| So...remember the brouhaha over Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the miliblogger for The New Republic? His anecdotes check out.
Case closed, right?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, not so fast! Hugh Hewitt, Michael Goldfarb, Michelle Malkin twist their panties in histrionics over...well...I'm not really sure...that Beauchamp set one anecdote at the wrong base? That the behavior Beauchamp describes is grim?
David Crisp:
...the idea that soldiers do mean things in wars is hardly news. Military history is full of the banal cruelty of war. Even under the best of circumstances, putting young men together under stress is likely to have coarse consequences. Just go to a rugby practice or cowboy bar. Give 20-year-olds superior firepower, and most anything could happen. That is no slur on soldiers, unless it is a slur to say that soldiers are human beings.
Bingo again.
Why righties are performing mental gymnastics to continue to rake Beauchamp over the coals is beyond me. They wanted war, they got it. Yes, it's icky, isn't it? But remember, it's these same conservatives that have been calling for more ruthless and savage action from the U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Hello, warbloggers. War is hell. (Didn't someone famous say that already?) And this particular hell you helped create. And this particular hell you continue to support. The atrocities Beauchamp describes are your atrocities, too. (Unfortunately they belong to us all, even those that opposed the war from the beginning.) No wonder you want to cut yourself loose from him. But I say make up your mind: do you want a war, or not? |
