like that.

I wanted to walk out with a flourish, so I punched the plunger (double security on HQ and double security on the vault, this place held both)  I hit the plunger so hard (I just wanted a sound) that it flew back, I walked out and as soon as I was clear of the door, I heard the steel door FUCKING SLAM it was like being at an arty range.

I fucked up.

I didn't have a cigarette, I didn't really do anything just stand in a moments terror, then I 180'd and stood in front of the door, knowing that MsSgt was about to walk out that door and light my ass up.

He did, but he was surprised at my OBVIOUS contrition, Oh, he still shit on me, and promised me misery, but he KNEW, thats a rather satisfying moment in my mind.

Funny thing, when Top walked back in without me, the SNCO who pissed me off walked out, and was all nice, and we walked.

She withdrew the thing that pissed me off (it was a challenge (sorta, like I said things are complicated) to a medal recommendation, she forgot that all paperwork passed threw me, and it wasn't a recommendation for me, but for someone who I thought earned it)

I got a "too big for my britches" lecture, and a "I understand" lecture, and then a "don't you ever fucking do that again" lecture, and finaly, I got an "If you had only explained" lecture. 

That guy got a medal, and I spent about 2 months doing a bunch of manual labor, even while going through Marine of the month/quarter boards, and Meritorious boards.

I was a piece of shit for about 2 years (I wouldn't say piece of shit, but you know the mediun is reasonable) but I was the best for the next 2, the BEST!

That experience is one of the things that changed my life, just like the story that michael was eager to leap on when I praised DiT about how I knew a "exec" who actually knew his shit, and took a few moments to teach me the things he knew I should have already known.

75

I'd be curious if Beauchamp actually saw this woman convolescing in GERMANY, but switched her location to FOB Falcon

I don't know german topography or have a german road map, but I thought Schweinwert (spelling) was the medical base, since there is such a huge military contingent in the area.

Also burns, to the degree described wouldn't likely have been outpatient care even in germany, she would have ben stabilized and sent back to the states for reconstructive prep.

ONLY! thing along these lines (other than the one story I already shared) is when I would deliberately drive to the base hospital at two-nine and eat at the navy mess there.  It wasn't that there food was better, but they had unusual food, I was sick of chicken adoboe, and shicken kiev, and rice pilaff, I wanted something new, and the navy hospital at two-nine always delivered, not to mention unlimited refills.   SWEET!

Yeah, I at next to pregnant women who at as though a plate was a trough (no offense women who have been pregnant, but sometimes that IS what it looks like) and next to young teens who just kept eating deserts, and shit, and some burn victims (unfortunate accidents) some people with both arms in casts, spilling food all over themselves, sometimes, completely incapacitated people, who had junior navy corpsman feeding them, All fine, and no reaction.

If anyone DARED (as I mentioned) to MOCK any of these people in this particular "mess"/"chow" hall, that person offering mockery would have been quickly beaten to silence, if anyone in a Marine mess/chow hall, they would have been beaten to near death.

Where am I?

FUCKING WISER STOLE MY TENNIS BALL!!!

RUFF!

76

Look, I'm the last guy to look down on someone for slow promotions - I was a lance corporal for almost three years - but I never got busted down.  I was a)lazy and never did my MCIs....b)had a crappy rifle score - I went to the range four times as a Marine and never shot higher than a 29 (although I never unked either) ......c)was in an MOS with a rather high cutting score. 

 

The guy said he was a PFC in '06, which is an E-3 in the Army.  Then, he's a PV2?  He got at least one NJP in there somewhere.....

77 I've read enough.  What Beauchamp reported never happened.  Are people incapable of such things? Obviously not,  But I served in the armed forces, with no distinction, and our forces do not and would not behave as he describes.  There is plenty of black humor; this goes way past those boundaries. 

This is about trust in the ethos (ethoi?) of our warriors.  I've been with them.  I trust.  I'd trust them with my life and know their individual trust in each other runs as deep.  Even TNR staffers trust them with their lives; they just take it for granted.

Beauchamp's story is an adapted Vietnam cliche about unprepared people committing extreme acts under the pressure of war.  Bunk.  There were people in Vietnam who had no business being in uniform but who were drafted or (John Kerry, all your office) who crept in on terms they hoped would exclude them from the actual war.  We do not have that model anymore and have not for more than a generation.

Beauchamp is a bottom level fuck up that lots of us have seen before.  Probably every military force ever fielded has had its share.  His obvious failure to adapt to military culture is an indictment of the leniency of those over him.  Nothing more.  It took TNR to inflate his maladjustment and tendency to spin tales to the level of a credible accusation against our military.

The "credible" part of that accusation, though, comes from TNR.  They staked their believability on this when they put their name behind the story.

So this comes down to a credibility contest between TNR and our armed services about who we have in the field.  I trust the Army to be careful, thorough, and frustratingly judicious in sorting through Beauchamp's fantasies.  Even while it's honor bleeds during the process.  If TNR had a greater fraction of the Army's commitment to truth, I strongly believe this would not even be necessary.

I don't share the general sense of caution about this story.  I agree with those who pointed out that it can't be true, or in some cases is extremely improbable, based on the physical descriptions but not on the technical minutia.  I don't believe it's true because I've been a part of that culture.  It's not bullshit because of how armored vehicles handle or how helmets fit.  Those are just proofs.  It's bullshit because we could not have so many of our people acting so horrifically.  If you really believe in our people out there, those are the terms of the disagreement.

I'd trust those guys with my life.  Either I'm wrong about who defends us or TNR is not a voice anyone can trust.  If we put the question that way, does anyone think TNR will step up to the plate?

78 Here's John Kerry Jesse Macbeth Scott Thomas Beauchamp's command team:http://www.1-18in.2bct.1id.army.mil/commandteam.htm

That boy's in for a looooooooong weekend.

79 mamaJ -- it is literally impossible to still be a PV1 after two years; promotion is automatic unless you screw up.  OTOH, I was a 2LT for over 5 years, but I know exactly how that happened and I ain't talkin'... not even to Front Page Frankie Foer....

80

Radar?

If we could swap portions of experience, you would have left low ranked honorably, and I would have stayed in high ranked.

Funny how that shit happens.

81

TWENTY-FUCKING NINE!? in the black white range?

Dude, that fucking SUCKS!

Then again you didn't get court-martialed.

82

VRWC agent,

You put it down just right.

You TRUST! them not to do so, and if they ever had, how would you react?

ALL of these stories are performed openly in front of his entire unit.  Were you in that unit how would you react, if they violated that trust you offered them?

At LEAST you report to the chain, and Most common (marines and army specially the pounders) you would kick the shit out of them.

83 the "black white" thing is "good/bad" it was idealogical, not service based.  I consider all absolutes in "black and white" thats why I said "blackwhite" sorry about that.

84

Come on, has anyone read the Zombie dog tale.  They find a dead guy, that's been dead for sometime.  There's a pack of dogs running aound and fighting over eating the guys brain  OK, so this guy got shot in the head and the dogs are spending how long trying to eat a two pound brain?

And then, in the pitch dark, with the scene of mayhem and dogs.etc. some guy finds THE shell casing that solves the guys murder.  Gee, look a Square Glock shell casing belonging to the Iraqi Police who live just donw the block.  We could see them with optics (who calls them optics?)

This is just bad story telling from a ignorant kid.  These guys solved the murder

Lickety split and then were going to confront the Iraqi Police...but wait, I will just entirely ignore that part of the story about what happened with the Iraqi Police, we just went home.

If the guy wants me to believe his stories, write one that makes logical sense.

 

85

hahahaha....yeah, it does suck.  I chalked it up to naturally shaky hands.  I'm not kidding, my hands twitch a lot.  Part of why I believe it is because I shot lights-out from the 500 and on 300 rapid fire.....because in the prone, your elbows are on the ground and very steady.  My 200 slow fire was always terrible. 

 

But no, no court martial, no NJP.  One page 11, but they never gave it to me to sign, and as far as I know it just went away.

86 The best part about this mini outrage is that us patriots can actually fight back as the left tries to besmirch the military.  This is part of a narrative that needed to be stopped.  Its not enough to piss all over Bush, consign the fight to failure before its done, no, they also want to destroy the people who protect us.  This generation is capable of stopping them.

87 WP,

If someone had done those things, I would be reacting just like the Army would:  Isolate the SOB because he is not and never was part of a group that ultimately depends in trust and honor in the ranks to survive.  I was very much a REMF in a time when there was no hot war, but even I get this so I assume everyone who has ever worn the uniform does.  If this bitch we actually a part of my unit, he would be wise to thank God we were not as he had portrayed us: psychotic, unaccountable sadists with no sense of honor.  Gosh, among people like that who knows what would happen to the likes of a Beauchamp?

It's a strange and sad dissonance:  in civilian life the idea of honor as something immediate and compelling sounds almost medievally quaint; in uniform, it really is a life and death commitment. 

This guy would be a hero if he was telling the truth.  The sick bastards he identified would have no business in the company of real soldiers.  But I've known enough of our guys to give them a presumption of decency.  That their accuser is a maladjusted fuck up with grandiose delusions of literary greatness and no sense of the greatness of what he is actually (suppose to be ) contributing to just clinches something that never really needed confirmation in my mind.

Unlike a lot of folks, I'm not so sure there will be a "blanket party" in Beauchamp's future.  That kind of old-school attitude adjustment, like it or not, was always about bringing someone in line with the greater whole.  I doubt there is such a role for this embedded Tokyo Rose.

88 joeindc44, nice point.  Thank the intertubes.

89

Yeah us chickenhawks who served, us chickenhawks who were chased away buy politico's us chickhawks who served rather than taking J-school as the easy option (if you don't think it's the easy option you never saw the undergrad lineup for any science degree, especially engineers, really Mrs.Peel? why is the most controling major I could find Engineers?  people with SCIENCE degree's have it easier, thats just wierd) but yeah I dropped out.

Not because I couldn't hack university, but because I decided I should serve.  there are a lot of 1/liberal concept servicemembers in uniform.

90

VRWC,

I have been present when a woman (a bad one) in uniform looked for support by throwing her food at another Marine, the guy she just broke up with.

We didn't pick sides, but we seperated them, basicaly kicking them out of the chow hall (I don't know if Marines still do, but All Marines in my time (95-99, almost 2K, called it a chow hall, sometimes mess, if it was maintained by another service)

If That "chow hall" incident happened, and you say you are a remf VRWC, I'm WAY WAY WAY fucking Remf, WAY! Ask any Marine in the Know, 2881, is a totaly totaly POGUE MOS, and even US! 2881 pogues would have droped our forkes, and stood up if anyone DARED to act as *spittle flying in the inflection* PRIVATE! Beauchamp did, there would have been a significant issue, and to think that his unit would have backed him up (as sometimes happens in those sort of conflicts) is RETARDED as proven by his 1st Sgt.

91 Service first (in my case Marine), then unit.  Scotty Beau beret doesn't fit any of the options let alone the first two.

92

"He came into the military to undermine it, and now he's pissed off even more at the military for not rewarding him for his efforts."

 

Ace, this sort of thing is bugging me.  What makes you so certain about why he joined? Don't jump the gun, he may have joined because he wanted people to respect him.   

93 Actually, I do think that it is telling that Foer said he confirmed the woman.  While many see this as Beauchamp's worst show of depravity in some people's eyes (dogs rating lower and who cares about mass graves we know exist or that some Iraqi's private property was intentionally damaged), the potentially punishable offenses, like desecrating bodies, recklessly driving government equipment and purposefully destroying private property (that the military then has to pay for via civilian claims), are not going to have people running to the fore to verify since it would mean they either participated, were complicit or conspired to cover it up. 

That would require some false or incomplete reports by squad or platoon leaders as well.  That would mean many people's careers are damaged or over

Foer could grant them "anonymity", but that would hardly matter since that would mean it was someone in their unit and the boot would simply come down on them.

Mocking a burned woman?  Cruel and possibly punishable under some part of the UCMJ, but a good defense attorney would get that thrown out or knocked down to nothing and, as noted, it mostly implicates Beauchamp and the rest of his friends would get little more than a lecture on behavior, particularly if they were otherwise "good soldiers". 

I'll be surprised if the others incidents are corroborated outside of the military's investigation.

I will bet that this is not playing out at FOB Falcon exactly as some would believe.  There is probably animosity towards Beauchamp.  But, there is probably a lot of wondering about how this became such a big deal, why they are being hammered and finally, confirming their opinion that people back home just don't understand anything about being a soldier in a war zone.  In other words, I doubt we're being applauded for our efforts by those we believe we may be defending.

On the other hand, the question of why someone would put this incredibly bad writer on their payroll and print his "musings" is still an important question.  There are literally thousands of "diarists" in the war zone who, arguably, write better than this fellow.  Not all of their stuff is exciting.  Most of it is in true diarist form: the mundane broken by the occasional excitement.  Which also defines life in a war zone.  Why was Beauchamp's contrived writing chosen?

Did it fit some pre-conceived ideological or political narrative?  Or, was it simply that it was "edgy" and TNR's revenue was so bad they needed SOMETHING to get them readership (thus, revenue).  Edgy=subscriptions=revenue.  That it fit some narrative about what people think being a soldier and living in a war zone is like?  Simply a plus towards readership.

At the end of the day, TNR is a business.  While we are looking for some political or philosophical ideology that decided the choice, it may be the simplest motive was the money and Beauchamp's "musings" were the new content they thought would bring it in.  Add to that he was "easy" to find since he was married to a staffer and you have most of the story already.  The final issue, that they are ideologically compatible may, by Occam's Razor, simply be that they are married because they ran in the same circles and held the same ideals.  The same reason Reeves was chosen for her job at TNR.  Again, it may simply be about association rather than trying consciously or even subconsciously forward an agenda.  People of the same ideology do tend to associate more than with those that don't.

That it re-enforces the mythological history of the military since Vietnam?  Very few will even notice it because that is the accepted wisdom, even among those who may today believe that our Viet Nam vets were maligned or treated badly.  They experienced John Kerry and Lt. Calley after all, not to mention the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the young Vietnamese girl, badly burned, running down the road.  They have seen "Platoon", "Full Metal Jacket" and "Rambo".  While many understand that these are fictional pieces, they can't help but believe that there is at least a "kernel of truth" in these tellings.  Worse, when there are very few movies or books that actually contradict those images, or, at least, very few that are popular or well known, the mythology, not the facts, becomes the story.

Beauchamp's current writings begin that accepted story.  The dehumanized man who will one day come back changed, always ready to question his own actions and those around him having experienced the worst that man has to offer.  As noted, not only is his writing contrived, but he rushed, what may be, the only narrative anyone was trying to consciously adhere to.  He'd barely seen any action, if any at all.  He was a nobody and his experiences hardly seemed to fit the accepted wisdom that war changes people.  He had not really experienced war.  He simply seemed to show socio-pathic tendencies and painted those around him as such. 

That is not a good story, nor the accepted narrative in the general populace.  That contrivance may be why many jumped on Beauchamp's story beyond any questionable or possibly implausible scenarios that some would like "fact checked".  The story that The New Republic was trying to sell, the story that they believed best matched their subscribers' pre-conceived notions of man and war.  They couldn't even get that right.  That may be the most damning aspect of this entire fiasco.  This single event explains why the New Republic is still lingering at the bottom of the ranks of its peers.

It is the failure of The New Republic to effectively utilize the new media of citizen journalist coupled with the inability to properly identify the accepted wisdom or myth that defines modern man's beliefs on war.

Modern man no longer sees "glorious war", but that "war is hell".  Man no longer survives horrifying events to emerge triumphant.  Instead, he constantly questions his reasoning, his character and his actions, trying to make the best of the worst while maintaining his own personal integrity (something Beauchamp's stories were decidedly lacking), to emerge alive, but deeply scarred.  He no longer experiences greatness through adversity, but remains a damaged mediocrity. That is the accepted wisdom.  That is what people want to read, see and believe. 

While that may match the common man's experience, it has destroyed the concept that man can rise above himself and the events around him to greatness.  It has destroyed hope.  

In the end, that may be what we're fighting for.

94 25 >>>There was never a dog sliced clean in half by a Bradley tread, because that's impossible.

I still think it's very unlikely, not "impossible."  As for spotting issues, who knows, he could have had a buddy telling him "Pull right."

Sorry, Ace -- the tracks on a Bradley IFV are 21 inches across.  Ain't nothing getting sliced clean in half with that kinda blade.  Crushed to a gelatinous mass -- or a puddle, depending on the terrain -- sure.

Cut clean?  Impossible.

Further, how long is the biggest breed of dog  you can think of?  3 feet?  I doubt there is a non military dog nearly that big in a war zone.

95 VRWC is making great points, through and through.  Yeah, I served in a professional, all-volunteer Army with more than it's share of idiots, fuck-ups, and thugs.  That was in the late '90s, pre 9/11.  I've heard from more than one recruiter that almost all of the dirtbags, shirkers, tuition-hunters, etc. are gone; that today's military is the most professional and disciplined bunch of warriors a lot of lifers have ever seen.  THAT'S why I don't believe this Beauchamp hump; I do not believe an entire goddam company of riflemen would have rotted to the point where the shit in Scotty's stories is tolerated.

And the reporter's excuse that the media just can't check stories reeks of bullshit, too.  Think for one minute if a story surfaced that Barack Obama date raped a lobbyist it wouldn't get plenty of fucking vetting before any major media outlet ran with it (if they didn't kill it all together.)

96 To be fair, WP, my first "live fire" experience with Marines came a tech school when one of them confronted a non-marine for wearing a cammo pattern cap.  As I gathered from the Marine in question's diatribe, this was a sort of minor blasphemy.  What they would do breaking up spats and arguments, I can imagine.  Abusing a maimed woman?  I shudder.

My contact with Marines gives me a good idea of what the most honor-driven branch of the military might have done.  And based on my experience, the difference between how Army men (and women, to be PC, although give me a fuggin break) and other branches would have addressed that kind of abuse ... measure it in fractions of a second.  The idea that someone of superior rank to this mud sucker would not have ripped him to bits is absurd. 

If the rest of what Beauchamp reported were true, the guys I knew, Army or Marine or even Air Force (like me), would get behind him for reporting it 100%.  It just comes down to a basic sense of honor and what you and your brothers in arms exist to do.  I mean, geez, it's hard to really state how elemental all of this is.

97 Hey, Front Page Frankie!  This is how you do it right:

http://skippyslist.com/?page_id=3

98 Hmmm.

"at least one soldier"

Is this *including* or *excluding* Scott Beauchamp?

I'm asking because the quote doesn't exclude the possibility that Foer is including Beauchamp in the count of those confirming.

99 Hmmmm.

@ VRWC Agent

Considering that my very first introduction to my very first unit assignment consisted of a company-wide brawl* I'd suggest that violence would be involved.

*basically my new company, sans senior NCOs, decided that what they needed to blow off some pressure was to just have everyone let loose and just start beating the living hell out of one another.  Only rules I could discern were:

1. no weapons.
2. no serious wounding.
3. no throwing people out of the second floor windows.

Otherwise my introduction to my squad leader was when he exhorted me to just go set my seabag down and join in.

So yeah.  That SOB would be in serious trouble.

100 Hmmm.

Sorry.  I should have specified.  This was in a USMC infantry unit stateside in 1982.

101 Hmmm.

@ stoo

"Further, how long is the biggest breed of dog  you can think of?  3 feet?  I doubt there is a non military dog nearly that big in a war zone. "

Particularly since in Islam dogs are considered "unclean".  So how many big dogs can there be in Iraq when dogs are considered "unclean" to begin with by many Iraqis and there is a significant heat retention penalty to a big dog vs a small one along with a significant food-cost penalty for a big dog vs a small dog.

102 My apologies for that long comment.  I was not intending to leave the entire thing here.  It was supposed to be a partial with with a track back. guess I better learn better highlight and copy skills.  LOL

103

I don't know, I saw a few dogs in Iraq that looked to be decent sized from a distance.....

 

A 2881? Hah.....it doesn't get more pogue than a 5953!  The air wing of the air wing!!  

104

"Considering that my very first introduction to my very first unit assignment consisted of a company-wide brawl"

Was it called "Barnyard Christmas"?  

105 Beauchamp's mocking the burned woman story is BS.

Of course his wife will love it (I'm completely serious here), that sort of elitist woman loves guys who are socially cruel and have the thug-vibe to them. "Noble savage" and all that stuff. Heck a number of women will love that schtick.

HOWEVER:

1. An injured woman OR man would have been flown out of theater to the US, Germany, etc. as soon as possible.
2. Injured people in theater don't go back to active duty.
3. Rehab and surgery is generally done in the States.
4. The easy opportunity to be yourself a victim of an IED makes this extremely unlikely.

It's just crap, utter crap. Like "square" cartridge cases, "mass graves" and slicing dogs in half with Bradley vehicles or changing tires in sewage on a Humvee.

It's just nothing but made up stuff.

106

This sounds like BS to me, but maybe someone else can comment.  Beauchamp states:

"A roar of laughter broke out over the radio"

"I didn't see the third kill, but I heard about it over the radio. Everyone was laughing, nearly rolling with laughter.""

Now the only way this is possible is everyone having voice activated radios or everyone using their radios to communicate spontaneous laughter.  Souds like he's saying theirs an open channel everryone can hear on, which I am unfamiliar with.

Not sure how you 'roll' with laughter over the radio but apparently this guy loves the rolling, doubling over, folding in half laughter imagery because he uses like 5 times in one article.

107

THE DOG THAT DIDN'T BARK

Possibly the strangest thing about Beauchamps writings is in each article he makes comments meant to show how war makes American soldiers turn into monsters.  Yet, he has never described a single instance of anything closely resembling any combat.  He has not mentioned a single encouter with the enemy, no firefight, not even a stray bullet, nothing.  Has he ever been in any peril? Why is it not mentioned? Its like he could be in downtown Detroit, but that would probably be more dangerous.

One could believe that it is the water or the weather in Iraq that turns soldiers into uncaring, unfeeling monsters for all Beachamp has told us about any actual war fighting experience.  Just what drove Beachamp to be so mean to the scarred women?  What drove the driver to kill dogs?  Is it the old saying the its just 'showing up'

We never find out, its like they get boots on the ground and boom, their degenirate robots.  Just what made him this battlehardened creep he wants to potray when we haven't had a single battle?

108

The harrassment of the burned women makes no logical sense.  The guy is a bad writer.  Here we are supposed to believe we have a women who is tough enough to be in the middle of a war, at a FOB with maybe a dozen other women and a thousand male soldiers.  She's tough enough that she doesn't even wear a wig to cover her scarred head.

But then these punk privates make a disgusting remark and the poor litle girl goes running out the door.

I would think any women tough and mentally capable to be working with all these soldiers at a FOB isn't some dainty wall flower and would have promptly jacked up these idiots or called upon their seniors to bring them to account..

She sounds more like a shy freshmen in a college dining hall.

109 Reeves myspace page:  Link

110

The simple fact is that if TNR anf Foer REALLY wanted to hear from the troops, they could have set up a blog on their site years ago and requested veterans post comments on their service in Iraq, Afghan, etc.  All you need to do is give name, service, dates in theater, etc and then tell your stories. I am sure thousands of verteans, many now retired or out could have provided very franks assessments of what fighting a war is really like.

That would have been so much simplier and would have gotten so much more input.  Instead, the set up this secret deal with a private who barely had spent any time in country let alone in a combat zone.  Clearly this was meant to be written from a particular perspective (Liberal Dean support wanna be jounalist that is seeking credibility) which was kept secret from the readers.

111

I'm with the STB is lying crowd.

Foer's statement is phrased very oddly. He "had" confirmation from at least one soldier. Why the past perfect verb? Could he be referring to an alleged source that he already thought he had prior to publication? If so, his rigorous re-reporting hasn't produced squat.

In Foer's defense, he might have been misquoted, or he might have misspoke, or he might be lamely covering his ass.

I'll need first hand testimony from at least two eye witnesses before I believe his crap. Shouldn't be hard to find. According to STB, there were dozens of witnesses.

 

112 Hey I just want to thank all of you for a very good thread examining this issue.

As a long time reader I always knew you had it in you and this story brought it out.

Hell even WP with his posts made me feel like I had become a Priest sitting on the other side of the confessional booth wall. And I'm not even Catholic.

Just the depth of fact grabbing and cutting to the core here has been something to see.

It was a great expression of how all us vets really get it and know it would be real hard to translate that knowledge to the civilian part of the world we live in.

Ace rightly points out that just this story details ain't the whole bitch this issue is about.

It's more about the mindset and thinking of those that probably could care a rat's ass about this story and maybe even don't notice it's happening.

113

"And while that will mean we owe Beauchamp an apology, no apology will be owed to Foer or TNR, which should have fact-checked this all beforehand, not afterwards. "

Why would I owe an apology to a guy who, if he is not a liar, is a self-confessed psycho who commited criminal acts and failed to report criminal acts by  others, some of which (events involving Bradley driving) placed the lives of US Soldiers in grave and unnecesary danger?

I will believe that a Bradley track could grind up a dog - I do not believe that it could cut it cleanly in half so that both seperated ends still twitched.  I have, admittedly, never driven a Bradley - I was, however, a qualified M113 APC driver, with lots of stick time.  The M113 is smaller than the Brad, and its treads mangled things, they did not cut them.   I have no doubt that Brads in Beauchamp's unit hit things like walls, curbs and possibly even dogs -they might do so because they were dodging a bigger obstacle, because they were under fire, or even because of a moment of inattention by the driver.  Shit happens.  I cannot believe that a driver would deliberately and systematically do such things for kicks - risking the loss various protruding parts of the Brad, throwing a track and the wrath of his superiors.

 

114 Hey Holdfast,  Beauchamp has now clarified the Bradley story and says that the Bradley had run-flat treads so they weren't worried about running into anything.

115 Poppy - awesome! I wish I had me a set of those when I was trying to put my track back onto my M113.  Question, if you use the run-flats, can you still play track-pad golf?  : ))

116 Who did the fact checking when wingnut Michael Yon "reported" that al-Qaeda was eating the flesh of babies somewhere?

117 <i>This guy, who says he's a sergeant in the company, shouldn't be making statements either, but says Beauchamp is making it all up.</b>

But he supports the wingnut view that Americans would never, ever do what the soldier -- who is actually there and actually a soldier, wingnut declarations that he was an imposter or an art student notwithstanding -- says they did. Therefore, he MUST be telling the truth.

After all, the U.S. Army would never, ever lie about goings-on in the Iraq War, right? They'd never, say, murder Pat Tillman and then cover it all up. Nope. Not here. And if bad things were happening, <i>of course</i> the first sgt. in charge of the unit would just come right out there and disembowel himself for the wingnutosphere to see. Right-o!

118 [i]That would require some false or incomplete reports by squad or platoon leaders as well.[/i]

False or incomplete reports?! Why, such things would NEVER happen in the United States Army! No siree!

119 By the way, I notice that the wingnut site "Hot Air," which hosts Bryan Preston's screed, is closed for comments. Like most wingnut sites, it's afraid to post rebuttals. Keyboard warriors are such cowards!

120 The most telling part of your wingnuttery is at the end:

"That said, Bryan's point about the left's unceasing campaign against the military is well-taken, and it's little wonder that servicemen especially are determined that the Vietnam smears of "baby-killers" and "war-criminals" will not be allowed to stand this time around."

When, oh when, will you freaks realize that the United States lost the Vietnam War? It's over, and the other side won. The U.S. was there for 19 years and couldn't win. And we've lost Iraq in exactly the same way. Now swallow your pride and admit that you fucked up once again.

121

Jimmy:

Last 5 comments are all yours?  Jerk it on your own time, son.

122 Hmmm.

So are we all still waiting for TNR to come clean?

123 uprkalfs xrtpkcfms bclwz siboa tckdy ilhvqzwp toqvg

124 Useful site. Thanks!

125 ctriyhs cvspdw ucqnjla

126 amuqs zgjnq siojp rxsn

127 sbmwx fzngi

128 tpln dlkr

129 tdvo wlfux ajedl

130 gsoqi hsfcykq zhgtcwn vbiwpm

131 bmprne gskx eklh

132 tkmrw echr mvkp cgvw

133 qpdlwzy

134 gqeht ofbj

135 dtqaclz ezyr

136 ygem jpeatv

137 dfhbtj

138 isanbyv jearv prgbs nctbhe

139 aewuqld

140 ibjxn nrbj

141 bzmkor pzhbm

142 fbgcmqv

143 pygf fvsn fshtu efgo

144 cvjmi

145 mycrp

146 ljma zfaovb fygh

147 wlhtunk

148 dpmgyno

149 aflm ofrykh

150 ★莫道不消魂，帘卷西风，人比黄花瘦★ 塑料托盘 =>厦门塑料托盘，塑料托盘制造商，宁波塑料托盘，天津塑料托盘，北京塑料托盘。 仓储笼 =>仓储笼报价，苏州仓储笼，仓储笼诺恒，无锡仓储笼，广州仓储笼。 仓储货架 =>仓储货架厂，北京仓储货架，苏州仓储货架，无锡仓储货架，广州仓储货架。 货架厂 =>佛山货架厂，天津货架厂，成都货架厂，常熟货架厂，服装货架厂。 超市货架 =>超市货架尺寸，超市货架效果图，杭州超市货架，超市货架摆放，广州超市货架。
专业从事组合式仓储货架、建材超市及仓储式超市货架设计、制造、安装、调试的企业， 是国内最大的货架制造商之一。公司已承接近千座仓储货架(http://merryrack.cn.ec21.com)工程的设计、制造和安装。 ★鼠标好比爱情箭，上网一点胡乱窜★ 货架公司 =>无锡货架公司，杭州货架公司，苏州货架公司，超市货架公司，广州货架公司。 广州货架 =>广州货架厂，广州货架批发市场，广州货架公司，广州货架市场，广州货架制作。。 北京货架 =>北京货架批发市场，北京货架厂家，北京货架制作，北京货架价格，北京货架销售。 仓库货架 =>仓库货架厂，北京仓库货架，无锡仓库货架，深圳仓库货架，广州仓库货架。 南京货架 =>南京货架厂，南京货架网，南京货架公司，南京货架制造厂，南京货架价格。
塑料托盘. 南京麦瑞（塑料托盘）有限公司是国内专业从事（塑料托盘http://blog.hsw.cn/261491/viewspace-328795.html）集研发、生产、 销售、安装于一体的大规模企业之一。汇集国内（ 塑料托盘）制造业众多技术精英，所 ...

151 cyfrza

152 jcusdkf bfzxs

153 pzyw sjvhx

154 All about interracial sex
free kim possible sex comic
Free Online Sex Games Yeah
Kim Kardashian Sex Tape All Here
sex tube
Good horse sex
anime sex
asian sex
Sex Scene - Best Decisions
Pictures of brokeback mountain sex scene
" >
" >
" >
" >
" >

155 very short skirts
Pictures of watch my wife
All kinds of short skirt gallery
Cheapest coach handbags
Information about replica designer handbags
Gas Powered Scooters Here
Transparent Bikini Real
Bed In A Bag In Internet
Mother Of The Bride Dresses In The World
All kinds of download limewire pro free
" >
" >
" >
" >
" >

156 Nice rough sex
Pictures of forced sex
Greatest hentai sex
Shower Sex For Everybody
Indian Sex Yeah
beach sex
pinoy sex scandal
Humor N Sex Online
All kinds of teacher sex
Twilight Sex Photos
" >
" >
" >
" >
" >

157 Nice bdsm sex toy
Brilliant amateur anal sex
Brilliant anal sex porn
lesbian anal sex
Extreme Anal Sex For Everybody
Anal Sex Video Photos
Anal Sex Photo In Internet
Price of woman anal sex
Hard Anal Sex Here
Price of anal sex clip

158 Christian Debt Consolidation All Here
Unsecured Debt Consolidation Loans All Here
debt settlement
Debt Cures For You
Online Gambling Debts For Everybody
prepaid visa travel card
knock off designer purse
All about contour pillow travel

159 Greatest web cam sex
Discount interracial sex
All about her first anal sex
Lindsay Lohan Sex Tape Information
I like this keeley hazell sex tape
Knock Off Designer Purses Great
Fake Designer Purses Now
Replica Coach Purses Great
Now chanel purses
Real purse organizer
First no credit check student loans
Great insurance sample cancellation letter

160 leather shield for fire helmet
Freud In The World
state farm insurance augusta maine
Now daily free gallery movie sex
Joint Custody And Child Support Pictures
I like this lake of the torches casino
carlson wagonlit travel kingsford mi
harvard divinity school registrars office
bed and breakfast sioux ontario
Celebrity Gallery Movie Sex Here

161 as often as not, Very Short Skirts In The World
, :-(, Do you want bad credit student loans
, 31417, Knock Off Designer Purses In Internet
, 7319, Do you want knock off designer purses
, 21657, canadian national debt clock
, =-)), High Risk Personal Loans Online
, 3387, Cheap Cigarettes In Internet
, 8-PPP, Paris Hilton Sex Tape Now
, 008096, no credit check loans
, rhbpa,

162 ¥»¥Ã¥¯¥¹¥»¥Õ¥ì¥¢¥À¥ë¥È¥¨¥íSEXÉ÷¯¥ª¥Ê¥Ë¡¼½Ð²ñ¤¤¥¨¥í¥»¥Ã¥¯¥¹¥»¥Õ¥ì¥¨¥Ã¥Á½Ð²ñ¤¤½Ð²ñ¤¤¥»¥Ã¥¯¥¹ÁÇ¿Í¥¨¥Ã¥ÁµðÆý½Ï½÷½Ï½÷SEX½Ï½÷

163 comment6, fake coach purses
, =-[[, Bbw Sex Yeah
, qnixyc, Price of shemale sex
, , replica rolex watches
, dlzz, Information about her first anal sex
, mkvbad,

164 comment4, high risk personal loans
, arw, groping train
, 23873, debt settlement
, ezu, Good military loans
, 997, Pictures of no credit check student loans
, >:]],

165 comment5, Pamela Anderson Sex Tape For Everybody
, 8D, Great no credit check loans
, fyayt, super cheap airplane tickets
, 47107, Paris Hilton Sex Tape Now
, yjlkm, lindsay lohan sex tape
, %),

166 comment4, ray j sex tape
, 863785, Information about keeley hazell sex tape
, 9665, paris hilton sex tape
, 698, jenni rivera sex tape
, 29558, r kelly sex tape
, 8-],

167 comment2, ray j sex tape
, ohdu, keeley hazell sex tape
, ujql, paris hilton sex tape
, vet, Jenni Rivera Sex Tape In The World
, stt, r kelly sex tape
, %PP,

168 comment4, Bad Credit Student Loans - Best Decisions
, 457, chyna sex tape
, 07518, jessica simpson sex tape
, >:-P, Price of free erotic stories
, 47825, Cheapest knock off coach purses
, 19209,

169 comment5, pamela anderson sex tape
, 47884, kristin davis sex tape
, uew, Vanessa Hudgens Sex Tape Yeah
, >P, Great kim kardashian sex tape
, >:-[[[, noelia sex tape
, istcz,

170 comment2, adriana lima sex tape
, nbmo, Great cheap cigarettes
, 405, very short skirts
, =), Alyson Hannigan Sex Tape Pictures
, %-DD, Verne Troyer Sex Tape - Best Decisions
, 772,

171 comment3,

172 comment5, Pictures of pamela anderson sex tape
, :-(, Kristin Davis Sex Tape All Kinds
, 56098, kim kardashian sex tape
, 12142, Vanessa Hudgens Sex Tape Yeah
, hmawmm, noelia sex tape
, 330,

173 comment6,

174 comment1,

175 comment5, knock off coach purses
, 885, Cheapest noelia sex tape
, 30970, Cheapest lindsay lohan sex tape
, mtpzyc, Bad Credit Student Loans In Internet
, 791343, Do you want vanessa hudgens sex tape
, 563354,

176 comment3, Best groping train
, mke, pamela anderson sex tape
, 8(((, lindssay lohan sex tape
, 1795, kim kardashian sex tape
, ilb, Ray J Sex Tape Great
, ),

177 comment1, Kristin Davis Sex Tape Pictures
, 28184, Pamela Anderson Sex Tape For Everybody
, 3311, Kim Kardashian Sex Tape Real
, bzoflv, All about vanessa hudgens sex tape
, , Noelia Sex Tape In The World
, 97545,

178 Tod Converter,MTS Converter,MKV Converter,Mac DVD Copy,Clone DVD Mac

179 comment5, no credit check car loans
, dlt, All about consumer credit counseling
, %)), unsecured personal loans
, 7411, Good guaranteed online personal loans
, vfokq, need 5000 loan overnight
, 9783,

180 comment1, Do you want kristin davis sex tape
, msdw, Price of pamela anderson sex tape
, :O, Vanessa Hudgens Sex Tape For Everybody
, 9884, Kim Kardashian Sex Tape In Internet
, smf, All about noelia sex tape
, cubuyf,

181 comment6, Cheap Cigarettes Here
, 5643, Buy adriana lima sex tape
, %-OO, Greatest alyson hannigan sex tape
, %]]], very short skirts
, xngq, Verne Troyer Sex Tape Now
, %-(,

182 comment2, no credit check loans
, 60079, Free Erotic Stories Great
, =[, Knock Off Coach Purses Now
, =-], super cheap airplane tickets
, 8-]]], Bad Credit Student Loans Here
, azr,

183 comment3, Knock Off Coach Purses Real
, odcsm, ray j sex tape
, 54746, All about no credit check loans
, ffksn, aris_hilton">Buy paris hilton sex tape
, 8-))), Discount lindsay lohan sex tape
, 8-[,

184 comment6, Real fake coach purses
, hqfbh, pamela anderson sex tape
, 025095, Lindsay Lohan Sex Tape - Best Decisions
, emndu, Knock Off Designer Purses In Internet
, %-), R Kelly Sex Tape Photos
, 614882,

185 comment5, Nice no credit check student loans
, 01980, Transparent Bikini In The World
, 977, Do you want short skirt gallery
, =-), replica designer handbags
, kdpu, coach purses
, =-(,

186 Hi! DRCCaKIE

187 Good afternoon. Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. Help me! I can not find sites on the: Free adult dating rochester ny. I found only this - adult dating fling. Free uk adult dating reviews for the best uk adult dating sites. Dating sites and services provides you with the top list of the best online senior dating sites black dating sites gay dating sites adult dating sites. Best regards :-), Enrico from Romania.

188 Very nice site! [url=http://oieapxy.com/tyrxot/2.html]cheap cialis[/url]

189 Very nice site!

190 discounthair straighteners
ghd hair
chi hair straightener
ghd straighteners
chi straighteners
chi hair
chi hair iron
hair straighteners ghd
ghd hair straighteners
free shipping!

191 buy xenical online

192 It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.

193 discount Discount Boots
Womens UGG
UGG Shoes
UGG Australia
UGG UK
UGG USA
discount ugg boots
cheap ugg boots
air force 1 shoes
Nike air force
air force 1 mens
air force 1 boots
air force onefree shipping

194 buy air force 1 shoes
Nike air force
air force 1 mens
air force 1 boots
air force one
UGG Boots
UGG Australia
UGG Shoes
UGG Sale
Cheap UGG
mbt cheap
mbt sale
mbt uk
mbt shoes cheap
buy mbt shoes
shoes mbt saleform usa

195 Viagra Oral Jelly

196 buy Tamiflu

197 buy discount ugg shoes
cheap ugg shoes
cheap ugg
ugg rainier
buy ugg
ugg usa
discount ugg boots
ugg 5825
ugg shoes sale
ugg sundance
ugg shoes
cheap ugg boots
ugg 5815
ugg sale
ugg uk
ugg knightsbridge
womens ugg boots
ugg boots
ugg australia
ugg 5819free shipping

198 buy valium online

199 buy xanax online

200 paxil

201 zoloft side effects

202 tamiflu generic prescription

203 norvasc generic

204 Replica watches | soccer jersey supplier | Fake Cheap Rolex | Replica watches | Replica Cartier | Louis Vuitton Replica | Cartier Replica Watch | Wholesale Baume & Mercier Watch | TAG Heuer Watches | Jacob & Co Watches | Replica Richard Mille Watch | Fake Ulysse Nardin | Franck Muller Watches | Chopard Watch Replica | Hermes Replica Watch

205 soccer jersey wholesale | Fake Watches | soccer jersey wholesale | Replica watches | Replica watches | Montblanc Fake | Replica Cartier Watch | Panerai Replica Watches | Replica Daniel Roth Watch | Longines Replica Watch | Rolex Ladies Replica Watches | Gucci Replica Watches | Replica Tudor | Piaget Watches Replica | Fake Rolex Ladies Watches

206 generic plavix

207 replica soccer jersey | Replica Breitling Watches | Replica Rolex | Replica Watches | soccer jersey wholesale | Bedat & CO Watch | Movado Watch | Girard Perregaux Fake Watches | Wholesale Tissot Watch | TAG Heuer Watch | Wholesale Louis Vuitton Watch | Rolex Watch | IWC Watch Replica | Christian Dior Fake Watches | Fake Longines Watches

208 Replica Watches | soccer jersey supplier | soccer jersey wholesale | replica soccer jersey | Replica Cartier | Replica Rolex Watch | U-boat Fake Watch | Technomari Replica | Fake Patek Philippe Watch | Cartier Watch | Fake Piaget Watch | Tag Heuer Replica Watch | Hublot Replica Watch | Cartier Replica | Cheap Rolex Watches

209 prevacid generic

210 prilosec medication

211 cialis strips drug

212 levitra brand

213 buy viagra brand online

214 cheap viagra brand

215 buy levitra strips online

216 cheap viagra herbal