Scott Thomas Revealed

As you may know, a little while back a soldier serving in Iraq writing under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" did a piece for TNR detailing the morally deadening aspects of wartime service in Iraq. The Weekly Standard and the conservative blogosphere whipped themselves into a frenzy wherein they convinced themselves that Thomas' story was bogus. In the course of doing so they accidentally confirmed a key detail -- Thomas unit did, just as he wrote, uncover a bunch of children's bones during the construction of a combat outpost.

The critics, however, managed to convince themselves that their discovery of this children's grave incident actually debunked Thomas' claim that he had found a mass grave even though his article didn't claim this. At the same time, the Standard was reduced to arguing that Thomas couldn't have witnesses soldiers using a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to kill dogs because -- ta da -- to do so would violate Army Standard Operating Procedure. Then they started making a big deal out of the idea that TNR editor Frank Foer labeled said he knew Thomas was a soldier with "near certainty" -- why not total certainty?

Well, now here he is -- his real name is Scott Thomas Beauchamp, he's a soldier, and as best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story. Needless to say, rather than spend some time reflecting on the fact-free zone the conservative press is trying to create, Jonah Goldberg is attacking Beauchamp while Mark Steyn argues that Jonah isn't attacking him viciously enough.

That's just crazy. All these people need to stop. They need to take a deep breath. They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense. And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq.

Comments

"as best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story"

Steyn and Goldberg seem to be very close to arguing that if what Beuchamp's told is true, he's such a horrible person that it's natural to think he's lying.

Posted by Sembtex | July 26, 2007 10:39 AM

. All these people need to stop. They need to take a deep breath. They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense. And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq.

Maybe you need to think about whether people on the other side are assholes who aren't worth engaging, even if they remember to bring beer.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 26, 2007 10:41 AM

What we have here is a classic demonstration of how people deal with cognitive dissonance-- time to re-read famous '50s sociological study 'When Prophecy Fails'.

Posted by MattF | July 26, 2007 10:47 AM

Apologize? Are you serious? Deceiving, distorting, slandering, shameless immoral rotters, do not apologize, they go right on deceiving and distorting.

Posted by Jennifer | July 26, 2007 10:50 AM

Taking a deep breath won't help, Matt, because these guys are creating precisely the situation they want to create. They are committed supporters of the war effort, and consequently believe in the necessity and appropriateness of wartime propaganda: Bad news should be suppressed; if suppression fails the bad news should be discredited; and if discrediting fails the messengers of the bad news should be denounced for spreading bad news and damaging morale.

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 26, 2007 10:51 AM

I don't know if its bad faith per se (although it may be). These people seem to be real life Cornelius Fudges (from the Harry Potter series). They've just decided to find bogey men rather than deal with the truth. They get more hostile as their crazy world view becomes more untenable.

Posted by Joe | July 26, 2007 10:54 AM

At the same time, the Standard was reduced to arguing that Thomas couldn't have witnesses soldiers using a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to kill dogs because -- ta da -- to do so would violate Army Standard Operating Procedure.

This is a very dishonest summary. A few people have made the point that killing dogs with a Bradley would violate SOP, but that's just a minor point -- you're completely ignoring the many major objections that show that Thomas's account is impossible. He has the Bradley driver swerving to the right to hit a dog, but you wouldn't be able to see a dog on the right side of the vehicle. Also, there's no way that the wide track of a Bradley could cut a dog in half and leave the rear half "twitching" (Thomas's word) and the head still "raised and smiling" (Thomas's words); instead, the dog would just be crushed.

* * * Well, now here he is -- his real name is Scott Thomas Beauchamp, he's a soldier, and as best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story.

What do you call the multiple witnesses who say that, at the camp in question, there was never any female contractor with a "half-melted" face? That's not a reason to be skeptical? Come on, Matt, you're smarter than this.

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 10:58 AM

Maybe you need to think about whether people on the other side are assholes who aren't worth engaging, even if they remember to bring beer.

Isn't this just another variant on "why do you bother responding to Jonah Goldberg"? The answer to which, of course, is that someone really ought to respond to the Jonah Goldbergs of the world - not to "engage with" them, but to put up a fight with them, so that their bile doesn't go uncontested.

As to the debacle in question, outing Scott Thomas is really what this has been about all along. Now Beauchamp gets to face the reprisals his anonymity was supposed to protect him from. The right wing has never cared about the truth; they only care about exacting revenge.

Posted by Christmas | July 26, 2007 10:59 AM

Chistmas, just because someone isn't worth "engaging," doesn't mean they will be ignored. I don't think Jonah should be ignored or engaged. He should be condemned.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 11:06 AM

What motive is TNR supposed to have had in publishing an allegedly fake article about Iraq? This isn't The Nation -- it's a publication that supported and, as best I can tell, still supports the war.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | July 26, 2007 11:09 AM

Personally, I congratulated the principled corner folks for bringing this "serious story!!!1!!11!" to our attention while not writing a single post in the last few days regarding Fredo Gonzales.

The Corner. Who has any doubts about what hacks these people are?

Posted by tomboy | July 26, 2007 11:18 AM

Chistmas, just because someone isn't worth "engaging," doesn't mean they will be ignored. I don't think Jonah should be ignored or engaged. He should be condemned.

Where are we disagreeing?

Posted by Christmas | July 26, 2007 11:22 AM

Where are we disagreeing?

I don't think we're disagreeing. I just think we can say, openly, that people like Jonah aren't worth engaging yet at the same time, this isn't mean the only other option is to ignore them.

I should have asked you where you're disagreeing with SomeCallMeTime.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 11:27 AM

That's the problem with poking fun at Goldberg: we lose sight of what a piece of garbage he is.

Posted by kth | July 26, 2007 11:28 AM

"As best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story."

Either Matthew has not been following this story at all, or he is deliberately lying. I can't tell which. But obviously, the statement of the officials onhis base specifically denying some of the story (such as about the woman), as well as the objections that some of the stories are physically impossible (such as the dog) would apply.

But the most ridiculous thing is the conclusion that be Thomas exists, we are supposed to believe everything he says. It is simply a continuation of the left wing belief that everything written that reflects poorly on the military simply MUST be true, and there is no need for any additional confirmation. It is no different that the "flushing the Koran down the toilet" episode, which, similarly, needed no confirmation because anything that makes the military look bad has got to be true.

These people have got to stop and take a deep breath. Maybe then they can come to the realization that our military isn't evil, and that there are people out there whose purpose is to make our military look evil just to support their political position.

Posted by Al | July 26, 2007 11:35 AM

Beauchamp claims, personally, to have viciously ridiculed a horribly scarred female burn victim and Yglesias thinks he shouldn’t be treated with scorn.

Oh, and please apologize right now to poor TNR, everyone knows that only Iraqi Police are the only ones in Iraq with Glocks.

The fact that this guy exists doesn’t confirm any of his tales “as far as I can tell.”

I’m outta here. Please carry on braying at the moon

Posted by GO | July 26, 2007 11:38 AM

He has the Bradley driver swerving to the right to hit a dog, but you wouldn't be able to see a dog on the right side of the vehicle.

total bullshit. i can't see my right front tire of my car when i'm driving, but i can surely get it to within a few inches of wherever i want it be. i can surely hit a dog, or a squirrel, with the tires on the right side of my car, just as easily as i can avoid a pothole, or get it lined-up with the lift at the fucking JiffyLube. i'm sure an average Bradley driver has more than enough experience to get a feel for how wide the thing is, and where the tracks are positioned on the road.

Also, there's no way that the wide track of a Bradley could cut a dog in half and leave the rear half "twitching" (Thomas's word) and the head still "raised and smiling" (Thomas's words); instead, the dog would just be crushed.

more bullshit. the tracks on a Bradley aren't wider than an average-sized dog is long. so unless the dog is lying in line with the direction of the treads, there's a good chance the head and hid legs will be un-touched by the treads.

idiots

Posted by cleek | July 26, 2007 11:40 AM

there are people out there whose purpose is to make our military look evil just to support their political position.

Marty Peretz: anti-military hippie.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 11:41 AM

Tomboy has it right--the right creates quite a dustup when the news cycle isn't favorable. The politics of distraction, I suppose. At least this debate is more substantive than the "damsel in distress" stories that we have seen the past few years.

This story will stick in the war supporter's craw for awhile. The semi-deification of the American soldier (and Marine) is crumbling. These dedicated, patriotic Americans are human and are subject to all the same stresses and strains that military members have faced since the beginning of warfare. American exceptionalism is threatened, and that threatens conservatism to its' core.

Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp is going to see some rough days ahead for telling the truth as he sees it.

Posted by danimal | July 26, 2007 11:42 AM

Just when I think Al has gone away, that lying fucktard shows his face again.

Let’s just take one of his lies, the Koran in the toilet story. Korans were, in fact, placed in toilets. This was done to humiliate and enrage prisoners. Now you either think that is unacceptable or you do not. Whether or not it happened, however, is not up for debate.

And please spare me the rejoinder that the Koran was merely place “in” a toilet, not flushed “down” the toilet. We all know that it makes not one damn bit of difference.

Posted by Mike | July 26, 2007 11:42 AM

The purpose of all these accusations of deception was to out the soldier. It was a win-win situation: if it was a real soldier and his story was true, they can obviously condemn him for his lack of character, and, otherwise, they could always blame TNR for being gullible at best, and anti-American at worst.

Clearly they have achieved their objective.

Posted by gregor | July 26, 2007 11:48 AM

Anyone who has even spent any amount of time around men in the 16-30 age group, with no women in the room, has seen men do things that are just as crass, stupid, and vulgar as anything Beauchamp describes. It isn't defamation of soldiers to describe this behavior. He might as well be describing a Sigma Chi party let loose on a war zone.

Christ, one of the sainted not-guilty-of-rape Duke lacrosse players, who were so staunchly defended by the same conservative loudmouths, made an equally sick rape-and-violence joke as Beauchamp apparently did. This type of shit is not rare, and it is not unique to the military. The outrage displayed by Steyn and Goldberg is so thoroughly fake as to be contemptible. It's just PC hypersensitivity of a different color.

It's entirely possible that Beauchamp has taken some literary license with the facts, which would be reprehensible. But the storm of outrage this article generated has very little to with the accuracy or inaccuracy of the reporting. It has to do with maintaining the politically convenient myth that American soldiers are more sainted and pure than other Americans and other countries' soldiers.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 26, 2007 11:48 AM

"That's just crazy. All these people need to stop. They need to take a deep breath. They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense. And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq. "

Matt, as we say in the software "biz" - That's a feature, not a bug.

Posted by Denny | July 26, 2007 11:50 AM

Way to go, Matt. It's about time someone made a ringing defense of mindless, uncritical credulity.

Posted by Jim | July 26, 2007 11:52 AM

He has the Bradley driver swerving to the right to hit a dog, but you wouldn't be able to see a dog on the right side of the vehicle.

Just to follow-up on cleek's comment, all I could think of when reading the above BS comment by John Doe was, "No wonder they keep getting blown-up by IEDs, the driver can't even see anything that's ON HIS RIGHT!" Then I pictured Bradley vehicle after Bradley vehicle surging into Baghdad and circling the city to make it safe. All the while making only left hand turns due to the Bradley's "right side" blindspot.

Seriously, it's not possible he saw the dog's position from a bit of a distance and made cleek's "Jiffy-Lube" guess as to the dog's postion?

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 11:53 AM

Gregor, you've got it. The purpose of this whole exercise was to send a message to our soldiers - if you publicly say anything at all critical about the war effort, even fairly trivial things in the big picture, then the right-wing noise machine will rain down shit upon you. They will not apologize to Pvt. Beauchamp, they will now persecute him. Somehow the Jonah and Mark Steyns of the world need to be stopped.

Posted by vanya | July 26, 2007 11:54 AM

This episode reminds me of the 90s.

Conservatives spent a decade throwing around wild charges against the Clintons. The wild charges would lead to congressional and independent counsel investigations. Many years and millions would be spent in witchunts investigating the wild charges. Nothing would be found. This would lead to conservatives saying well of course nothing was found because the Clintons had destroyed evidence, covered up, disposed of the body etc. etc.

Of course the whole point to the wild charges was not to get some wrongdoing investigated but to create an atmosphere of distrust, hysteria and ultimately smear the Clintons.

TNR has been moving away from their initial support for the Iraq war. So they are practically inviting smear campaigns from conservatives.

Posted by DonB | July 26, 2007 11:55 AM

Posted by cleek | July 26, 2007 11:40 AM :"more bullshit. the tracks on a Bradley aren't wider than an average-sized dog is long. so unless the dog is lying in line with the direction of the treads, there's a good chance the head and hid legs will be un-touched by the treads."

A Bradley's track links are 533 mm wide. That's over half a meter. Now that's a pretty big dog. So if he aimed just right, I don't know, maybe a big German Shepherd would survive at each end. But your average Iraqi street mutt? How long is an average sized Iraqi dog?

Posted by cleek | July 26, 2007 11:40 AM:"idiots"

Indeed.

Posted by Mike | July 26, 2007 11:42 AM:"Let’s just take one of his lies, the Koran in the toilet story. Korans were, in fact, placed in toilets. This was done to humiliate and enrage prisoners. Now you either think that is unacceptable or you do not. Whether or not it happened, however, is not up for debate."

Sorry but where is the evidence that any Qurans were placed in toilets? The Hood Report came up with precisely five incidents where a Quran may have been "mishandled". Not one involved a toilet. He did come up with one case where a detainee flushed one.

Posted by Mike | July 26, 2007 11:42 AM:"And please spare me the rejoinder that the Koran was merely place “in” a toilet, not flushed “down” the toilet. We all know that it makes not one damn bit of difference."

Indeed. To those that hate the US in the Muslim world and at home it makes no difference whatsoever. Even if it is not true.

Posted by HeiGou | July 26, 2007 11:58 AM

533mm is, about, 21 inches, your average Border Collie would stick out both sides.

Posted by Ugh | July 26, 2007 12:06 PM

A Bradley's track links are 533 mm wide. That's over half a meter.

half a meter! OMG!

that's a fucking foot and a half. my cat is longer than that.

Posted by cleek | July 26, 2007 12:08 PM

I'm not sure what to say to the kind of moron who thinks that the visibility he experiences in an automobile proves what the visibility is on a Bradley vehicle.

The other know-nothings here should check out what a Bradley vehicle looks like -- http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m2-bradley-ds.jpg -- and then ponder whether 1) such vehicles look like they could swerve "hard to the right" quickly enough to catch a dog; 2) whether the tracks look narrow enough to slice a dog in half with neither half being crushed.

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 12:09 PM

"Korans were, infact, placed in toilets"

Again, that's a lie. The investigation after the Newsweek story found there is no evidence supporting that allegation. But your post does provide confirmation for my post above that the left wing will believe any story that reflects badly on our military, regardless of whether it is true.

Posted by Al | July 26, 2007 12:09 PM

The most shocking aspect of this whole story is that conservative bloggers and that asshat Michael Goldfarb, find the accounts of the TNR diarist so unbelievable. It’s obvious that the people posting on those blogs, and the same questioning here, have never actually hung out with Joes in Iraq? These are teenagers. Yes they wear the uniform, but they aint angels people.

I spent nearly five months at Falcon in 2005 and saw some outrageous behavior. The unit I was with RIP’ed with 1st Cav., those guys were out of control when we got there. The sergeant major banned soldiers from going to parts of the T building because of the late night sex parties going on. Everybody knew which door to go knock on for entertainment. Then he fired all the Iraqi female terps because some of them were turning tricks with the Joes. And the Joes porn collections, some guys brought external had drives loaded with nothing else. Not to mention the very brisk trade in adult DVDs carried on between Joes and the locals.

Is it so hard to believe that your little angel soldiers are not? These are red blooded American youth, spending more than a year far from home, in a hostile country with very little diversion and not enough adult supervision. Mixing male and female soldiers, what do you think is going to happen? I spent some entertaining hours watching on the JLENS infra-red camera couples hooking up around the base in places where they thought were hidden. It’s not just Iraq either. Everybody on Kandahar base knows SF gets the best booze (Turkish vodka), that female foreign contractors moonlight as prostitutes, and that the Joes party when they can get away with it. What do you expect?

The fact that people find it incomprehensible, (against the laws of physics?!!) that Bradleys run into things is laughable and betrays a complete ignorance of the reality in Iraq. Big tracked vics, Abrams included, accidentally run into cars, curbs, market stalls, dogs all the time. Does everyone think Baghdad has wide open boulevards devoid of traffic? People, the often narrow city streets are choked with cars and everything else. Someone wrote in saying American vics don’t swerve in Iraq because of IEDs, that its not SOP. They swerve all the time! They swerve to avoid potholes in the road that may contain an IED, they swerve when they go under overpasses, they swerve to avoid other cars, people in the road, sacks of garbage. Yes, it’s possible to swerve a Bradley or run over a curb without throwing a track, I’ve seen it done, many times.

Did you hear the time an Abrams rolling down Route Irish at speed accidentally ran over an Iraqi mini-bus, crushing a half dozen of its occupants? No, of course you didn’t. But it happened. Don’t think just because you didn’t hear about something back here in the states that it didn’t happen.

Dogs in Iraq run out in front of the vics, they get run over. SOP. BFD.

And the changing a tire in sewage. Look, much of West Rashid in southern Baghdad is a sea of sewage. Anybody who says otherwise has never been there. Yes the Humvee has run flat tires. Does that mean you don’t get out and change the tire when you get a flat? No. Because the vehicle doesn’t operate so well when it has a flat, you’re not going to cancel mission and go back to the FOB because of a flat. No, you’re going to change the tire and continue mission. Do you choose to change it in the sewage filled street? No, you pull the Humvee to a spot of high ground or paved road out of the sewage to do it. You people have obviously never been to Iraq.

And to think that some field grade PAO claims he knows what the Joes are doing and not doing, what a joke. You betray your ignorance by talking about these things of which you know nothing. You have no idea what goes on over there.

Posted by JD | July 26, 2007 12:17 PM

I'm not sure what to say to the kind of moron who thinks that the visibility he experiences in an automobile proves what the visibility is on a Bradley vehicle.

Yes, the Bradley is completely different in that it's design prevents it's driver from seeing anything to his right and, thus, only left hand turns can be made while driving which is quite a bit different than the lazy right hand turns civilians get to make.

And they're a bitch to park.

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 12:20 PM

Posted by Ugh | July 26, 2007 12:06 PM:"533mm is, about, 21 inches, your average Border Collie would stick out both sides."

Yeah but you have to have enough left over to exclude the rear legs and a bit of the spine (to twitch) on one side and the head et al on the other. That's a big Border Collie. In fact so big the Kennel Club would not accept it as a Border Collie I'd guess. Males can only be 22 inches high. The ratio of length to height is only allowed to be 10:9. I'd do the Math but I don't see the point.

http://www.akc.org/breeds/border_collie/

Posted by HeiGou | July 26, 2007 12:20 PM

I'm not sure what to say to the kind of moron who thinks that the visibility he experiences in an automobile proves what the visibility is on a Bradley vehicle.

John Doe meet John Cole.

Posted by Ugh | July 26, 2007 12:20 PM

I'm not sure what to say to the kind of moron who thinks that the visibility he experiences in an automobile proves what the visibility is on a Bradley vehicle.

if you refuse to read what was actually written, you should be a little more careful about calling other people "morons".

The other know-nothings here should check out what a Bradley vehicle looks like

ever driven one? John Cole has, and he says he could hit a dog with it.

Posted by cleek | July 26, 2007 12:24 PM

I think those of you who are asserting that Goldberg and Steyn are angry because these revelations show the military is not perfect, teenage soldiers are not sainted bringers of peace and security, etc, are missing the point about what angers the awful Corner, the Weekly Standard, and the like.

These people have been calling for "more rubble, less trouble" and have repeatedly demanded that we "take off the gloves," ignore the carping objections of "DoD lawyers" and pesky "rules of engagement."

What drives them up the wall about this stuff is THIS IS WHAT TAKING OFF THE GLOVES LOOKS LIKE. The chickenhawks haven't ever come close to seeing a war zone and they are perfectly at home with the vague phrases I quoted above, but they are driven mad by the fact that taking off the gloves does not, in reality, engender a grateful Iraqi public.

Posted by Marshall | July 26, 2007 12:28 PM

Amazing how, all of a sudden, HeiGou and John Doe have suddenly and inexplicably become experts in Bradley vehicle driving. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that you don't actually like the story, you'd never have found reason to doubt it. You're both a bunch of ignoramuses whipped up into an unhinged fury because someone said stuff about the war in Iraq that you didn't like. Even worse, you didn't know his specific identity, so you didn't know whose family to harass.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 12:28 PM

Well, now that he's identified, then people in his platoon can vouch as to whether he's telling the truth or not.

Posted by Dave | July 26, 2007 12:43 PM

To change the subject slightly: once we have withdrawn from Iraq, Goldberg and Steyn will still have their media bullhorns, and they will use them full time to blame Democrats, liberals, and doves for everything bad that has ever happened in Iraq or anywhere else. They won't feel discredited and they won't go away. They'll actually be happier, because once the republicans are out of power Goldberg and Steyn will not have to defend anything any more, and they'll be able to concentrate entirely on the smears and attacks they're good at.

And also our mini-Jonah, Al here.

Posted by John Emerson | July 26, 2007 12:53 PM

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 12:28 PM :"Amazing how, all of a sudden, HeiGou and John Doe have suddenly and inexplicably become experts in Bradley vehicle driving. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that you don't actually like the story, you'd never have found reason to doubt it. You're both a bunch of ignoramuses whipped up into an unhinged fury because someone said stuff about the war in Iraq that you didn't like. Even worse, you didn't know his specific identity, so you didn't know whose family to harass."

I know that accuracy and fairness play no role on the posts around here, but let's see if you're an exception - find me one post where I have made a single comment on the driving abilities of the Bradley. Or in fact on any aspect of the Bradley at all except the width of its track - which is a simple factual statement that has nothing to do with driving a Bradley at all and which you can check if you like.

So that would mean that your phoney outrage is factually incorrect wouldn't it?

And for the record, I don't care if people say things about the War I don't like. I don't even care if they hate American soldiers. It does shock me when people rush to believe that ordinary decent people, even in uniform, are out there doing vile things like some Hollywood Vietnam fantasy on the basis of almost no evidence whatsoever. These are decent people. By and large. They are not monster. You are going to have to live with them when they come back. You have done so in the past. What you all are doing is vile. It is like watching a lynch mob. It is not just that you are denying a presumption of innocence to ordinary people, it is that you are doing it in such an offensive way on the basis of what looks like some juvenile fantasy. It is offensive and if you can't see that I feel nothing but pity for you.

No doubt all water off a duck's back.

Posted by HeiGou | July 26, 2007 12:57 PM

I'm a 14-year Army veteran, a former infantry officer who got out after the first Gulf War to become an academic. When I read the Baghdad Diaries at TNR I had a number of reactions. First, some of it rang true -- I had encountered enough calloused, insensitive louts during my service that the sorts of things described were certainly imaginable. However, there were enough incongruous details to make me wonder if the things described were actually things mostly imagined. In particular, the Bradley-bites-dog story was over the top: I've driven and travelled in tracked vehicles far more nimble than the Bradley, and even with them deliberately hitting a dog would have been quite a feat (unless the dog were on a very short leash, or lame, or deaf and asleep). The "Glock" problem suggests we have a writer who is at best ill-informed about the nature and availability of small arms (well, he's a private, not a colonel) -- so one must ask where else he's unreliable.
The fact that the author has identified himself really doesn't change this assessment for me -- i.e., he might be telling the truth, but one wonders -- as I also met plenty of troops who are great at spinning yarns and embellishing their experiences. He's made some rather serious accusations, but done so in a manner that raises the needle on a lot of BS detectors, so some corroboration is in order. I hope TNR, or whomever, comes through with whatever the facts of the story are. And here I'd disagree with Matt -- because of the incongruities of the story, I don't think TNR is wasting its time following up. I think it owes the followup to its readers.
As for Pvt. Beauchamp, I imagine by now he's already had a rather tense and frightful encounter with his Command Sergeant Major, the sort that takes about a year off one's life (as an officer, even I feared certain CSMs). If his story stands up, I doubt that "reprisals" will come to much more than that. If his story doesn't stand up, it probably will, and should come to much worse.
And finally, I'm really tired of the practice of putting incidents like this into a rigid (and, may I add, shallow) "left-right" schematic (i.e., "lefties publish this 'cuz they hate the military"; "righties have to go after this guy 'cuz he's exposing their lies"). Name-calling and templating are no substitute for fact-finding and substantive argument. If these events happened they require verification beyond the testimony of Pvt. Beauchamp and then further action as appropriate.

Posted by John M. | July 26, 2007 12:58 PM

Also, there's no way that the wide track of a Bradley could cut a dog in half and leave the rear half "twitching" (Thomas's word) and the head still "raised and smiling" (Thomas's words); instead, the dog would just be crushed

Just to elaborate on Cleek above, who shot the above quote down.

The Bradley track is 21" wide. The Saluki, a common dog in Iraq (a rare dog considered "clean" by Muslims) can easily grow to well over 2 feet shoulder to rump. It has an unusually long neck as well. A Bradley could easily run one over and leave the head and hindquarters intact.

Posted by Njorl | July 26, 2007 1:00 PM

Goldberg and Steyn have already contracted to have Private Beauchamp baked by Michael Yon and served to them on their National Review Cruise with a nice chianti and some fava beans.

Posted by Kathryn John Lopez | July 26, 2007 1:01 PM

Re: Thomas couldn't have witnesses soldiers using a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to kill dogs because -- ta da -- to do so would violate Army Standard Operating Procedure.

The criticism of this that I read focused on the fact that these vehicles are not very maneuverable (and have a limited field of vision) so that you can't just swerve all wildly over the road in chase of a scampering dog. This was one part of the story I suspect was probably based on fact (solidiers have run over dogs accidentally in Iraq-- that happens in the US all the time) but was exagerrated into some kind of deliberate dog killing spree.

Posted by Jonf | July 26, 2007 1:02 PM

The criticism of this that I read focused on the fact that these vehicles are not very maneuverable

Well, there's also HeiGou's obsession with track lengths and his estimation of mean dog sizes that seems to have raised his concern.

Of course, that's not his problem at all. His problem, as he himself states, is that soldiers are being portrayed as less than saintly, even though the stories are pretty much consistently with most other wars we're aware of. And it pains his precious little mind and precious sensitivities.

It's also possible that, just coincidently, he and his cohorts happened to take up intense study of Bradley vehicles right before the left-wing-hippy-run TNR started publishing their stories.

Posted by Tyro | July 26, 2007 1:12 PM

My God, these people stink to high heaven with their rank idiocy and hackery. It is PATENTLY OBVIOUS that what Beauchamp says in essence is: "You have called me a liar, I am not a liar, and I am revealing myself to stand by my claims." He is NOT saying: "I am a good, decent, honorable, God-fearing Christian...how dare you call me a liar, sir!" The only question is whether Goldberg and Steyn are so stupid they don't understand that, or whether they're just partisan hacks hurredly trying to cover up avert attention from their previous stupidity. I honestly don't know which it is.

Posted by Xanthippas | July 26, 2007 1:13 PM

- find me one post where I have made a single comment on the driving abilities of the Bradley. Or in fact on any aspect of the Bradley at all except the width of its track -

Translation of Hei Gou: Find me one statement I made about a Bradley vehicle except the one that I just made that gets to the very heart of my inane objections. That example got shot down, so no fair bringing it up.

Posted by Mike | July 26, 2007 1:15 PM

BTW:

Taking a deep breath won't help, Matt.

I politely disagree it. It would help if, while they're taking that deep breath, someone punches them in the crotch. Rhetorically, of course.

Posted by Xanthippas | July 26, 2007 1:19 PM

I'm not sure how the veracity of the Bradley meets dog story is so crucial to the larger point that the war is not going well and we're not likely to find out without on the scene accounts. There's an old adage about a forest and some trees that comes to mind. Do I think everything a soldier says is gospel, without a trace of embellishment? Uh, no. But do I find it more credible than the words of people who have never been there or never left the Green Zone? What do you think?

Playing with a model of a Bradley with My Little Pony standing in for the dog is no substitute for the word of someone who had driven one. And if the vehicle is as bad as the destractors claim, what does that say about how well equipped (ie, supported) our troops are?

These armchair veterans, survivors of the kerning wars and the AP/photoshop campaign, should be ashamed of themselves, if they were capable of shame. I don't think it likely that they'll take a breath and get over themselves. In 30 years, they'll be claiming the war was as good as won before a few bad apples undermined America's resolve, aided by the leftist media and a seething fifth column of America-haters.

Posted by paul | July 26, 2007 1:23 PM

It does shock me when people rush to believe that ordinary decent people, even in uniform, are out there doing vile things like some Hollywood Vietnam fantasy on the basis of almost no evidence whatsoever. These are decent people. By and large. They are not monster. You are going to have to live with them when they come back. You have done so in the past. What you all are doing is vile. It is like watching a lynch mob. It is not just that you are denying a presumption of innocence to ordinary people, it is that you are doing it in such an offensive way on the basis of what looks like some juvenile fantasy. It is offensive and if you can't see that I feel nothing but pity for you.
We're terribly sorry to offend your sensibilities, but let us remind you that it was in fact the right-wing blogosphere that has made a big party out of all this. Mostly be impeaching the honesty of one of the active-duty soldiers that they're always so keen on "supporting."

Most of us sane people long ago learned to accept that sometimes bad shit happens in war zones.

Posted by Formerly Wu | July 26, 2007 1:24 PM

Let's not forget this has happened before.

A few years back, SPC Aidan Delgado gave an account of the myriad violations of Army protocol and the rules of war to Bob Herbert, and the wingnutosphere went apeshit, with Michelle Malkin going all-out to try and discredit Delgado's story without regard to the fact that it was true.

Posted by JR | July 26, 2007 1:35 PM

That's a big Border Collie. In fact so big the Kennel Club would not accept it as a Border Collie I'd guess. Males can only be 22 inches high. The ratio of length to height is only allowed to be 10:9. I'd do the Math but I don't see the point.

Isn't this the essence of conservative argumentation?

Posted by Col Bat Guano | July 26, 2007 1:36 PM

This story reminds me of the Dan Rather forgeries. You already had plenty of evidence that George Bush was a neer-do-well as a young man; and you had plenty of evidence that he was screwing things up as President. The Dan Rather memoes added very little, if anything, to your case against Bush. But liberals still looked like morons for defending documents that practically had "Forgery" written at the top.

Same here. You've already got plenty of evidence that the Iraq War was a bad idea, and even that soldiers in Iraq (and in prisons there) have done some crazy s**** that's a lot worse than anything Scott Thomas pretends to have witnessed. But you guys are still going out on a limb and looking like gullible fools in defending a story that reeks to high heaven of coming from Thomas's over-active imagination. (Again, can anyone explain how a soldier managed to fit someone else's skullplate inside his form-fitting helmet?)

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 1:44 PM

If I've seen a more dishonest accounting of this developing story, I haven't seen it.

Beauchamp claims that he brutalized a horribly burned and disfigured woman. That is quite an intersting claim, as not one soldier currently or recently stationed at FOB Falcon has ever seen anyone remotely matching this description among the roughly one dozen women on the base.

Not. One.

Beauchamp claims, "we did a lot of digging. At first, we found only household objects like silverware and cups. Then we dug deeper and found children's clothes: sandals, sweatpants, sweaters. Like a strange archeological dig of the recent past, the deeper we went, the more personal the objects we discovered. And, eventually, we reached the bones. We found pieces of hands and fingers. We found skull fragments. No one cared to speculate what, exactly, had happened here, but it was clearly a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort."

Matthew, are you honestly trying to claim that this description of multiple layers of debris and the explicit mention of "a Saddam-era dumping ground" is meant to evoke anything but the image of a mass grave? I find it rather unlikely that the Iraqis who inhabit that area would use their children's cemetary as a dump, and Beauchamp is purposefully leading readers to assume a mass grave, even if he avoids explicitly saying so.

You are also dishonest when you attempt to claim that it is only a violatation of Army Standard Operating Procedure that marks the Bradley story as highly unlikely.

Bradley drivers are not free to roam around Iraq unattended, smashing will-nilly through anything and everything they want on a whim. The have vehicle commanders responsible for the health and well-being of their crews, the fire team of soldiers it carries, as well as for their equipment, the Bradley itself.

Are you going to imply that the vehicle's commander is willing to risk his life and his career, and hte lives of more than a half dozen soldiers in his vehicle, to satisfy a driver's desire to wreck buildings, market stalls, and hunt dogs?

Further, Bradley's do not operate independently: as they are typically deployed as fire support vehicles, they are attached to patrols, which are typically composed of several dozen other soldiers, mounted or dismounted.

A driver constantly slewing his vehicle around, distracting our soldiers from their mission and from providing for their own security, would be reported, if not manually ejected from the vehicle by his vehicle's commander, the formation commander, or the infantry fire team being thrown about the vehicle's interior as he carreened wildly about on his mad pursuits. Out of their own selfish interests of self-preservation, they simply would not let such actions occur. It isn't an order that marks this claim as a lie, but a sense of self-preservation.

And about those buildings and market stalls: when U.S. forces smash into things, Iraqis file claims against the Army for the monetary damages often in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. As I understand it, the driver, the vehicle commander, his commanding officer, and his commanding officer are held responsible, at least to a certain degree, and are typically asked to verify these claims to prevent fraud. Such an expensive, sadistic hobby would almost certainly be noticed, especially when these claims kept coming back to one man.

And then we come back to a Beauchamp claim in his second story, where he claims to have found a square-backed 9mm cartridge belong to a Glock psitol, a weapon he claims that only the Iraqi police carry.

As Glocks are carried by all strata of society, from soldiers to police to insurgents to militamen to civilians, his implication that the Iraqi police and the Iraqi police alone could be responsible is a farce.

There is also the tiny little detail that no Glock--or any other commericially-produced weapon on this planet--uses a square-backed cartridge. This is an abject falsehood. Period.

But far be it for me to let reality intrude onto your "larger truth."

Posted by Bob Owens | July 26, 2007 1:51 PM

yglesias's dishonesty just keeps sinking to new depths.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | July 26, 2007 1:53 PM

Same here. You've already got plenty of evidence that the Iraq War was a bad idea, and even that soldiers in Iraq (and in prisons there) have done some crazy s**** that's a lot worse than anything Scott Thomas pretends to have witnessed. But you guys are still going out on a limb and looking like gullible fools in defending a story that reeks to high heaven of coming from Thomas's over-active imagination.

Yeah. Because this Scott Thomas thing is the only evidence that critics of the Iraq war have ever used to support their case.

Posted by Alex M | July 26, 2007 1:55 PM

Again, can anyone explain how a soldier managed to fit someone else's skullplate inside his form-fitting helmet?

With a little duct tape?

Seriously, the pads are even removable:

The secret to a good fit is that these pads can be arranged horizontally, vertically, or at an angle. They can also be placed closer to, or further away, from the rim. Different pad orientation provides different fits, and one will be right for you. This is also where most experimentation will be done. The closer the pads are to the rim of the helmet, the tighter the fit. The closer to the center, the looser the fit is.

From some blog about helmets with pictures.

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 1:56 PM

I'd do the Math but I don't see the point.

Ah, the return of The Math. The Math on which Karl Rove based his exclusive judgment about the upcoming Republican sweep of the 2006 midterm elections. I guess The Math gives Republicans comfort in times of stress and confusion.

Posted by Marshall | July 26, 2007 1:57 PM

The other know-nothings here should check out what a Bradley vehicle looks like -- http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m2-bradley-ds.jpg -- and then ponder whether 1) such vehicles look like they could swerve "hard to the right" quickly enough to catch a dog; 2) whether the tracks look narrow enough to slice a dog in half with neither half being crushed.

Haven't driven one myself, Clausewitz, but I think it's a safe guess that, like pretty much every armored vehicle since, oh, the Mark I, the Bradley can pivot in its own length by running each set of tracks in opposite directions. Try doing that in your car.

Posted by Samuel Glover | July 26, 2007 1:59 PM

I've no idea if this story is true or not, but if it is indeed true, it wouldn't surprise me. I just wish that the conservative lynchmob would hold off long enough for the case to be thoroughly investigated. (Someone should really do a study on how conservatives hate whistleblowers of all sorts. We've seen this smear process quite a few times, in the last eight years.)

Posted by Nobody Important | July 26, 2007 2:02 PM

And they need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear -- even when published in a pro-war publication -- can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq.

Yggy, yggy. The New Republic used to be "pro-war," but have you not noticed that anti-war Franklin Foer is now the editor, and has been for some months?

Also, the conduct here is "far, far less severe" than Abu Ghraib (for example). That's true, but that does NOT make Thomas's story more believable. Not at all. You're not thinking clearly.

Put it this way: We know Scooter Libby lied to the grand jury. Supposed a TNR diarist says that he saw Scooter Libby prancing naked down Pennsylvania Avenue handing out flowers to stunned passersby. Your position (I take it) wouldn't be that, "Well, this story must be true, because prancing around naked in public is far, far less severe than lying to a grand jury." Well, yes, but it's also much less believable, because it's the sort of thing that Libby would have no motive to do.

Same here. Abu Ghraib is the sort of bad thing that soldiers in charge of prisons have a motive to do -- just look at all of American history, it's hardly an unknown phenomenon for people to want to smack around and mistreat prisoners. But swerving all around to hit dogs is not the sort of thing that a Bradley commander would have a motive to allow; quite the contrary. Putting dead and rotting flesh against your own skull for an entire day -- and inside a helmet where no one could see and laugh about it -- is not the sort of thing that anyone has a motive to do; quite the contrary.

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 2:03 PM

What some on the right don't see is that liberals don't hate the military, we do get concerned when we hear stuff that indicates our soldiers are taking mental damage from being overextended and used in the wrong way. That's why we get concerned about the kind of things in the article in question. We want all our citizens including the military to be taken care of, apparently conservatives don't give a shit as long as their lily white ass isn't on the line.
Semper Fi!

Posted by Toyboat | July 26, 2007 2:11 PM

But swerving all around to hit dogs is not the sort of thing that a Bradley commander would have a motive to allow; quite the contrary.

Have you ever driven in a big city with a stray dog problem? For instance, in Cairo and Calcutta (2 craziest places I ever tried to drive besides Boston) many of the dogs don't really move a whole lot from the side of the road when cars pass. They hang out waiting for a moment to try and cross the street. The dogs would be surprised if cars in Cairo started swerving to hit them. And that's what makes them easy targets!

Also, as warning in case you go, many dogs don't run from you if you just threaten them or yell at them. You have to throw something and get it pretty close or actually connect to scare them away. So, perversely, that Bradley driver/dog killer was actually making Iraqi dogs safer by killing and maiming them!

Seriously, I'm certain you wouldn't have to "swerve all around the road" to hit stray dogs in the streets of Baghdad. Now you're just pulling your own version of a "Scott Thomas".

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 2:15 PM

But swerving all around to hit dogs is not the sort of thing that a Bradley commander would have a motive to allow

So, to be clear, your position is that if we look at "all American history," we won't find examples of Americans mistreating dogs? Hmm. That seems wrong. To be fair, I can't remember if Vick was an All-American.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 26, 2007 2:15 PM

I have still never really understood what is the consistent conservative stance on the military, insofar as it concerns dubious conduct in wartime.

On one hand, they insist that 'war is hell', and that atrocities can only be expected when battling against a cunning, surreptitious enemy.

But whenever news of bad behavior comes out, they declare it to be an unspeakable thing that the United States Military would never commit.

I was not suprised by the TNR content at all - and you know why? No, its not because I hate the military or whatever inane charges the right throws up. It's because I am a 22 year old male, am around other 22~males (albeit not in war), and nothing like that suprises me in the slightest.

I have said some indecent things in my life, perhaps not as far as making fun of a seriously burnt woman's face, but close to that. I have said things, moreover, in areas of complete safety.

In the end - I cant say whether the story is true or not. It just would not suprise me.

Posted by Neal Murray | July 26, 2007 2:16 PM

K -- I say "swerving" because that was how Scott Thomas himself described it. Specifically, Scott Thomas said that the Bradley driver would "suddenly swerve" and "jerk the machine hard to the right."

Have you read his original article, or are you just being a knee-jerk reactionary here?

Again, you've got plenty of other real evidence that bad stuff has happened in Iraq. Why is it so important to you to defend Scott Thomas's little bit of creative writing?

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 2:19 PM

Look, Scott Thomas Beauchamp might have been making shit up. I really doubt it, though. It doesn't seem logical that he would write this and send it to TNR and all of that to discredit the war effort. Unlike Goldberg, Malkin, et. al., he is actually in Iraq.

But even if he did make it up (and is this not the first time in like 5 years that warmongerers have read a TNR article?), these allegations are, as Matt says, not even the worst of what we have heard about conduct in Iraq. They're not in the top 10. Or top 20. Or top 50. Or top 100. Or top 500. Due to the obstructionist Pentagon bureaucracy (with Rumsfeld as the top obstructioner) and the worthless media, I am sure there is much more. This is not "hating the troops", or "rooting for the terrorists", or any of that bullshit. It is simple fact, and even if we don't hear about it, the people we are trying to fight (and win hearts and minds) definitely do.

I don't place the soldiers entirely to blame (it is obvious that Abu Ghraib, for example, was instigated by people way above the chain of command than Lynndie England), but they have done it, in our name. It has consequences in Iraq and throughout the world. We have to come to grips with that. These things happen in all wars (there are tensions and dynamics here which could conceivably make things much worse, too) but the right's ludicrous assertion that they are all saints with guns over there and any discussion to the contrary is treasonous is so stupid and fantastical it should not even be mentioned.

This is a distraction, just like Jamil Hussein and all that shit, meant to create mistrust in media reporting, so their views become the ones people listen to. Praise the heavens that is not happening.

Posted by Joshua | July 26, 2007 2:23 PM

So, to be clear, your position is that if we look at "all American history," we won't find examples of Americans mistreating dogs? Hmm. That seems wrong.

Are you always this dense? I didn't say that no one ever has a motive to mistreat dogs in any situation. I said that a Bradley commander -- in a war zone where IEDs go off all the time -- would have no motive to allow his driver to swerve around to hit dogs. Is that clear enough for you?

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 2:23 PM

John Doe:

Here's the relevant portion which I had, in fact, read before you changed it so it read "swerving all around the road":

I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs. Occasionally, the brave ones would chase the Bradleys, barking at them like they bark at trash trucks in America—providing him with the perfect opportunity to suddenly swerve and catch a leg or a tail in the vehicle’s tracks. He kept a tally of his kills in a little green notebook that sat on the dashboard of the driver’s hatch. One particular day, he killed three dogs. He slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road. A roar of laughter broke out over the radio. Another notch for the book. The second kill was a straight shot: A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn’t have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.

Personally, I don't think it would be that difficult for a doggie death dealer to run over stray dogs in Baghdad. And I think I've know people who could've and maybe would've done the dealing in that situation...after all, I'm a Hokie fan.

Not to mention your earlier claim that he couldn't write down his kills in his book because he was driving at the time (it's upthread I'm too lazy to directly quote it) when the context of the passage makes it clear he marked them after his day of driving and death dealing was complete.

Bring out the smarter concern trolls.

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 2:29 PM

Again, you've got plenty of other real evidence that bad stuff has happened in Iraq. Why is it so important to you to defend Scott Thomas's little bit of creative writing?

I was going to agree with you, until I realized you've missed the point. Most liberals aren't, or weren't originally, so keen on defending Scott Thomas. Unfortunately a number of them have fallen into the conservative trap and are now wasting breath trying to argue about trivila details. The real point is that TNR did nothing wrong - even if the article is mostly fiction, so what? It's only in warped conservative minds that this article insults the entire US Army. The idea that TNR, of all magazines, has suddenly tried to defame the US Army is ridiculous. I'm sure Foer thought it seemed like an interesting article from a credible source. It says a lot about right-wing insecurities that they would make this an issue. Although, again, I doubt half the conservative posters believe a word of what they write, the point, as always, is to obfuscate and keep the artificial outrage high. I'm amazed at the utter lack of conscience or principle these people put on display.

Posted by vanya | July 26, 2007 2:33 PM

I guess you do have trouble reading, Keats, because I never said anything at all about writing down "kills."

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 2:37 PM

"Let's not forget this has happened before"

Yes, someone claiming to be an Iraq vet named Jesse Macbeth said that all types of atrocities were committed by our soldiers there. And of course the antiwar left LOVED it, even producing a video of him. He was a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and represented them several times. Of course, it turned out he in Iraq, didn't even finish basic training. But the antiwar left didn't bother to check, because they knew his stories about Iraq to be true.

Posted by Al | July 26, 2007 2:40 PM

John Doe:

I don't have trouble reading, I just lied.

Posted by keatssycamore | July 26, 2007 2:42 PM

Vanya is exactly right -- conservatives are making so much of this TNR diary for bad reasons. That is, this story finally gives them a chance to change the subject from bad stuff in Iraq (where they are always on the defensive) and instead take to the offense by pointing out the gullibility of liberals.

What I find damn odd, though, is that liberals here (just as with the Dan Rather story) seem determined to play right into the stereotype! Once again, liberals are fighting to the death to defend a story in which even the most naive observer would smell a rat.

Posted by John Doe | July 26, 2007 2:44 PM

I said that a Bradley commander -- in a war zone where IEDs go off all the time -- would have no motive to allow his driver to swerve around to hit dogs.

Remind me of the military motive for allowing people to take the Abu Gharib pictures and send them around.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 26, 2007 2:45 PM

Once again, liberals are fighting to the death to defend a story in which even the most naive observer would smell a rat.

Oh, I think we smell the rat. That's why we're arguing with you.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 26, 2007 2:47 PM

Al:

But the antiwar left didn't bother to check, because they knew his stories about Iraq to be true.

Wow, that's bad! I mean, they produced a video! Can you believe it? What an incredibly damning indictment of their judgment and credibility!

I just hope nobody starts a war based on things they don't bother to check, because they know their stories about Iraq to be true.

Posted by grh | July 26, 2007 2:50 PM

I just hope nobody starts a war based on things they don't bother to check

yeah, just try to imagine how