For various reasons, some of them even good ones, I haven't blogged about the latest Drudge-related developments in the Scott Beauchamp case but here's TNR's latest statement on the matter which seems about right to me. I continue to be baffled by the way the conservative press and blogosphere, along with some elements of the Army, seem determined to treat TNR as driven by some kind of hardline anti-war ideology. The magazine supported the war, as best I can tell supports continuing the war, and in the one instance where clear and direct evidence has emerged that one aspect of the story was false, they issued a correction promptly.
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Beauchamp Update
26 Oct 2007 12:51 pm
Comments (31)
When I said questioning the war, I really meant more what the articles said, so I guess highlighting any possibly unsavory aspects of the war.
Who cares whether or not the TNR editors support the war? The point is whether or not what they published was real or Stephen Glass-like fabrications by a writer who admitted he joined the military to gain street cred to be another Hemingway.
If TNR's goal is to find out the truth, why did they tell Beauchamp to cancel the interviews he had scheduled with other media outlets? What are they afraid of? It's too bad Michael Yon didn't take his chance to interview Beauchamp this week, but he wrote this about meeting his unit: "Beauchamp and the Rule of Second Chances: Pass it Along".
It's the way they think on the conservative side. Slanted reporting is par for the course for avowedly conservative outlets, so they assume that the same goes for everyone. If a media outlet reports anything on the war that would look out of place on the Fox News Channel, that could only mean that they are hard left America-hating peaceniks.
You want to know how they think on the conservative side? Read this: The Never-Ending Story. These conservatives actually think that more than one aspect of the TNR stories were wrong, and those crazy fools try to explain why.
Who cares whether or not the TNR editors support the war?
A great, great many of Beauchamp's critics, that's who. They care so much they're willing to lie about it -- i.e., to claim that Beauchamp's alleged lies serve TNR's (nonexistent) antiwar editorial line.
That said, the 'Iraq or Kuwait' thing is a problem which, to this reader at least, is of a sort which a mere correction can't adequately address. I mean, unless some editor accidentally substituted 'Iraq' where Beauchamp had correctly put 'Kuwait', it seems a pretty clear instance of the latter falsifying. I find it very hard to believe he could have misremembered such a fundamental element of the story.
This, I think, legitimately calls the rest of his account into question. (As, I've always said, do his obvious literary pretensions.) But efforts to actually *disprove* it with contrary *evidence* (as distinct from insinuation) have been remarkably unsuccessful, and moreover have left his critics looking very, very untrustworthy. Their premises are laughable (that TNR is antiwar, that one can infer blanket anti-troop motives from a first-person account of discrete incidents involving a few individuals), their capacity to ignore contrary evidence stunning (e.g. Beauchamp's own prior published writings in TNR which cast Iraqi insurgents in a very negative light and American forces positively), their grasp of logic tenuous (e.g. with claims that Beauchamp was trying to 'make it big' as a writer with his allegedly false accounts, when made-up accounts of *heroism* would have served this purpose just as well; indeed, the entire story was a statement against interest for Beauchamp, because it made him look distinctly unheroic and invited attacks from the shrieking harpies of the right), and the Army's own investigation highly untransparent, woefully incomplete, tainted by the likelihood that Beauchamp would be punished if he stuck to his story (for violations of various regulations in the conduct he described, and/or simply for making the Army look bad), marked by at least one outright lie to the public (i.e. that he recanted) and riven by selective leaks to -- suprise, surprise -- conservative media outlets.
I hope this gets fully investigated -- in particular, that all members of his unit get interviewed under immunity grants for everything except lying. It's a tremedously wasteful way to tie up Army resources, but since some in the Army have already committed resources to smearing this man I hope someone with an equally strong commitment to the truth follows through.
"For various reasons... I haven't blogged"
The main one being that you and your buddies in moonbattia now look like a complete idiots for defending this dude and sluring anyone who dared question the authenticity of his fables.
since some in the Army have already committed resources to smearing this man I hope someone with an equally strong commitment to the truth follows through.
As they say on the internet: and a pony!
Soldiers, children and families. These are the three demons you must vanquish if you wish to succeed in conservative politics.
Yeah, fair enough, grh. IOW: Not bloody likely.
Meanwhile, there's this from JBJB:
[leftly bloggers] look like a [sic] complete idiots for defending this dude
Here's the thing: no one (OK, no one except TNR) was "defending" Beauchamp. What was there to defend? The guy had no argument. He had observations. His essay said: 'I saw some bad stuff, and some people doing bad stuff.' Wingnuts said it was all made up. What we defended was the *process* of determining whether these charges had any merit, a process we said should employ verifiable evidence and sound reasoning from that evidence. In the early days, we had very little access to verifiable evidence one way or the other -- all the witnesses were in Iraq. All we had to work with was the warbloggers' obvious inability to reason their way out of a paper bag -- starting with their laughable premise that TNR was antiwar. As Ezra Klein notes today, leftbloggers were basically agnostic on the facts. What we *defended* was the principle of 'no rush to judgment' when the only evidence being mobilized against the truth of his account wasn't evidence at all -- but rather, character assassination, innuendo, and ridiculously false premises. Very few had any brief for Beauchamp per se, and even less for TNR which (the wingers pretend not to notice) leftbloggers don't trust these days.
Are you really baffled by this? Have you not been following the conservative press and blogosphere the last 6 years or so? To them, nothing about the Iraq war can be questioned. Our troops are invariably heroes. Any suggestion that they have human foibles is treasonous. It's an insane level of message discipline. Reality has nothing to do with it.
Gus,
If only conservatives were like you, a critical thinker attuned to nuance and always trying to see the other side's perspective. We simply aren't worthy of comparison to you.
Fred, I couldn't agree more.
the reason you havent been blogging on it is the same reason you have still to blog on the downturn of civillian casualties in iraq. Because youre a hack.
Ryan,
If you think the editors of TNR are being forthright, read the transcript of their call with Beauchamp. Nevermind the creepy part where Foer brings up Beauchamp's TNR reporter wife and says "I care for her, I don't want to see her get hurt in all of this". Why do they ask Beauchamp to reject interview requests from Newsweek and the Washington Post?
If TNR is holding out hope that the handful of soldiers in Beauchamp's unit who weren't around when the Army investigators took statements would corroborate Beauchamp's stories, then why not let Beauchamp talk to Newsweek and the WaPo? Once the reporters were in to see him, they could have sought out the soldiers who didn't give statements.
The answer seems clear: TNR just wishes this would go down the memory hole, and they don't really want other journalists fact checking it.
BTW, two points about Beauchamp and the Iraq versus Kuwait thing:
1) If this incident of mocking the deformed woman (which appears not to have happened since no one else backs it up) happened before Beauchamp got to Iraq, it basically invalidates the whole theme of the rest of his diary, i.e., how war makes you callous. If he was the sort of man who would be cruel to a deformed woman before he ever saw combat, then it's more of a garbage-in, garbage-out scenario, which has less literary potential.
2) Beauchamp was prone to making stuff up on his blog as well. For example, as Jack Kelly has pointed out, Beauchamp wrote about shooting an Iraqi in the head one particular day, and watching his head explode into a "fine mist". Only problem: That day Beauchamp was in Germany, not Iraq, and there were no reported head shots by American troops in Germany that day.
Who's surprised a blogger at "Atlantic.Com" is carrying water for TNR in the matter of fabulist Beauchamp; "birds of a feather"!
Baffled, Matt? If a conservative war hero like McCain can be slandered for not being a 100% True Believer, why not TNR, for being pro-war but more nuanced the The Weekly Standard?
I think Michael Yon, a milblogger with integrity, did the right thing by not wading into the Beauchamp affair.
It is an internal Army discipline matter. And, from Beauchamps CO, he was offered the opportunity to bail from Iraq and likely be discharged - or to man up, take the 2nd chance he was offered, and do his duty.
As a Vet familiar with military chain of command, equipment, and normal base culture - it was clear he was a BS'r. (*) His unit will probably clear up some details when they get back Stateside from the war zone. Right now, they have bigger fish to fry. Beauchamps brigade has lost 60 men in multiple deployments to Iraq since 2003. They are in harms way, and their main concern with Beauchamp is that he just does his duty and job here on.
(*)Lefties who never served are unaware that no Bradley driver would do stuff on his own without orders from the Bradley vehicle driver while deep in Injun country, or do any stunt like crushing buildings, jumping curbs - with significant chance of disabling the vehicle and loosing it and the men inside to the enemy.
Lefties also have no idea of the reaction of men on base in a crowded lunch hall to two asshats mocking and demeaning a wounded, disfigured female comrade would be. On any US base. They would be protective of any female, but become fucking tigers reacting to anyone trashing a wounded female comrade - soldier or contractor. If they were lucky, a command line officer or NCO would order them out and write them up on UCMJ charges. If they were unlucky, the men hearing it would drag Beauchamp and his pal out of the chow hall by their throats...
I knew it was BS reading his accounts. And others have debunked his other actrocity tales. Also, before command cracked down on communications as discipline was pending, one milblog got a letter from Beauchamp's 1st Sarge, saying investigation showed his tales were found to be a crock of shit.
Erratum - Lefties who never served are unaware that no Bradley driver would do stuff on his own without orders from the Bradley vehicle driver while deep in Injun country
Should read:
Lefties who never served are unaware that no Bradley driver would do stuff on his own without orders from the Bradley vehicle Commander while deep in Injun country.
Fred starts with:
Ryan, If you think the editors of TNR are being forthright
Where did I say I thought that? Once again, we see the inability of Beauchamp critics to respond to facts in front of them -- they have to make stuff up. I have no basis for forming a strong opinion on whether TNR is being forthright. Clearly its reputation is invested here and, as noted repeatedly, TNR editors do not deserve the benefit of the doubt in my view. I will say that the fact that they continue to publish stuff about this rather belies your allegation that they want it "to go down the memory hole". As for 'why would they ask him not to talk to reporters', let's ask them. I don't know. I can imagine innocuous reasons, and you can clearly imagine conspiratorial reasons. Imagining is not evidence.
I agree with your BTW (1). As for (2), that's weak -- Kelly pretends Beauchamp was writing in a reportorial voice there when it's plain he's indulging in a novelistic flight of fancy. Much of his blog was that way -- like he's trying out scenes for the next great American war novel. These pretensions, as I've said, make me doubt his TNR writing but that's not the same as evidence that he was fabulating there.
So let's see if I have this straight:
A pro-war, pro-surge magazine publishes in its back pages an account of young men in a stressful situation engaging in some really pretty petty misconduct, accounts which AFAIK, no one on the left linked to or talked about before conservatives took it up.
So... why is it important if the account is truthful or not?
I'm confused, Chris. If military disciple prevents all this sort of misbehavior, then where did the bad apples at Abu Ghraib come from?
Chris you asswipe - thanks for once again lying about your military service. I appreciate the encore. Once again with emphasis - Chris Ford lies about his military service. On this blog alone he has claimed or implied intimate knowledge of three branches of service and six MOSes.
What a fuckin' zero.
If one thing bugs me about the Beauchamp story, it's the "obvious literary pretensions" bull.
"He obviously can't be telling the truth because he's a writer and he's just looking for material for his book, which he's trying to sell for a huge advance."
This hints at a complete ignorance of writing, not just the process of writing but the business of writing. It just don't work that way, homey!
If blog posts had audio, we'd hear your cuntal lips flaping, coward.
thanks for once again lying about your military service
About as close as anti-American scum ever come to being sincere about thanking anyone about anything military.
On this blog alone he has claimed or implied intimate knowledge of three branches of service and six MOSes.
Wrong, cuntlips.
1. I claim knowledge of other services only to the extent I worked with them, deployed in their gear, in joint service ops during the Gulf War. And from friendships with servicemen, officer and enlisted, as my extended family has both types.
2. 6 MOS specialties? God, you're stupid. If you had served, instead of smoking thug's salami as preferable to serving your nation, you would know ex-commissioned officers like myself (O-3)don't go by MOS. They have a core area of knowledge and skills they work off, and gain additional qualifications in systems at school or on the job - in order to command various departments of enlisted teams performing MOS skills, or billet specialties, in the Navy's case..
What a fuckin' zero.
I think you say that because you feel inferior to people that actually do serve their nation doing things like military, firefighting, peace corps - that you are too fearful to do.
In your case, the inferiority complex appears justified.
********************
I'm confused, Chris. If military disciple prevents all this sort of misbehavior, then where did the bad apples at Abu Ghraib come from?
Posted by Mike
It came from 7 poorly supervised hillbilly reservists left unaccountable too long away from a functioning chain of command.
And no one said soldiers are perfect. Bad apples exist. Just far less than in US civilian populations.
About 10 years ago, 4 black Marines went animal on a 14-year old Japanese girl on Okinawa. To send a lesson, we let them go away into a tough Japanese prison...where they are treated as bestial scum, hated by the Japanese cons, and fed disgusting stuff. Then two years ago, an AF guy killed the mother of the Japanese woman he was dating. Next thing he knew, he was in chains from his neck to his feet trying to bob his head into a bowl for a rancid piece of fish and rice ball and told by his lawyer that he better get used to it, no toilet, and an unheated cell.
Psych tests weed many of the worst out, so that in Iraq, we have a current felony crime rate with 150,000 soldiers from all socioeconomic strata that is 5 times less than comparable populations in posh Santa Cruz, CA or wealthy Jewish Skokie, Illinois.
I thought the argument that: 'refugee woman was in kuwait rather then iraq, so he made this all up' to be rather thin.
Im imagining that in the army, one hot dusty military base might seem like any other when your rotating around.
"So... why is it important if the account is truthful or not?"
'Cause the TNR published it without any "fiction" disclaimer.
The man pretended sordid stuff happened. He wrote first person. He lied. TNR not only bought it without actually fact checking a word, it is still buying, or rather, selling, it as the truth.
I personally heard Beauchamp's wife saying " Baby, baby, be safe, and, more than anything, don't recant."* It was in an unmonitored call - or was it an email - I forget. Doesn't matter, I heard her and you can't prove I didn't.
No matter that I am lying. You can't prove the negative. So all we have left is the truth. You know, facts, stuff that actually happened.
Does it matter? Perhaps not to the anti-war Left; but to the rest of us it matters a lot.
* No, really, she called. For sure, absolutely. Would I lie to you baby, would I tell you something that isn't true?
No offense, Jay...but if you didn't take an anonymous, first person account with a grain of salt, it sure ain't Franklin Foer's fault!
Those two things should have been the tip-off that you were heading straight into Subjective-land. No disclaimer needed.
Some people need to be told that coffee is hot, too...some of us, though, are able to intuit these things.
The reason the right is so worked up about this is because the article depicts American soldiers abusing women, children and dogs.
They can justify brutal interrogations or even over-reaction to an attack, like the one at Haditha. But there is no justification for mocking a woman mutilated in the service of her country, desecrating a child's body by wearing its skull like a yarmulke, or bisecting a dog with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. This is not a depiction of soldiers under stress, but of soldiers without honor. And to the right that is sacrilege.
As for Beauchamp, I don't believe him for a second. The budding author chose events that were both disturbing and difficult to verify. But even if he wrote each event without embellishment, one supposes he saw numerous horrors in the field. But he chose to write about the abuse of women, children and dogs.
Why does it matter whether the abuse of a disfigured woman took place in Kuwait or Iraq? This entire question of Beauchamp's "mendacity" centering on the location of an incident that has been verified by independent witnesses appears to me to be much ado about nothing.
The right wing blogosphere -- including Drudge, who has withdrawn most of the false reports allegedly leaked by U.S. Army insiders -- is in a tailspin over this disastrous war. They have no facts to fight with, so character assassination and speculation rule the day,
"Why does it matter whether the abuse of a disfigured woman took place in Kuwait or Iraq?"
If this incident of mocking the deformed woman (which appears not to have happened since no one else backs it up) happened before Beauchamp got to Iraq, it basically invalidates the whole theme of the rest of his diary, i.e., how war made him callous. If he was the sort of man who would be cruel to a deformed woman before he ever saw combat, then it's more of a garbage-in, garbage-out scenario, which has less literary potential.
Comments closed November 09, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
They get blinded with rage when anyone prints anything remotely questioning the war, even a pro-war publication. They probably also can't tell TNR from DFH publications like TAP.
Posted by bob | October 26, 2007 1:19 PM