So, where to begin with that "Baghdad Diarist" PV1 Scott Thomas Beauchamp? The "square backed" 9mm rounds from Glocks, used "exclusively" by the Iraqi police forces and the associated, unfounded, murder accusations? How about the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles that bust through concrete structures and can sneak up on sleeping dogs like a cat?
How about how courageously PV1 Scott Thomas Beauchamp "spoke out" against the military?
No, not going to begin with those. They will come later.
I shall start with recent events and The New Republic, along with the magazine's supporters.
Here is some phrasing to get used to. You will see it a lot in the future from the folks who support TNR's latest tack on the Global War on Terror. Mattew Yglasias coughs up PV1 Beauchamp as an example of someone who did nothing wrong, but gets attacked by the Right and Ezra Klein parrots the same notion. Plenty of other squawking parrots out there, like Andrew Sullivan, but I will stick to these two for the moment.
Mr. Klein, a fellow who is under the impression that Iran is really developing nuclear weapons for national pride, no matter how many times their officials say they are developing them to destroy Israel. He seems to apply this to the PV1 Beauchamp affair in the sense that it does not matter how much of this guy's stories are discredited, or what words the Private used, the problem is with the Right for pointing it out. He seems to do that a lot, like spreading the famous Vlasic pickle demise at the hands of 'evil' Wal*Mart. Word to Ezra: I spotted Vlasic pickles at the Harris Teeter in the Potomac Yards complex on Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA a week before posting this.
Oh, another word to Mr. Klein, PV1 Beauchamp never bothered to "speak out" against "the system", the Army, the war, or the military in general until he sent a statement for TNR to publish. At least nothing about his superiors was written under his name in the Diarist stories. He and his editor strictly stuck to fabricating stories about how "bad" he and his peers were.
The Leftist notion that PV1 Beauchamp is being somehow persecuted like Winston Smith from 1984 is taken to the absurd by one Mr. Thoma and one Mr. Schwartz here: The only thing "Orwellian" about their posts is their intentional misuse of the English language to cause alarm, something that Orwell complained about on more than one occasion.
They also toss out other names in the same context. Private Jessee MacBeth is one. A basic trainee, rejected after 44 days of training, who tried to defraud the VA of benefits money by forging documents. He was also forging his own life-story by making up stories of being a Ranger who committed atrocities. Remember this phrase: "mistaken key detail." No, I have not read anybody else say that in MacBeth's case, but it is important, so remember it. Pvt. MacBeth "was mistaken on a key detail" in his VA application and memory of his war experience.
Ann Coulter has a longer list in one of her columns about phony soldiers.
Senator John F. Kerry "made a was mistaken on a key detail" when he recalled, numerous times, that he was on a secret Navy mission in Cambodia, on Christmas 1968 while Richard Nixon "the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me". That "mistaken key detail" was that Mr. Nixon was correct and Mr. Kerry was wrong.
Senator Harkin, who spoke so eloquently about things that Rush Limbaugh never said might have been making a "key detail error" too. You see, when the Left speaks of people they do not agree with there is no such thing as a "mistaken key detail," but when they say they were shooting down MIGs over Vietnam, when they never did anything close to that, it is a "a mistaken key detail." In case anybody is keeping score, President George W. Bush shot down as many Migs as Sen. Harkin, but the Senator leads the category for phonieness.
Mayor Levy, (D) of Atlantic City "was mistaken on a key detail" by claiming to have been in Army Special Forces at some time during his actual 20 years of Active Army service. Go figure. Perhaps I am not one to criticize, since I have never claimed to have been in Special Forces in my 28+ years of service.
Every one of the uniformed "mistaken on a key detail" makers noted above have something in common with each other that PV1 Beauchamp does not have in common with any of them: an editor.
Now I do have some doubts that the Private was the source of all of the inaccuracies in the stories published under his name. Perhaps Klein and Yglasias have more direct knowledge about how these stories were phonied up than the mere speculation that I have? Perhaps they are buddies with the, as for now, unnamed editor at TNR?
Yep, PV1 Beauchamp has not been quoted, taped or filmed saying any of the things that were written under his name. No notes for his stories have been released. Nobody, outside the TNR staff and official Army investigators has revealed interviewing him on the details that HE submitted for the stories. Army officials have made statements that the "Baghdad Diarist" stories were not verified at all by any member of PV1 Beauchamp's unit and that his written statements refute his stories. BUT, PV1 Beauchamp has not tossed any medals at the Capitol, nor has he sat before a camera and told his story. TNR has been doing that for him.
That brings me to the suspicion that I have and it is based on my limited experience with how information goes into TNR vs. the way it appears in print. Well, that is not limited to TNR actually, just to several stories by one of their editors in various publications. Somehow, some way, whenever a particular TNR editor gets details they get mangled into something that does not resemble where they began. This might be common over there, but I have not seen it pointed out about their other editors or reporters.
Oh, and I will say that I am convinced that PV1 Beauchamp's wife, Elspeth Reeve, had nothing to do with the finished version of the "Baghdad Diarist" series, mostly because they do not sound like her writing. I have read a few of her articles in TNR and I was brought to one, about political/social biases in the DC rooms-to-rent market because, as described by Ezra Klein, it sounded a whole lot like an Examiner story, written by a New Republic editor. I was banned from posting to Mr. Klein's 'blog for pointing this out and I am not sure how what I said constituted an accusation of plagiarism, but it happened and I am still banned from commenting there, as far as I know.
The Reeve story was behind the TNR "pay wall," so it took a while to find a free copy and it was nothing like the Examiner article. The Reeve article read true and could be verified, if only indirectly (much of the data was from Craig's List and is purged weekly). The Examiner article sounded phony. Perhaps just "mistaken on a few key details?"
The PV1 Beauchamp stories sounded like someone wrote them who was told a few things about events that may or may not have happened, but final versions were done in such a manner as to sound like a story idea was already in mind and PV1 Beauchamp's details were used to fill in the blanks and add some spice.
For example, if someone does not know jack about guns, is given the description of a square dent in the back of a spent 9mm shell I can easily see it getting twisted into "square backed" bullets. PV1: "We found shells with square dents in the primers." Editor: "Square what where?" PV1: "The primer, in the back of the shell" . . . with the detail of Glocks being used exclusively by the police being plucked out of thin air, or from some DC know-it-all.
Sort of like Shooter: "I am restoring a hydrogen powered 1972 Charger." Reporter: "You drive a hybrid?" Shooter: "NO!, okay, here, the tree huggers fall for this joke all the time, gasoline is hydrogen and carbon" . . . Print edition: Shooter told me he drives a hybrid.
Granted, PV1 Beauchamp started out behind the 8 ball anyway, stating in his own 'blog that he was only joining the Army to get street credibility for his writing. An interview with someone claiming to be an ex-faïence supports this and she certainly does not sound like a bitter woman. Also, during his short time in the Army his highest rank attained was Private First Class, pay grade E-3. He is now back at square one as a Private, E-1. He has held the ranks of Private E-1 and E-2 twice as many times as me or most other former Enlisted soldiers. He was reduced to Private E-2 some time before his identity was revealed to the Army, and the world, by TNR.
Back to the editor of these stories, if a TNR employee can take a fine New York Times article (fine articles happen there sometimes) and turn amoral cell phone thieves into victims of a mean webmaster for an Examiner story, they can certainly turn Bradley IFVs into dog killing, concrete smashing bulldozers. Somehow, I suspect that particular story started out a lot different in reality than when it was described to PV1 Beauchamp, and then fudged over in the equivalent of Room 101 with a TNR editor.
I am fully of the belief that PV1 Beauchamp did hear something over the radio and asked a crewmember about it. For all I know the reference to dog strikes could be slang for something unrelated to dogs. When PV1 Beauchamp quizzed the Bradley driver about it, out of the blue and, perhaps, clueless and awkward, the driver might have strung him along with a BS story. That was common in my day and I doubt it has changed. So, the Private wrote it all down, without telling anybody he spoke to that it was for publication, and sent it in.
The one that really stuck out from "Shock Troops", where it turns out he "was mistaken on a key detail" in location. See? I told you to remember that one, it is important now. The Editors of TNR, after their 'investigation' of the "Baghdad Diarist" stories, said that they only found that he "was mistaken on a key detail". That error, if you did not already know, was that the third, and now final, story in the series stated that the horrors of war had made the young soldiers so heartless that they had become "monsters" who could taunt a disfigured woman until she ran from a dining facility in tears. The story claimed that PV1 Beauchamp saw her "every day" at their base in Iraq. Well, the "mistaken key detail" was that the incident supposedly happened in Kuwait rather than Iraq and nobody at that base has been able to verify anybody of that description. Apparently the horrible experiences were in the form of premonitions?
Details of that story make me suspicious of an editor too. For one thing, Dining Facilities have not been called "chow halls" for decades. Well, maybe newbies still call them that if their whole view of the Army came from M*A*S*H, but I am thinking the probability is higher in an editing room. I would not be surprised if the whole thing were made up at TNR after nothing but a description of where the soldiers ate and how much turnover happened at that base was relayed to the TNR editor.
Something that made the whole thing sound phony quite early was PV1 Beauchamp describing himself changing a tire while knee deep in sewage, in a location called "Little Venice". Well, there is a "Little Venice" in the Iraq. It is called that because it has many canals! The rest of the description sounds made up, especially the part about changing an M998/HMMWV tire by himself in a street-sewer.
We do know that the TNR Editorial staff engages in full-out fabrication, all the way up to Editor-in-Chief Franklin Foer.
Mr. Foer came out shooting at The Weekly Standard and the Army, claiming that PV1 Beauchamp was being held incommunicado, when he was not, that every detail if all three stories checked out, when they obviously do not, failing to name any expert that they interviewed and failing to mention that they did indeed speak to PV1 Beauchamp on 7 September 2007. I have not seen where any information about that call was known to anybody outside of TNR, so I take the speculation that PV1 Beauchamp was given any instruction not to speak to others as nothing but speculation.
Behind the scenes, an intern at TNR was fired for "leaking" the relationship between TNR researcher/reporter Elspeth Reeve and her husband, PV1 Scott Thomas Beauchamp the same day that TNR itself revealed the relationship and the full name of the "Baghdad Diarist." Elspeth Reeve has now left the magazine for a position with Time.
The BAE Systems representative who spoke to TNR about the capabilities of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle was found and re-interviewed by "Confederate Yankee." Turns out that the sloppy 'verification process' at TNR failed to reveal that the Bradley maneuvers as described in "Shock Troops" were "highly unlikely." Of course, to the TNR apologists, "highly unlikely" means it probably happened just as described. Some use "evidence" that Privates move the vehicles around in the motor pool without NCOs manning the command position, which is probably true, but nothing like what was described in the article. Sounded more like a tall tale by a Bradley driver as told to a gullible Private who does not even know how to change oil while reading the manual. I also have the suspicion that since BAE is a large firm TNR was banking on the expert not being found.
I have stated online that, in my experience, dogs don't sleep in the sun on hot roads as described in "Shock Troops". Turns out that my ex-girlfriend in Illinois has one that does just that right now. Highly unlikely, but yes it is possible.
Now, let's take a different look at this and suspend disbelief for a bit, taking everything by the TNR Editors, including Mr. Foer, as fact. Well, that is impossible. Why? Because if Mr. Foer was stating facts he would not be griping at the Army for interfering in a TNR 'investigation,' he would be griping at the Army for failing to prosecute and for covering up war crimes. He would not be carping that the Army coerced PV1 Beauchamp into signing statements that "do not refute his stories," he would be complaining that his own 'reporter' is not FAXing those documents back to the DC TNR offices for publication, supporting the stories and the 'diarist.' Also, if what Mr. Foer says has any truth at all to it, he should be turning over his information to the Army for war crimes investigations and other violations.
In PV1 Beauchamp's own statement, printed at The Plank on TNR on 26 July 2007, he says that he did not want to get into this sort of a debate. This was also the point where PV1 Beauchamp decided to "speak out" against people who are not fighting in a real war, as if being a Private in Iraq gives one some sort of immunity. Oh yea, it is "absolute moreal authority." Ann Coulter gives him some advice on how better to stay under the radar. However, we do not even know if this statement is complete or if the editors have chopped it up. I doubt it is the latter, but with that magazine you never know. I will bet that everybody he spoke with, whom he knew was going to be jammed into his 'diary,' never counted on being in something like this either. Something that I am certainly familiar with from TNR.
This article deserves even more linking and I hope to come back and do that soon.
Corrected "mess hall" to "chow hall" as written in "Shock Troops".