Don't Look Now . . .

. . . but amidst The Weekly Standard's huffing and puffing about how "Scott Thomas" couldn't possibly have come across a mass grave in a particular area of operations where he allegedly said he came across one (crucially, he didn't actually say that), they inadvertendly corroborated the story. Thomas said he and other soldiers found a bunch of skeletons during the construction of a combat outpost. One of the article's detractors concedes that "There was a children's cemetery unearthed while constructing a Combat Outpost (COP) in the farm land south of Baghdad International Airport" and then gets very insistent that it was no mass grave. The article, however, just said they found a bunch of bones and then speculated idly that it might have been a mass grave. Well, turns out it was a children's cemetary.

Meanwhile, the case that nobody could possibly have driven around in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle killing dogs seems to essentially come down to the fact that "This would violate standard operating procedure (SOP) and make the convoy more susceptible to attack." I don't, however, think anyone ever argued that killing dogs was SOP, the claim was that it happened. Surely the Standard is prepared to concede that SOP, though standard, is sometimes violated.

Comments

"Surely the Standard is prepared to concede that SOP, though standard, is sometimes violated."

Indeed. In other news, SOP is that President Bush's job is to enforce the laws that Congress passes, not to selectively ignore them via signing statemnts. But you never see the Weekly Standard complaining about THAT violation of SOP...

Posted by Frank Bruno | July 23, 2007 8:35 PM

Surely the Standard is prepared to concede that SOP, though standard, is sometimes violated.

not if it means the dirty liberals win a battle in the war for the internet.

Posted by Mike | July 23, 2007 8:35 PM

Except... TNR is the one claiming this stuff is real. If it is, they can produce a source. If they can't, then no one should take it seriously. Having anonymous sources who cite egregious behavior is like asking "so, have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

TNR should put up or shut up.

Posted by James Robertson | July 23, 2007 8:39 PM

The military has very little discipline right now. Hence the constant rape accusations, the overly high frag rates, and the refusal to hold anyone accountable for their actions. Is it any wonder this has happened? We allowed the officer corps to become corrupt, to be selected for political beliefs over strategic skill and leadership abilities.

Posted by Soullite | July 23, 2007 9:15 PM

Having anonymous sources who cite egregious behavior is like asking "so, have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

Well, have you, Red?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 23, 2007 9:23 PM

Having anonymous sources who cite egregious behavior is like asking "so, have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

which is why the Bush-fluffers were so reluctant to invade Iraq. documented evidence is paramount.

Posted by cleek | July 23, 2007 9:31 PM

Honestly, was anything in that article really so shocking? The stories related in the "Scott Thomas" piece included mocking a disfigured female soldier, desecrating a child's grave and killing dogs. None of this even measures up to the level of the numerous reports of rape and sexual assault in Iraq (both within the armed forces and of the Iraqi population), much less the stories of torture, rape, and murder from Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo. There have been many well-documented stories coming out over the last few years indicating American troops are far from saintly. Why has this one become the right wing obsession of the month? My only guess is that the wingnuts are jumping on this one because it's not coming from an investigative reporter with a secure job, but from an anonymous soldier who's chosen to remain anonymous. If the warbloggers can out him, he gets whatever punishment he's obviously trying to avoid; if they can't, they can claim he's a fraud.

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM

Is this a fact free zone?

"The military has very little discipline right now. Hence the constant rape accusations, the overly high frag rates, and the refusal to hold anyone accountable for their actions. Is it any wonder this has happened? We allowed the officer corps to become corrupt, to be selected for political beliefs over strategic skill and leadership abilities."

I'd love to see where the commenter gets the idea that any of that is happening.

Posted by James Robertson | July 23, 2007 9:50 PM

I would like to point out that in "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa", E.B Sledge, an enlisted Marine mortarman relates a story about how a 2nd Lieutenant used to cut the gold fillings out of the corpses of Japanese fallen soldiers and even went as far as to piss into the skull of a dead Japanese infantry man. Yes, Virginia, even The Greatest Generation was susceptible to such conduct. (This book is on the official Marine Corps reading list for corporals making sergeant, btw)http://www.usna.edu/Library/Marineread.html. That out of the way, to say that "The military has very little discipline right now" is unsubstantiated, fact free and way out of line.

Posted by calipygian | July 23, 2007 11:02 PM

The Weekly Standard can't "inadvertently corroborate" anything; they can't corroborate anything at all. They can only serve as an object lesson of a principle they do not believe. Which they do constantly.

Posted by calling all toasters | July 23, 2007 11:23 PM

"I'd love to see where the commenter gets the idea that any of that is happening."

I've heard of exactly one 'fragging' incident, which was really more of a military version of Sudden Jihad Syndrome: when the black Muslim soldier Mark Fidel Cools killed a few officers in Kuwait in 2003.

Posted by Fred | July 24, 2007 12:41 AM

I've heard of exactly one 'fragging' incident

Here's another, found after approximately 20 seconds with the Googles. Still, the fragger appears to be of that other group of people who stand in for jihadists among the nativist dumbfuck constituency.

But the presumption that a fragging requires a death is probably off-base.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 24, 2007 1:51 AM

As far as swerving to hit dogs is concerned, what do you expect when the standard orders for convoys is to not stop unless absolutely necessary? This has led to many instances of convoys running over Iraqi vehicles and pedestrians that get in their way. See for instance, this quote from a soldier:

"It's like very barren desert, so most of the people that live there, they're nomadic or they live in just little villages and have, like, camels and goats and stuff," she recalled. "There was then a little boy--I would say he was about 10 because we didn't see the accident; we responded to it with the investigative team--a little Iraqi boy and he was crossing the highway with his, with three donkeys. A military convoy, transportation convoy driving north, hit him and the donkeys and killed all of them. When we got there, there were the dead donkeys and there was a little boy on the side of the road.

"We saw him there and, you know, we were upset because the convoy didn't even stop," she said. "They really, judging by the skid marks, they hardly even slowed down. But, I mean, that's basically--basically, your order is that you never stop." (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges/6)

If this can happen, what's to stop a soldier from taking a vicarious swipe at a mere animal?

I know people personally who have spent weeks of their deployments killing dogs that were on American FOBs in Iraq. I also know people who had more or less adopted dogs who were subsequently killed by American forces. I've got a cat in my office here in Baghdad and we have to hide him when outside people come to visit because of the standing order not to allow pets.

Posted by Decline and Fall | July 24, 2007 5:21 AM

The Weekly Standard has also corroborated an assertion in an earlier Scott Thomas article where he mentioned identifying a shell casing as having come from a Glock pistol because of its "square back." It turns out that the Glock firing pin leaves a rectangular mark on the bullet casing while most other guns leave a circular firing pin impression. The Standard reports that "this unusual characteristic allows one to preliminarily identify spent brass as having been fired from a Glock pistol."

Posted by Ragout | July 24, 2007 7:50 AM

I don't know about dogs, but a former soldier in Iraq told me a story about killing cats. Apparently they were eating corpses and spreading disease. She said they made a game of it. Go figure.

Posted by Tim | July 24, 2007 9:25 AM

Posted by Soullite | July 23, 2007 9:15 PM:"The military has very little discipline right now. Hence the constant rape accusations, the overly high frag rates, and the refusal to hold anyone accountable for their actions. Is it any wonder this has happened? We allowed the officer corps to become corrupt, to be selected for political beliefs over strategic skill and leadership abilities."

Sorry but what is the evidence for this claims? There are some claims of rape - but perhaps that has a lot more to do with the prejudices and agendas of the MSM than the soldiers in Iraq. Overly high frag rates? There have been two that anyone here has come up with. The peak rate of fragging in Vietnam was about 1.8 per 1000 soldiers according to the link someone else provided above. There are 150,000 or so soldiers in Iraq. If rates are so high, why aren't we getting 270 of them a year? No one accountable? You mean that no one went to jail for AG? As for the officer corp, well, what are you talking about?

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"Honestly, was anything in that article really so shocking?"

That the MSM could so defame ordinary Americans with so little evidence was so shocking to me. I wouldn't treat a dog that way.

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"The stories related in the "Scott Thomas" piece included mocking a disfigured female soldier,"

Nothing shocking there of course.

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"desecrating a child's grave and killing dogs."

And the child's remains remember.

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"None of this even measures up to the level of the numerous reports of rape and sexual assault in Iraq (both within the armed forces and of the Iraqi population), much less the stories of torture, rape, and murder from Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo."

There are no stories of Americans being involved in rape and murder in AG or Bagram - except those that have been retracted by the usual American soldier hating suspects. There are not numerous reports of rape and sexual assault in Iraq and when they are discovered, they are punished.

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"There have been many well-documented stories coming out over the last few years indicating American troops are far from saintly. Why has this one become the right wing obsession of the month?"

Actually the real story is how well behaved the American Army has been - I don't know of any other Army, certainly none in the region, that would have behaved as well. Despite the MSM's efforts to defame. There have been a few isolated cases which is not surprising considering the number of soldiers in Iraq. So what?

Posted by Christmas | July 23, 2007 9:38 PM:"but from an anonymous soldier who's chosen to remain anonymous."

I agree. The fact that the MSM would run obviously bogus stories that seem to have been invented by an English-speaking Jihadi is particularly offensive. What possible reason is there to think that these stories are true? AP gets caught out time and time again lying and inventing stories - not to mention employing Jihadis as the BBC does with members of Hamas - and yet there is still no benefit of the doubt given to the decent ordinary Americans in the Army. They must be psycho-killers because they are in uniform, right? That is particularly offensive. Look, if a Right Wing rag published an anonymous story allegedly from an anonymous member of Hillary Clinton's staff that said she was taking Colombian Drug cartel money, performing strange sex acts on minors of the female gender and was secretly in the pay of a vast conspiracy centered in the UN, would you buy it for two seconds? Yet I would suggest that story is a lot more credible than this one. Why do you all want to believe it?

Posted by HeiGou | July 24, 2007 12:09 PM

I don't buy the Bradley story, someone at the Weekly Standard noted that it would violated the SOP, yes, but it would also expose the crew to greater danger of roadside bombs. Driving your Bradley recklessly to hit dogs seems to me like something that would cross the threshold of endangering your fellow soldiers and would get a response from superiors.

And, hell, how easy can it be to swerve a tracked APC and hit a dog?

Heigou:
I'm sure the soldiers in Iraq appreciate being favorably compared to those juggernauts of discipline and military might, the Arab states. In other news, the U.S. is nicer to live in than Saudi Arabia. When do we have the parade?

Posted by witless chum | July 24, 2007 1:02 PM

American troops are more likely to adopt local dogs than run them over. Most Americans like dogs. It's a cultural thing (except perhaps ghetto blacks like Michael Vick).

Posted by Juan | July 24, 2007 1:51 PM

Who wants some nice Baked Iraq Pre-Teen?

Tastes like chicken!

Posted by Michael Yawn | July 24, 2007 7:44 PM

> Most Americans like dogs.

Yeah, so do Koreans, when properly prepared.

Posted by Ｔｏｋｙｏite | July 26, 2007 1:21 PM

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle's tank tracks are far too wide to have surgically bisected a dog in the way Thomas described, and it's said to be far too cumbersome a juggernaut to be used to swerve around abruptly smushing animals that are normally nimble.

That said, I'm guessing the majority of what Thomas wrote is accurate and no one should pay the slightest attention to lying, partisan hysterics like Malkin, Hewitt and their kind.

Posted by John-Paul Pagano | July 26, 2007 2:20 PM

So you are saying that calling a cemetery "...clearly a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort" to be an accurate depiction? Not at all embellished?

I call it purposefully misleading. If I had my choice, I'd prefer to be buried in a cemetery instead of a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort any day.

Posted by Kevin | July 26, 2007 7:21 PM

The most convincing argument against running down a dog in a Bradley is that from the driver's seat you cannot see the ground close enough to the vehicle to hit a live dog. And a dead one might hold an IED.

Posted by trashhauler | July 26, 2007 8:04 PM

Scott's style:
We went to visit Berkley, CA. We spent a few weeks seeing the sights, and, in the process, we did a lot of sight-seeing. At first, we found only normal people like buisnessmen and vacationers. Then we looked closer and found hippie signs: Peace symbols, tye-die, those sandal things. Like a strange return to 1967. No one cared to speculate what, exactly, had happened here, but it was clearly a Fascist-era concentration camp for old hippies of some sort. Corporations will never allow them to escape the Berkley gulag.

Truth:
We vacationed in Berkley. Nice place, but man, there are a LOT of hippies there!

Can you see the difference? We all can embellish stories(though I didn't - I stole Scott's words, only changing the names to protect the innocent). Journalists are not allowed to embellish. TNR should not have allowed this to occur.

Posted by Kevin | July 26, 2007 10:39 PM

Well, turns out it was a children's cemetary.

Don't they teach spelling at Harvard, Matt?

Posted by Dittohead Dummy | July 26, 2007 11:21 PM

"Then we looked closer and found hippie signs: "

You'd have to be blind to have to "look closer" before seeing "hippie signs" in Berkeley.

Posted by Sameer Parekh | July 27, 2007 7:59 AM

My 21 years in the Army and Army Reserve taught me that though they are often braver, more dedicated, and more patriotic than their civilian counterparts, Soldiers still come from a cross-section of the general public. In other words, there are some bad apples. There are some bullies and thugs that do cruel, if not evil, things. Pointing this out does not make the author a traitor or un-American. I believe his accounts, because they ring true with my own experiences. War is hideous and I wish all of the chicken-hawks who think otherwise would get off their cowardly butts and enlist so that some of these kids on their third and fourth tours could come home for awhile. Retired Veteran

Posted by DC | July 27, 2007 9:51 AM