Just saw this is "green week" or something and thought of the ultimate Segway modification: replace batteries with a Honda generator for the "ultimate" hybrid. Burn ethenol in it if you want!

Via The Corner at The National Review Online:

Refighting the Pacific War? [Mark Krikorian]

Gen. Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, has died. He "had requested that there be no funeral or headstone, fearing it would give his detractors a place to protest." Detractors? Protest? He helped win the war and -- oh, by the way -- saved hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of lives (both American and Japanese), but the left-wingers couldn't stand the fact that he wasn't a self-hater like them. Because, as he said, "I sleep clearly every night." You go on sleeping clearly, general.

Too bad he didn't go to law school, because I'd rather have a man like Tibbets on the Supreme Court rather than Justice John Paul Stevens, who recently told an interviewer that he was "troubled" by the fact there was "so little apparent deliberation or humanitarian consideration" before deciding to kill Adm. Yamamoto in 1943 -- the head of the Japanese navy and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Humanitarian consideration? We're supposed to wring our hands before killing an enemy commander, on a warplane, in the middle of a war? I don't follow closely the sophistries of the Supreme Court, but if this is the quality of the man's reasoning, no wonder we're in such trouble.

11/01 11:21 PM

Maybe I have thought about writing this for so long that I just think I wrote about it. Or I posted it on someone else's 'blog.

Lakeside Inn, Reston, VA
1999ish

I was talking to two older guys, both Army veterans. One, who I had talked to many times, was a Special Forces guy in Vietnam. He always had some obscure thing to bring up and talk about, but he was tricky about it and there usually was an interesting lesson related to his stories. The other guy was just drunk and confusing.

So, the non-SF guy starts quizzing me about my background.

Him: "WHAT WAS YOUR MOS!?"

Me: "Huh? I have 20 years of service; have been in 3 different Officer Fields and two Enlisted MOSs . . ."

Him: "WHAT WAS YOUR MOS!?"

Me: "When I enlisted I was a 45N and then I was a 19E . . ."

He kept going on and on, as if he had never heard about anybody ever progressing past pot-scrubber and basically calling me a liar about my background. He also went on and on about how his time in the Army was the most traumatic time in his life.

Me: "When were you in?"

Him: "During 'nam, 1970 - 1972" (not sure if that is exact, but it was around then)

Me: "Oh wow, you must have seen some rough stuff. Most of the Vietnam vets I know don't have that attitude. Where were you stationed?"

Him: "Germany."

Me: "WHAT!? and what was YOUR MOS?"

Him: "Truck driver (he did name the MOS code too)."

Me: "Lemme get this straight. You are sharp-shooting me, with 20 years of service and the most 'traumatic' experience in your life was driving trucks around Germany in the 1970's??? AND you can't get over that experience???"

The conversation degraded from there. If I wrote about this in the past it was probably more accurate. All this PV1 Beauchamp stuff reminds me about that guy whenever it comes up, except PV1 Beauchamp is actually doing rough duty.

Drudge, New Republic battle over 'Baghdad Diarist'
October 27, 2007

In his account, Beauchamp described various ways in which the occupation of Iraq brutalized soldiers in his combat infantry unit. He described the ridicule of a disfigured Iraqi woman, attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles and the mistreatment of dead children's remains.

In his own reaccounting, he was not in Iraq when he met the disfigured woman, he was in Kuwait. Actually, not his accounting, but the supposedly by the other soldiers that The New Republic asked to back the story. He NEVER said she was Iraqi.
2.pdf
Also, in the readily available documents, he would not swear uner oath to have seen Bradley IFVs running over dogs or the desecration of human remains.

The writer's identity quickly was revealed and both the New Republic and the Army investigated.

Yes, his identity was revealed by his publisher, The New Republic as was that of his wife who was writing for them at the time, Elspeth Reeve. BTW, the Army was already investigating him for OPSEC violations in his weblog.

The magazine determined that the incident involving the disfigured woman was concocted and corrected that,

Not quite. They minimalized a serious error that undermined the entire premise of the story. Otherwise, you are on track. On the window track that you are licking on the short bus.

but also reported that interviews with Beauchamp's comrades substantiated his version of the other events.

Other than the fact that none of them backed those accounts up under oath. Neither did PV1 Beauchamp. The man has a title, you might try using it in your writing.

The Army's investigators refused to release details of their findings, but said in an e-mail that Beauchamp's "allegations are false, his platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made."

The Congress has restricted what can be released as a part of public law. The parties to the investigation have protection under the law, no matter how much you do not like or understand it and public releases of information are not the data dumps that you might wish.

A report in the Weekly Standard alleged that, as part of the Army investigation, the private also had signed a statement totally disavowing his piece. When the New Republic inquired about such a statement, an Army spokesman denied it existed.

The Weekly Standard spoke out of school, at the time. However, the now illegally released record supports The Weeekly Standard's source. seems to be an unofficial source, subject to LEGAL (ever read that word before?) retribution.

Since then, Beauchamp has remained in Iraq with his unit and the magazine has been unable to communicate with him.

Other than 2 or 3 times as stated by Mr. Franklin Foer and a transcript from a 6 September 2007 telephone conversation. Did you know that you refer to the transcript later in this article? How could you be unaware of a conversation that you write about in this same article? Are you Fairbankising all the way through?

Both the New Republic -- still unable to determine whether its story was true or false -- and bloggers interested in the case -- enraged that the story had "defamed" and "dishonored" the U.S. military -- have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for release of documents produced by the Army's inquiry.

Yep, you got something correct. Funny how the raw, un-redacted version does not look so hot for Mr. Foer and his crew, huh?

The Drudge writer, whoever that may be, then went on to list four documents he or she had obtained. Two were transcripts of a Sept. 7 telephone conference call in which Beauchamp, with at least two military superiors present with him in Iraq, spoke at length with New Republic editor Franklin Foer and the magazine's executive editor Peter Scoblic.

You went through all of that crap when you knew about this!?

Oh, only one person in the room was a true "military superior", his squad leader. The PAO representative, while higher in rank (just by accident, PV1 Beauchamp would have been an SP4 if he could just stay out of trouble) was not in the Private's chain of command.

At a certain point in the conversation, the latter two telephonically included the lawyer the magazine had retained to represent Beauchamp. In the course of this conversation, Beauchamp repeatedly refused to confirm or deny the details of his diarist piece and professed his desire to devote himself entirely to fulfilling his duties as a soldier.

Seems you missed the part where the TNR reps. did the whole mob-movie-like thing hoping nothing bad happened to his wife Elspeth "Ellie" Reeve.

One of the documents is a kind of executive summary of the Army's investigation, concluding that Beauchamp's article was entirely false and recommending that he receive psychiatric treatment. The fourth document, according to Drudge, was "a signed 'Memorandum for Record' in which Beauchamp recants his stories and concedes the facts of the Army's investigation -- that his stories contained 'gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct' by his fellow soldiers." (In fact, signing such a document -- if it exists -- is not an admission of guilt, but merely an acknowledgment that the person under investigation has been shown the contents.)

It was interesting to note that Drudge provided links to the transcripts and report but not to the purported "Memorandum for Record."

Are you talking about the "Memorandum of Concern", a counceling statement, included in 2.pdf, that was signed by LTC (Tim, that means Lieutenant Colonel) George A. Glaze, on 1 September 2007? Or do you mean the "Memorandum for Record", contained in the same .pdf, signed by PV1 (that means Private, E-1) Beauchamp on 1 September 2007 at 2030 hrs? Yes, the latter is just a reciept.

No, he did not overtly "recant" his stories, a PAO was on record said that to Bob Owens some time before the Drudge documents were posted. However, he did swear to a set of facts that shred the basis of his stories. Should not be a big deal for you an the TNR crowd, where Kuwait is as good as Iraq for a "horrors of war" story.

Don't you know any of this? Did you come into this story right after an Anthropology Department keg party? Are you trying to get a TNR job or as a commentor on Ezra Klein's 'blog?

Read the rest yourself. This guy needs modern medication.

Mr. Foer is NOT protecting PV1 Beauchamp. He is protecting an editor and himself.

See my earlier post for details.

Maybe it is a little too apparent from the transcript (
part one here, part two here.

The New Republic people threaten PV1 Beauchamp with his wife's job and tell him that he is never going to write again. All of that is overlayed over telling him, several times, that he should not "recant" his story.

Now, if you are never going to write again what is the point of not recanting your story if you are the one who lied? Even if you did not lie about anything, what is the point of not recanting your story unless it is just to protect someone else?

If Ellie had nothing to do with the stories, other than being the innocent wife of the author, what is the point of threatening PV1 Beauchamp with her losing her job over his lies? Her job shoul not be at risk at all.

So, we have Mr. Foer saying that whatever PV1 Beauchamp sent to them was fine and his work checked out when TNR investigated it. Somehow, by the time it got to print, a large portion of the military world had a problem with it, including me.

I am sure there are other perfectly good theories out there, but the only thing that fits for me is that Mr. Foer is leaning on the Private and his wife to protect another employee of his.

Or at least be forced to listen to the first few tracks of Smokin'.

Note: At the time of this writing, the TNR search feature was not returning any Beauchamp articles and appears to be related to the revamping of their website.

"The Editors" of TNR posted this statement on 10 August 2007. Besides calling a major location error in "Shock Troops" one key detail (the detail being that "the war" turned their writer into a "monster" but he was in Kuwait, before arriving in Iraq, at odds with the published story), they also give us this tidbit:

Scott Beauchamp is currently a 23-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members.

Note that it was only 15 days. The thing is, nobody was keeping Private Beauchamp from contacting TNR or his family (his wife was working for TNR at the time) before his Operational Security (OPSEC) investigation began and nobody was keeping him from contacting anybody after the investigation concluded. The Private was not prevented from contacting anybody at all when this story was being investigated by The Weekly Standard and the gaping holes and Fairbanksings were being revealed. Nor was he prevented from contacting others after his most recent investigation was concluded.

Additionally, they did speak to a BAE Systems employee, as they claimed and as verified by Bob Owens. Problem is, TNR did not reveal the name of Mr. Doug Coffee, the name of the firm where he is employeed, nor their sloppy "fact checking" process. That process lacks a few basics, like giving the expert a copy of what you are verifying. Yes, if you did not know, the verifier at TNR just asked Mr. Coffee some general, leading questions and proclaimed the Shock Troops dog killing Bradley driver story complete and factual. When Mr. Bob Owens presented Mr. Coffee with the actual story, he changed his take on the possibility of Bradleys being dog and concrete smashers. TNR does not reveal any other experts questioned, but then again they did not reveal any experts at all to start with.

Enough old news, the transcript of a 6 September 2007 confrence call has surfaced. It appears to be authentic and part one can be found here, part two here. Whomever released this stuff outside of the regular Public Affairs process is in for trouble. Contrary to what Mr. Foer would like you to believe, this is NOT Army policy and PAO Major Kirk Luedeke, assigned to this issue, even told Mr. Foer so. TNR and Mr. Foer, who have had no problem at all with an publishing insider's fabrications about the antics of himself and his fellow troops, suddenly has a problem with some no-name leaking an official investigation that involves TNR. Go figure.

It really does not sound like Mr. Foer needs to be commenting on anything military, nor does he need to have any supervisory control over any articles related to the military. Actually, perhaps TNR should stay away from military articles completly and just stick with Beltway Babbling about big lofty policy.

In the transcripts we have this:

Transcript of Conversation
            Scott Thomas Beauchamp and The New Republic, 061945SEP07
Attendees: Pvt Scott Thomas Beauchamp, A/1-18 IN; Frank Foer, Editor The New Republic, Peter Scoblic, Executive Editor, The New Republic, SSG Preiszler, squad leader, Spc. Ben Washburn, 4th IBCT Public Affairs and "Gene" Lawyer for Scott Beauchamp, provided by The New Republic

(double check my typing accuracy, the .pdf I was reading was a picture not a text document)

See any commissioned officers in that header? I don't either, but Franklin Foer imagines one intimidating Private Beauchamp during the conversation, as he told Howard Kurtz shortly after the transcript and investigation were improperly released. It seems like Mr. Foer was not banking on the transcript getting out, as he never said a word about this conversation happening before it was unexpectedly released.

Of course, Mr. Foer is making a big fuss about the Army not giving TNR all sorts of documents, so that TNR can spin this story however they wish. Check the transcripts if you don't believe me. What is puzzling is how TNR had a confrence call with the Army and now expects the Army to be the only ones to provide a transcript. They could not record and transcribe this themselves? Granted, they would have missed the detail of Private Beauchamp sipping some water, but they could have included the full name of the lawyer that they retained for Private Beauchamp.

More about the transcript and Mr. Foers comments about it in a bit. Let's check something else that is important to this story.

Mr. Foer has tossed out the idea that the Army interviewed the wrong people in the Article 15-6 investigation and demands their sworn statements. He is pretty cagy about who TNR interviewed to investigate/re-report the Baghdad Diarist stories. Actually, he never has released the names of anybody interviewed other than Privat Beauchamp and Elspeth Reeve. The Diarist stories are full of military violations, even serious crimes, but he does not turn over the evidence to complete an investigation into these crimes. He does not even bother to tell anybody if any of the soldiers listed in the AR 15-6 report are the ones his magazine interviewed:

CPT Eric Pribyla
SSG Skyler Preszler
PFC Tracy King
SSG Jonathan Duncan
SSG Kevin Reinhardt
PFC Brian Long
SPC Gregory Franz
PFC Randy Moon
SSG Scott Cunningham
SFC Martin Guiterrez
1LT Jamil Brown
SSG Robert Bauer
SSG Clifford Gabriel
CPT Lee Showman
SSG Jessee Martin
SSG Francis Hancock
SGT Craig McLaughlin
SPC William Whitmore
PV2 Jarrid Ilgenfriz

Every one of them signed a DA 2823. Did Mr. Foer send "Gene" the lawyer to Iraq and get sworn statements from his 'witnesses'? Not that I know of.

One portion of Shock Troops, that is somewhat refuted in the AR 15-6 report, is the inference that 'Scott Thomas' saw a Bradley running over dogs. Actually, he (or his editor) wrote that he did not see the third dog killing by the Bradley driver, implying that he saw the previous two. The 15-6 says he never saw a Bradley run over a dog. Also in Shock Troops, Private Beauchamp (or his editor) wrote that he saw his friends desecrate the remains of a child. The 15-6 says that he witnessed no such thing.

As you can see, squaring what Mr. Foer says with what is in the sworn record is going to be pretty difficult, unless you use imagenary English. So, let's try that.

Mr. Foer keeps telling anybody who will listen that Private Beauchamp has not "recanted" his stories. He tells all that Elspeth Reeve told him that PV1 Beauchamp told her that he never "recanted" and he says that the Private himself called Mr. Foer at home in a private, unrecorded, untranscribed conversation that he did not "recant". Fine, so Private Beauchamp never used the word "recant" or any of its variants in his sworn statements. He only made sworn statements that completly shreded what was printed under his name. There, happy Mr. Foer? I solved the puzzle without buying a vowel.

Back to the transcript. When (softball) interviewed by Mr. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, Mr. Foer claims that PV1 Beauchamp was under duress from the Army during the call. He fails to mention that he and his Executive Editor were bringing up the future of PV1 Beauchamp's wife at the magazine in an attempt to prevent the Private from "recanting" his stories.

Something else that was odd in the transcript, they told PV1 Beauchamp that he was not going to be able to write again after this was all over. Why would they tell him that if the Private was telling the truth the whole time? They still let Eve Fairbanks make up stories over there as an editor (the Examiner prints her fiction too). Lee Seigel is still writing and plenty of other fabricators are fully employed making up stuff more often thatn PV1 Beauchamp. Pure speculation: Perhaps they were trying to warn him to keep quiet about how his articles were edited after he submitted them?

The call happened on 6 September 2007. A couple of weeks later, on 24 September 2007 it was reported that she PV1 Beauchamp's wife was gone from TNR and had moved on to Time.

As they say, stay tuned for more!

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California lit the match on this story, saying at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the California National Guard was "down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment, because they're all in Iraq" and that that had hampered fire fighting efforts. Local officials and frustrated first responders have been quoted beefing about the federal and military response: a lack of preparation, a lack of resources, bureaucratic red tape.

The rest of that article is pretty good in its criticism of the Democrat from California too.

One thing that struck me as being total bullshit in the Senator's statement is that California has around 20,000 National Guard members. A very small amount of that is fire fighting equipment and I doubt that 50% of that is in Iraq. Does the Honerable Senator have some information that tanks and Bradleys are good for fire fighting?

I have heard of other Democrats (a Lt. Governor perhaps?) saying that the California Guard is deployed too heavily in Iraq to fight fires in CA. Without checking too hard, I found out that around 1,500 CANG are deployed OCONUS and around an equal number are in other phases of deployment or redeployment. That leaves around 17,000 CANG still sitting around waiting for something to do. I did not hear anything about the Governor having any trouble mobilizing whatever he wanted, at least not from the Governor.

Can't these folks just cut the crap?

26.10.2007 A Scott Beauchamp Update

Will make my comments after reading, in a serious break with /. protocol.

Update: Will add links to the questionable portions below.

A Scott Beauchamp Update

Since our last statement on "Shock Troops," a Diarist by Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp that we published in our July 23 issue, we have continued our investigation into the article's veracity. On Wednesday, for a brief period, The Drudge Report posted several documents from the Army's own investigation into Beauchamp's claims. Among those documents was a transcript of a phone conversation that TNR Editor Franklin Foer and TNR Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic had with Beauchamp on September 6--the first time the Army had granted TNR permission to speak with Beauchamp since it cut off outside contact with him on July 26. During this conversation, Beauchamp refused to discuss his article at all: "I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything," he said. In light of that phone call, some have asked why The New Republic has not retracted "Shock Troops."

The answer is simple: Since this controversy began, The New Republic's sole objective has been to uncover the truth. As Scoblic said during the September 6 conversation: "[A]ll we want out of this, and the only way that it is going to end, is if we have the truth. And if it's--if it's certain parts of the story are bullshit, then we'll end that way. If it's proven to be true, it will end that way. But it's only going to end with the truth." The September 6 exchange was extremely frustrating; however, it was frustrating precisely because it did not add any new information to our investigation. Beauchamp's refusal to defend himself certainly raised serious doubts. That said, Beauchamp's words were being monitored: His squad leader was in the room as he spoke to us, as was a public affairs specialist, and it is now clear that the Army was recording the conversation for its files.

The next day, via his wife, we learned that Beauchamp did want to stand by his stories and wanted to communicate with us again. Two-and-a-half weeks later, Beauchamp telephoned Foer at home and, in an unmonitored conversation, told him that he continued to stand by every aspect of his story, except for the one inaccuracy he had previously admitted. He also told Foer that in the September 6 call he had spoken under duress, with the implicit threat that he would lose all the freedoms and privileges that his commanding officer had recently restored if he discussed the story with us.

On September 14, we also spoke at length with Major John Cross, who led the Army's investigation into the Beauchamp case. Contrary to reports in The Weekly Standard and other outlets, Cross explicitly said that Beauchamp "did not recant" his article in the sworn statements he had given the Army. Moreover, although the Army's investigation--which declared that the claims in "Shock Troops" were false--purported to be conclusive, Cross conceded that there were at least a dozen soldiers in Beauchamp's platoon whom he had not interviewed. TNR pressed for clarification:

Scoblic: So you didn't get statements from everyone in his platoon, then?

Cross: We got statements from everyone in his platoon that was available that day we were conducting the investigation.

Scoblic: At a later point did you follow up with any of the people that weren't available that day?

Cross: No.

Faced with the fact that Beauchamp stood by his story and the fact that the Army investigation had serious gaps--as well as the fact that our earlier reporting had uncovered significant evidence corroborating Beauchamp's accounts--The New Republic decided to continue its investigation. On August 10, we had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of the Army for all documents pertaining to its investigation of Beauchamp, particularly any statements Beauchamp had signed. But it was not until October 10 that Central Command informed us that the FOIA request was finally under review by the appropriate office. We also repeatedly tried to get these documents directly from the First Infantry Division, to which Beauchamp is assigned, but we were told that they could be released only through a FOIA request. We also tried to get the statements from Beauchamp himself. However, when Beauchamp requested a copy of his own statements from an Army legal adviser, he was told that he first had to coordinate any dissemination of them with Army public affairs.

It was as we were awaiting the documentary record of the Army's investigation that the Army leaked several documents, including the September 6 transcript, to The Drudge Report, which incorrectly reported that the documents show that Beauchamp had recanted. In fact, they show no such thing, and Drudge soon removed the supporting documents from its website, and later its entire report.

The New Republic is deeply frustrated by the Army's behavior. TNR has endeavored with good faith to discover whether Beauchamp's article contained inaccuracies and has repeatedly requested that the Army provide us with documentary evidence that it was fabricated or embellished. Instead of doing this, the Army leaked selective parts of the record--including a conversation that Beauchamp had with his lawyer--continuing a months-long pattern by which the Army has leaked information and misinformation to conservative bloggers while failing to help us with simple requests for documents.

We have worked hard to re-report this piece and will continue to do so. But this process has involved maddening delays compounded by bad faith on the part of at least some officials in the Army. Our investigation has taken far longer than we would like, but it is our obligation and promise to deliver a full account of our findings.

--The Editors

Related Links:

"Shock Troops," by Scott Thomas (Beauchamp), Issue date: July 23, 2007; Post date: July 13, 2007.

A Statement from Scott Thomas Beauchamp, July 26, 2007.

A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp, August 2, 2007.

A Scott Beauchamp Update, August 10, 2007.

Kill the haters so we will have less hate in the world!

1. Drudge has the Beauchamp documents and story here, better copy it before it evaporates.

2. The other day TNR revamped their website, including the 'blogs like The Plank. Old links no longer work. No idea if they are planning to fix this, but some of the evidence in the sworn statements that Drudge has are no longer at the addresses as written in the documents.

Caution: This could be a hoax on Drudge. Careful qualifications apply.

Here is what is on Drudge's site:

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSES
WED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front.

The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war.

Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by Story (Beauchamp Transcript Part 1)

THE NEW REPUBLIC has been standing behind the stories from their Baghdad Diarist, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, since questions were first raised about their accuracy over the summer. On August 10, the editors at TNR accused the Army of "stonewalling" their investigation into the stories by preventing them from speaking with Beauchamp. The DRUDGE REPORT has since obtained the transcript of a September 7 call between TNR editor Frank Foer, TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic, and Private Beauchamp. During the call, Beauchamp declines to stand by his stories, telling his editors that "I just want it to end. I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything really." The editors respond that "we just can't, in good conscience, continue to defend the piece" without an explanation, but Beauchamp responds only that he "doesn't care what the public thinks." The editors then ask Beauchamp to cancel scheduled interviews with the WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK.

Document 2: Beauchamp Admits to "Gross Exaggerations and Inaccurate Allegations" (Beauchamp Transcript Part 2)

The DRUDGE REPORT has also obtained a signed "Memorandum for Record" in which Beauchamp recants his stories and concedes the facts of the Army's investigation -- that his stories contained "gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct" by his fellow soldiers.

Document 3: Army Investigation: Tales "Completely Fabricated," Beauchamp Wanted to be Hemingway

The third document obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT is the Army's official report on the investigation into the allegations made by Private Beauchamp. The Army concluded that Beauchamp had "completely fabricated" the story of mocking a disfigured woman, that his description of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" was false, and that claims that he and his men had deliberately targeted dogs with their armored vehicles was "completely unfounded." Further the report stated "that Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway."

The report concludes that "Private Beauchamp takes small bits of truth and twists and exaggerates them into fictional accounts that he puts forth as the whole truth for public consumption."

Developing...

But the following come up when trying to access the documents:
404 Not Found
The requested URL '/2.pdf' was not found on this server.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

custom ha-hosting.com server v1.1

And there is this at The Corner:

Baghdad Diarist [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

We're hearing from The New Republic that the Drudge story isn't the damning evidence it suggests to be ... stay tuned.

UPDATE: An editor there e-mails: "Go to the story and click on the link that he claims is to Beauchamp's confession. It's not there. The only Beauchamp document is one were he acknowledged receiving some other memo. Nothing even close to a confession there." At the moment I can't access any of the documents that are flagged in that "Developing" story....

10/24 03:47 PM

As Matt says, Developing . . .

Aliengate: The Coverup Continues:
  More from Eric Kleefield on the burgeoning scandal that threatens to throw the entire presidential race into disarray:

Dennis Kucinich's Congressional and campaign offices have not yet denied Shirley MacLaine's claim that Kucinich "heard directions in his mind" from a UFO while visiting her home in Washington state.

"I am not commenting on that," said Natalie Laber, press secretary for the candidate's Congressional office, when asked by Election Central.

The Truth is Out There.

--Christopher Orr

Mr. Kucinich speaking to UFOs is more important to them than PV1 Scott Thomas Beauchamp speaking to the TNR 'mothership' on 7 September 2007?

Wal-Mart Wars [Jonathan Adler]

Long-time Corner readers may remember my run-ins with Cleveland's anti-Wal-Mart crowd. Well, they're still at it. Thankfully for Cleveland they did not have much success. Tomorrow morning ,the first Wal-Mart in Cleveland, a new "Super-Center," will open for business at the Steelyard Commons development. No local government subsidies or eminent domain was required to attract the store, which is pretty remarkable for a city that subsidizes local supermarkets and is struggling to redevelop. Nonetheless, some local busybodies opposed it. While they did not see a need, it seems many other locals disagree. The store reportedly received some 5,000 applications for 350 jobs.

10/23 02:42 PM

Has Ezra Klein been informed that there is another Wal*Mart opening in the USA? Well, Cleveland anyway.

Looking forward to his "end times" post about this one.

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".

Back in May I had a discussion with some fellow who thought it was just horrible that "Coke pourers" at KBR and Haliburton make $100/hour in Iraq. He went on about how demoralizing it must be for soldiers to find out that people doing KP make so much more money than them, tax free. He also went on to say that he was told this by a female service member who had just returned from Iraq.

Interesting story. It would be more interesting if it were true.

While this fellow was telling me this story I pointed out a few holes in it, which was pretty easy because I had recently seen the author of "Blackwater" on C-SPAN and this fellow, through much of his story, was reciting the BS that the author was saying.

Details like contractors in Iraq being "tax free" but soldiers are not. Well, that is about as backwards as one can get that point. Just google-up the "expatriate tax exemption" and you will find that the ONLY tax that Americans working abroad are "exempt" from is income tax withholding on the first $82,400 of income earned abroad. They also must meet the "330 day rule", meaning that they must stay out of the USA for 330 days in a 365 day period to get the tax break. They do pay all other taxes, like FICA. IF they were being paid $100/hr. then they would still be paying a hefty chunk of income taxes.

Uniformed members of the military have a much larger income tax break (but not from any other taxes either) and it does not matter how long they are in the war zone. One day gets a tax-reduced whole month.

I was curious about the $100/hr. figure, because I have worked with contract labor numbers before as a Financial Analyst supporting both DISA and MDA. I am also a contractor and fully understand that my employer gets a large check for my labor and pays me salary and benefits out of that. Sorry Socialistas, the latter MUST be smaller than the former in any calculation of "fair" that one can think of.

Anyway, I asked the guy if he truly thought that soda servers were being paid $200,000/year ANYPLACE in Iraq. Of course, he backed up and said he stated $100/hr. and, of course, I pointed out that a 2000 hour work year makes that $200,000/yr. Of course, he did not back off on this article of faith, so I added some more facts. For one, I knew from having applied for a couple of Iraq and Afghanistan jobs that the work week (in EVERY instance that I encountered) was 84 hours. Usually there was a provision for 10 days of leave per quarter that did not go against your regular company leave, depending on company and contract.

So, according to this fellow, the soda servers make a whole lot more than $200,000/yr. and it is all tax free?

Instead of dismissing him I attempted to fill him in on that job I was slotted for a the beginning of the year. Much harder job to fill than pouring Cokes and, if I worked 3 man-years rather than the required 2 and change (84 hours/week), I might have made something close to what the Coke servers are supposed to make. I forgot his specific response but it had something to do with the sweet deal that Cheney gave to KBR. Yes, more fiction in support of his "faith".

About a week later I interviewed with KBR. It was kind of strange, but I will stick with the basics. The VP in charge of foreign operations used to work for the firm I was (and am still) with. He decided that I needed to be in Logistics wiht KBR and contacted the VP in charge of Logistics in Houston, TX and we did a speakerphone interview right there. The VP in VA (right down the street from my condo, same side of street even), asked me what my salary requirements were. Told him and amount plus the standard "plus-ups" for hazard/hardship/etc. For some reason he asked me what those were and I told him that they usually come in at around 75% of base wage.

Before I had walked 2 blocks Monica, a recruiter from KBR, called to set up a phone interview for that evening and it sounded good, Logistics Manager for one of the camps by the Baghdad Airport. Looked forward to it all day, even though I had just started a new job at the Pentagon that was (and still is) quite interesting and pays pretty well. Salaried position with 5 hours of "paid overtime" possible every week, all hours over that are "comp time".

When Monica called and went over all of the particulars about working for KBR, like you don't start getting paid until you start working on-site, in this case, Iraq and there is no pay check for about 2 months after training begins, etc. By the time she got through all of the salary particulars the total hourly wages were around $30.87/hour, for the position that is responsible for every load and convoy going in and out of the camp, by air, wheel or rail. About 75% lower than the bare minimum I was willing to accept. A whole lot lower than what that other fellow was saying too, so I wrote it down and kept it with me. I also declined the position.

So, the next time I saw that guy I made sure to fill him in on the reality of KBR. Not as a smartass, just letting him know that he was spreading a false rumor and here are the facts. At this point he reminds me that his information came from a woman and she said that she was told the $100/hr. by one of the Coke-pourers in Iraq. On hearing this detail for the first time (I thought the woman actually had salary information) I asked this guy why on earth he based this speech/monologue on some guy trying to impress a chick with a BS salary and walked off. Oh, and the thing was, the very beginning of the whole thing was him bringing up this BS story to try to demoralize me about a war I support.

Read in any motivation you like on his part.

Amazingly, those folks in Europe have stumbled upon a fool-proof solution to reduce combustion emmissions effortlessly. Also, it seems, that nobody in Europe has realized this.

Now, I am prepared to make this revolutionary discovery available to all, very soon, at a reasonable price (well under $1000 per kit!) for a grass-roots movement to save the planet! Canadians can save even more!

Quite simply, the answer is Standard/Imperial to Metric Conversion.

A little known fact is that when hydrocarbons are consumed in metric units, they emit far fewer pollutants and greenhouse gasses (including DHMO) than when consumed in US Standard units and even less than when consumed in Imperial units.

FACT: When gasoline is burned in Litre units, it creates 1/3.7854118 as much emmissions than if it were burned as a gallon.

Want to learn how to do this in your own vehicle? The kit will be available very soon!

ATTENTION CANADIANS: Realize greater reductions when you convert from Imperial to Metric!

Coming soon: gasoline to organic hydrogen conversion secrets revealed.