| You may be familiar with the controversy: a diarist under the pseudonym, "Scott Thomas," posted for the New Republic on some unpleasantries from Iraq from a soldier's point of view. Rightie bloggers accused him of being a phony, not a real soldier, but -- in one amusing account -- an MFA student, and ostensibly part of a liberal media plot to extract the US from Iraq and to besmirch the glorious honor of our men and women in uniform.
Today, the real identity of the diarist was revealed: he's Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.
Surprise! He's no phony!
Great. Case closed. Now we can settle down and mull over the larger issues of Beauchamp's reporting: our military is not equipped in training or in personnel to occupy a foreign and hostile nation indefinitely. Right? |
| Wrong. Jonah Goldberg:
Isn't this just a bit too precious? The guy writes about how his comrades mock disfigured women, slaughter dogs and wear baby skulls as hats, but he's upset that others have called his and his comrades' character into question? Someone explain that to me....
[M]uch of the criticism has been that U.S. soldiers would have better characters than those described in his pieces. Sorry: No sale. Scot Thomas Beauchamp may or may not be honest, but he's by no means a victim.
Protein Wisdom calls a Beauchamp a "puffed up lefty," Hot Air meticulously combs over every word Beauchamp's written and finds a concerted conspiracy to undermine the war, the Jawa Report suggest he should face charges, etc & co.
Matt Yglesias:
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.
Andrew Sullivan mulls, why all the craziness, anyway?
Partly, I think, new media hatred of TNR. Partly that Thomas is obviously a liberal Democrat who's also a soldier. But mainly, it seems to me, the conservative blogosphere has taken such an almighty empirical beating this last year that they have an overwhelming psychic need to lash out at those still clinging to sanity on the war. This Scott Thomas story is a godsend for these people, a beautiful distraction from the reality they refuse to face.
It combines all the usual Weimar themes out there: treasonous MSM journalists, treasonous soldiers, stories of atrocities that undermine morale (regardless of whether they're true or not), and blanket ideological denial. We have to understand that some people still do not believe that the U.S. is torturing or has tortured detainees, still do not believe that torture or murder or rape occurred at Abu Ghraib, still believe that everyone at Gitmo is a dangerous terrorist captured by US forces, and still believe we're winning in Iraq. If you believe all this and face the mountains of evidence against you, you have to act ever more decisively and emphatically to refute any evidence that might undermine this worldview.
Bingo. Beauchamp's "crimes" are not unusual among U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Anybody who's spent time with military personnel or who have heard accounts from Iraq or previous engagements know that engaging in this kind of grim, morbid humor is common among 19-year-old men under extreme stress.
Beauchamp's literary "crimes" don't exist. He's free to take a writing gig at a prominent magazine, even if it's through a personal connection; he's violated no ethical codes of journalism; so far, all of his stories check out.
Bottom line: his "crimes" are purely political.
Don't believe me? You think these righties really do care about troops committing atrocities? Jonah Goldberg on July 18:
As a matter of analysis and prescription, I'm all in favor of the war in Iraq becoming less "liberal" -- as you folks are using the term around here -- and more realistic, i.e. ruthless.
Again, as is so typical of the kool-aid supporters of this war, troops are to be supported only if they share politics. That's the lesson we learned wa-a-a-a-y back with the Swift boat attacks on John Kerry. Never mind that Kerry actually served his country and deliberately put himself in danger -- while his opponent cowered on the sidelines in a cushy Guard unit that never left the States, as arranged by his family's powerful ties in government -- he dared denounce the Vietnam war.
Likewise Beauchamp. Never mind that he's actually there, serving, putting his life on the line for a cause that righties adore, he dares question his nation's involvement in the war and reports on its day-to-day realities.
And that's his real crime, isn't it? He won't produce propaganda for the wingnuts' Quixotic little bang-up in the Middle East. |
