The MacGuffin is on The Plank.

(linking this up later, sorry)

So, since I began posting about PV2 Beauchamp on 28 July 2007 there has been a new "investigation" and "re-reporting" by The New Republic, that can only be classified as more fairbanksing. There has also been a US Army investigation, that concluded that PV2 Beauchamp's stories were false and they probably have the DD2824s to prove it.

The following US Army spokespeople have gone on record verifying that the investigation concluded that PV2 Beauchamp fabricated his stories and there was no criminal violation: Col. Steve Boylan [filling in others later] ONE was anonymously reported as saying PV2 Beauchamp recanted his stories. What the big difference between "he recanted" and "his stories are false" is, I really do not know, but apparently an anonymous comment on the investigation is enough to 'prove' the investigation 'false' when The New Republic is the one tossing about the accusations.

Speaking of 'investigations', TNR conducted one of their own. The sources involved in the investigation, including the members of their staff that re-researched every detail and the experts and witnesses that they used for verification are known as "The Editors."

The New Republic is not bound by any law to reveal who they spoke to or the details of their investigation. So, in true "look-over-there" form, they demanded that the US Army investigators turn over their information, to assist TNR verify their story, of course. Slight problem that the English majors at TNR is keeping from it's readers, the Army investigators are prohibited by law from releasing investigation details that only result in administrative action. However, there are people who can release DD2824s: The people who signed them under oath. One of those people is TNR 'Diarist' PV2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp. He is married to a reporter for TNR and is not prohibited from contacting her either. By-the-by, if he releases doctored copies, that is a felony violation. Releasing nothing is not a problem, just ask Senator John F. Kerry.

So, TNR does have constructive possession of the document, but they are demanding copies from the Army, who they are accusing of a "coverup," because the Army is not giving TNR copies of documents that their employee already possesses and can send to them whenever he likes. Of course that does not make any sense to you, but the Leftist on The Plank and in weblogs are eating it up. They apparently expect the Army to order PV2 Beauchamp to call home just because Franklin Foer demands it.

We do know the name of one of the experts that TNR contacted to 'verify' one tiny bit of one story: Doug Coffey. Turns out, he did not verify the story, he "verified" some disjointed questions so that TNR can claim that Bradley Fighting Vehicles do not violate the laws of physics when performing feats that would violate the good sense of any vehicle commander. However, they did not re-report it that way, they fairbanksed about it again and got caught.

Has anybody at TNR done that recently? If you were reading my Slashdot journal this time last year, yes you know they were. That is where the verb fairbanksing came from. So, TNR, how about that list of who worked on these stories and what they worked on?

The list of items that were debunked in the stories before the Army investigation include: "square backed" 9mm shells that are only used by Iraqi police, changing HMMWV tires in 2' of sewage, Bradley Fighting Vehicles cutting dogs in half, the 'horrors of war creating monsters' of young men when they are sitting in Kuwait and I am sure I missed some.

Cathy Young at Reason debunked the PV2 Beauchamp story of a kid calling himself 'James Bond' getting his tongue cut out.

Now, with all of this having transpired and reading the carefully worded statements by "The Editors" of TNR it stands to reason that the stories by 'Baghdad Diarist' PV2 Beauchamp, as edited by TNR, should be read with care too.

In the 'James Bond' passages, PV2 Beauchamp does not claim to have seen the boy with his tongue cut out, he 'heard' about it from a buddy. Same thing with the Bradley running over dogs. He claimed to hear about that on the radio and then spoke to the driver who told stories of how to run over dogs, bust through concrete walls, along with other unlikely feats. No doubt that PV2 Beauchamp was 'that know-it-all who will believe anything' and the guys liked to feed him crazy stories.

[edit: 13 AUG 07]
One of the folks who has done a lot of work on debunking The New Republic in this matter has been The Confederate Yankee, but in this case I must disagree. Although PV2 Beauchamp is being crass and tasteless, I really do think he recalling (or just making up) a tasteless joke. The 'zombie dogs' passage from "Dark of Night":

As we slowly started moving back toward the Humvee, we could hear the dogs filling in the space behind us. I turned around and saw their green eyes flashing in the deep shadow where we'd left the body. Part of me thought we should have shot the dogs or done something to keep them from eating the body, but what good would it have done? We only would have been exposing ourselves to danger longer than we needed to.
Back in the Humvee, Hernandez started talking to me without looking in my direction. "Man, I've never seen anything like that before," he said.

"What? A guy killed by a cop?" I asked.

"No, man, zombie dogs. That shit was wild," he said, laughing.

Something inside of me fought for expression and then died. He was right. What else was there to do now but laugh?

"I took his driver's license," I said.

"You did?" questioned Hernandez.

"Yeah. It said he was an organ donor."

We chuckled in the dark for a moment, and then looked out the window into the night. We didn't talk again until we were back at our base.

I don't believe for a moment that he actually took a driver's license, nor do I read that as a serious comment.

In his last article, it sounds like he decided to make up some crazy stories of his own and found one confederate to talk to his bosses back at TNR 1331 Street, NW Washington, DC. The same bosses who say that PV2 Beauchamp was pressured into signing documents (DD2824) that do not refute his published stories. Yes, puzzle that one out. Only The Editors could come up with something like that.

Mr. Foer, you assert that you have witnesses to war crimes and UCMJ violations, to include statements from one of your writers, so why aren't you turning them in?

I have no idea of your military background, as far as I know you could have been a JAG in the IG shop, but you sure don't write that way. I was just a poor Line Officer (after being a Line Enlisted Soldier) . If you were you might see the value of the information to the Army for an investigation for war crimes, vs. your investigation to sell 30,000 copies of a magazine that your subscribers don't read anyway.

Believe it or not, you can not prosicute the criminals that you have in your clutches, but the US Army can.

So, Mr. Foer, please, pretty please, give up your documentation to the Army? If they fail to prosecute to your satisfaction then you will have a real blockbuster!

Stay tuned for the long "wrap up" post. Don't look for links in this one (just back from happy hour), but feel free to google this to death.

Point the firstest: PV2 Beauchamp is a moron and a liar. Moron first, he can't even change the oil on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle (check out his journal), so he takes the word of a Bradley driver's tall tales as truth. Perhaps that is 'tall tails' when the Bradley driver talks about running over sleeping dogs. Taller when he talks about running over concrete barriers and busting through buildings with one. If this story was told to PV2 Beauchamp, then he is an idiot for believing them.

Point the second: Cathy Young at Reason makes short work on the "James Bond" story. If your kid got their tounge cut out for talking to Americans would you let him play with Americans a few weeks later?

Point the third, the big one, the incident that turned this guy into a "monster" was his seeing a woman with a "half melted face", every single day, in the "mess hall" (do Privates really call dining facilities "mess halls" these days?). This war experience so scarred him that he wondered if he were a "monster" of some sort. Only problem there, it happened (if at all) in Kuwait, before he saw "war", according to TNR's investigation.

The defense by TNR?

First they conducted their own "invistigation" with no power of incarceration adn everybody that PV2 (second award) fed them somehow agreed with him. So, according to TNR, everything 'checks out'.

But wait, there was an Army investigation too. Details still confidential, but the conclusion that the PAO has e-mailed to several news organizations, is that PV2 Beauchamp fabricated every story published to his name. TNR, of course, ignores this and attacks The Weekly Standard for mentioning an anonymous inside source who gave added "color" to their piece.

TNR laments that their 'reporter' had his electronic communications gear taken away. Um, guys and gals, the man had already devulged troop movements and schedules on his own 'blog (the one you should have read before hiring him) and he was in the middle of an investigation for UNAUTHORIZED COMMUNICATION OF MILITARY ACTIVITY IN A WAR ZONE. Oh, sorry about the caps, TNR already knows about OPSEC as they fired a staffer for confirming that he is married to Elspeth Reeve of TNR.

All the while, the left is going after that Sanches guy because he is, apparently, the only man on earth who ever engaged in homosexual activity who should (according to them) be banned from military service!

The worst thing about this whole deal is that PV2 Beauchamp's wife, Elspeth Reeve, is a fine and, apparently, honest writer. Her husband, his slimey editor and TNR have done more to ruin her reputation than she could possibly do herself.

More on this very soon.

Just like the script called for, the left accuses coverup after Beauchamp investigation.

PV2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp is reported to have recanted the storeis that were printed in The New Republic under his name. The Weekly Standard reported that he recanted in a sworn affadivit on the first day of the investigation.

Of course, every fairbanksing must be part of a bigger conspiracy, when the lies agree with your view, right Rihard?

While The New Republic is busy defending PV2 (second award) Scott Thomas Beauchamp (see previous JE) as some sort of eye-opening-truth-teller, they have fired staffer Beth Greem for eye-opening-truth-telling.

Beth Greem (thinking that is her real name, not a handle) was the source for 'Ace of Spades' posts about New Republic contributor, Private Second Class Scott Thomas Beauchamp, being married to Elspeth Reeve, Reporter Researcher for The New Republic.

Where is the MacGuffin?
28 July 2007

Admissions and Facts First, Speculation Later (I will add links to text later, but I did change a lot of what I was going to write after re-looking at the original sources. this link to the article was working free as I wrote)

I shall confess, that I was in the minority thinking that 'PFC Scott Thomas' was made up by an editor at The New Republic, at best a load of Glassifications from nonsense passed off by fake vets as fact. Turns out it looks a lot more like a Fairbanksing.

1. Contrary to the dreams of the apologists for Private Second Class (PV2) Scott Thomas Beauchamp, he was not "attacked" by the Right at The Weekly Standard or on the "milblogs". The fanciful accounts written by the Private were questioned. Shortly thereafter, the paid subscribers of The New Republic, in the comments section to his article Shock Troops posted 23 July 2007, questioned the honesty of the Private too.

Look for yourself. The third comment 2007-07-19 09:42:46 raises several questions.

2. The New Republic also employs the wife of Private Beauchamp, the award winning writer Elspeth Reeve. Apparently, she has known her husband for quite some time as she quoted him in an April 2004 story.

Yes, this is relevant since Franklin Foyer stated Bauchamp being married to Reeve was the main factor for hiring the Private.

3. Private First Class Beauchamp (demoted to Private Second Class some time before "Shock Troops" was published) could have taken the "whistle blower" route and reported all of these incidents he describes up through his chain of command, or through the Chaplain. Even Atheists can report through the Chaplain as this is a parallel reporting chain for misconduct witnessed by soldiers. The fact is, he chose to write 'stories' about events, which if true, would likely have resulted in discipline of the personnel involved.

Abu Ghraib was reported by a Specialist, to his Lieutenant and up through the chain. It was announced to the press at a CENTCOM briefing to the press in short order (and ignored by the press for quite some time). Courts Martials and recommended punishments resulted from this investigation. As far as I remember, they are still not complete.

4. Private Beauchamp boasts in his own weblog, full of Leftist musings, that he will go to war and return a "writer". For some reason comparisons to Hemingway and Orwell are tossed onscreen by the supporters of the Private, but there is quite a difference. Hemingway and Orwell were fine writers before going to war and they made no secret about their writing about the war to their fellow soldiers. Also, their accounts rang true. In Homage to Caledonia, Orwell notes a teen or pre-teen soldier telling a story to an old woman on a train. Even thought he could not understand the conversation he doubts the factualness of the little soldier. Now, there is a similarity between an Orwell experience and the Private Beauchamp experience.

5. Private Beauchamp's wife is, as mentioned earlier, an accomplished writer who works for The New Republic. The only question that I have had, or seen for that matter, about her work in the past was in December of 2006 when Group Think was published in The New Republic. Actually, it was not so much a question about her work as it was a question about the odd coincidence with a not-very-honest sounding story by Eve Fairbanks in the Examiner "Caution: D.C. apartment hunt can result in identity crisis" a few months earlier. The articles sounded like they were written from the same research, one fiction and the Reeve article factual. Not doubting that it was all done with permission, it just seemed odd that employees of the same publication had articles within months of each other that were so close in topic and conclusion.

6. The New Republic fired one of their staffers for "leaking" the fact that Elspeth Reeve is married to Private Beauchamp.

Now for some thoughts on the pile of facts above.

If Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp wanted a real story he could have reported all of the incidents through any of the appropriate channels available and watched how events unfolded. If the reports were ignored or given lax attention, he would really have a story. Even if the investigation resulted in punishment, like at Abu Ghraib, that should not stop a good fabulist from making it sound like the Army ignored things, just like the MSM did with Abu Ghraib.

What he did, no matter what the underlying facts are, was wrong.

Speaking of the "facts", his second-hand story of a Bradley driver running over live dogs is quite difficult to believe, for those of us who have been around dogs anyway. I have not had the occasion to notice them to sun themselves on or next to hot roads. The snoozing dogs I have seen usually pick the shade. When I have seen dogs get run over they are usually trying to run in front of a vehicle. Also, I have not seen any that a Bradley could sneak up on.

As for knowing when a dog chasing the Bradley was close in on the right side, he would have had a spotter in the crew or another vehicle calling him on the radio. He would also have to have a pretty lax Track Commander to let him do all that swerving in formation, market stand smashing and the like.

Many people have been describing the passage from the article about this inaccurately. Here it is, just in case you read something different:

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.
I DIDN'T SEE the third kill, but I heard about it over the radio. Everyone was laughing, nearly rolling with laughter. I approached the private after the mission and asked him about it.

"So, you killed a few dogs today," I said skeptically.
"Hell yeah, I did. It's like hunting in Iraq!" he said, shaking with laughter.
"Did you run over dogs before the war, back in Indiana?" I asked him.
"No," he replied, and looked at me curiously. Almost as if the question itself was in poor taste.

Loudly making fun of a burn or IED victim in a dining facility and getting away with it seems unlikely too. Especially if she left loudly upset. I know when I was younger than the 23 year old private, as a Second Lieutenant, I would not have tolerated that behavior and neither would the Non Commissioned Officers. If the Private wished to push it, he could get at minimum a Conduct Unbecoming charge without saying or doing anything else to the victim.

Grave desecration? More UCMJ action. How on earth does anybody consider this guy a "whistle blower" if he never bothered putting the whistle in his mouth? The only whistle blower in this whole deal is the recently fired New Republic staffer.

One thing that made me think that this was a Fairbanksing job was from that "Big Shame in a Small World" story, written by New Republic Associate Editor, Eve Fairbanks, for The Examiner. She took an existing New York Times story and wrote another story, that was loaded with falsehoods that could easily be seen IF you found the original story. This story smacks of the same treatment. It could be a series of otherwise bland information and made sensational by an editor skilled in Fairbanksing. I wonder where TNR could find one of those?

I really hope the book clobbers this guy when it is thrown at him.

Yes, much of what I have written has been written and said by others over the past few days. Any similar wording is purely accidental.

If anybody is still reading my journal, I got a new job at the beginning of June (2007) in a large low-rise office building in Arlington, VA.

Last Friday we had a picnic with horse shoes, basketball, tug of war and volleyball. I was recruited to give contractor support to the tug of war.

While we were losing, in the first round, to the opponent who became champion of tug of war, I cut my left index finger. Thus the title of this post.

Otherwise, the new job is pretty cool but it is not as cool as that Afghanistan job.

It looks like John Edwards is calling on folks to disrupt every Memorial Day celebration across America.

How about everybody turn out to give these folks a proper welcome, like we did in the DC area in 17 March 2007?

Update: Hey Mr. Edwards and your followers, better hurry down to DC if you are going to disrupt Rolling Thunder. Rev up those pink bikes boys and girls!

Seems that I should be spelling France with the big F from now on.

Well, I have been busy. Busy looking for a new job.

Have been on overhead for most of 4 months now. Part of that was training for "the Orient", until the prime contractor did a phone interview with me and decided they did not want to use me.

That was a huge surprise to everybody from the engineers who build and maintain the surveillance system to the upper management. They are all pissed at Raytheon. Mostly because Raytheon had my resume for two months and everything was fine enough for me to make preparations to go (moved the 'hybrid' Charger to Tennessee, dental work, notes from doctor and dentist, lined up someone to use my condo while I am away, etc.). Another reason my management is pissed is that the interview had almost no questions about the required skills, everything was about higher level "desired" skills.

They are doing their best to take care of me and I have never seen a response like this from any other employer I have worked for. My resume is being passed all over the company and people are giving me contacts with other firms, like SAIC, Northrop, SRA and KBR. Still nothing solid yet.

The two most promising things to date came up this week. It looks like we either won or are trying to win the project I used to work on, for 7 years, at a previous firm. Two of the job descriptions were my job description from back then. The manager gets back in town Friday.

Another possibility was just brought to me, working in "the Orient" doing really kewell stuff with radios on vehicles. Sounds like custom fabrication work on top of the usual "fancy stereo install" stuff. Configuration management too. No body work that I know of, but I am sure there will be the possibility :) Idunno, that one is sounding too cool to believe. Database geeking, wrench turning, wire splicing, metal bending and everything. Won't get word until mid-next week :(

Tried to post this at Multiply in the Circular Refuge Group, but that verification thingie is not working today.

So, the parody song Barack the Magic Negro is called "much more offensive to Al Sharpton than to Obama" by The New Republic. How something full of Sharpton quotes, which are in perfect context, can be called "offensive" to the person who said them is ridiculous. Perhaps embarrassing, but not offensive.

The song is a collection of quotes from Leftist 'journalists', including the title that came from this David Ehrenstein piece: Obama the 'Magic Negro' The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.

Somehow, not one word about how the song is a collection of quotes by Leftist writers and activists made it into The Plank post, even though a Leftist 'blogger's assessment leads Eve Fairbanks' hit piece and he fairbanksed all over it.

None of the commentors seem to be aware of the fact that the song is a collection of Leftist quotes too, but moste of them have the typical Leftoid knee-jerk reaction.

Okay, I am now on Multiply as GMontag. Stop by and say hi so I can find yous guyz ovah der.

All of my Republican debate comments are over here, complete with horrid typing and spelling.

Check out David Weigel's reporting at the top and in the previous story too.

Not sure to me that this really counts as "censorship" at least to the extent of the examples given by Wired .

One soldier took down pictures of how well armor stood up to improvised bombs; a military spouse erased personal information from her site -- including "dates of deployment, photos of the family, the date their next child is expected, the date of the baby shower and where the family lives," said Army spokesman Gordon Van Fleet.

Let's see here . . . This guy actually thought that armor capabilities were just fine to broadcast to anybody? They weren't when I was a 'kid'. Same with effectiveness of our munitions.

They really thought that deployment dates were fine for any Joe-blow to publish rather than only being announced through official channels? When did that ignorance creep in as being okay?

As for all of that other info, it is usually bad to toss that all over the place and if the reasons are not obvious then I am not bright enough to begin explaining it here.

Perhaps if the military adopted the B. Hussein Obama method of information control the folks aw Wired would be a little happier?

Hat tip to reason online.

More proof that they are a bunch of wackjobs.