A Community-Based Reality

I think that the phrase borrowed from commenter at Riehl Word View quite accurately reflects a growing "conventional wisdom" among a peculiar group of bloggers that military and conservative bloggers attempted to claim that "Scott Thomas" didn't actually exist.

"Scott Thomas," of course, was the pseudonym chosen by U.S. Army PV-2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp when he posted a series of three dispatches in the magazine The New Republic.

The most recent post, "Shock Troops," (subscription required) became the focus of Michael Goldfarb on July 18 because of some very strong claims of various kinds of abuse alleged by "Scott Thomas" of himself and other soldiers. These claims are now the subject of investigations by the U.S. Army (real) and the magazine that carried the claims, The New Republic (which critics have dismissed as an attempt at face-saving and job-keeping by the editors, and little more).

Soon afterward, Beauchamp's previous post, "Dead of Night" came under scrutiny, and two claims he made there were conclusively debunked.

Military bloggers began zeroing in on the identity of "Scott Thomas" within days— Marine turned documentary filmmaker JD Johannes had his unit narrowed to the 1-18 Infantry by the following Saturday—forcing Thomas into a position where he felt the need to reveal himself days later.

On the afternoon Beauchamp came forward on July 26, severel prominent bloggers began to compose a narrative every bit as fictional as that of Beauchamp himself, and apparently, for equally dishonorable reasons.

On that afternoon in The Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum seems to have manufactured the controversy:

Conservative sites went crazy. Thomas didn't really exist. His stories were made up. The left hates the troops. Etc. etc.

At Sadly No!, Gavin M. claimed:

1) WingNet accuses soldier/journalist of being an impostor.

2) WingNet proven wrong.

At alicubog:

ATTENTION COMRADES! Previous meme "Scott Thomas does not exist" is no longer operative. Please to substitute "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a bad man" or "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is Oliver Stone" or "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a semiotic construct" or "We'll get Scott Thomas Beauchamp fired" or whatever damn thing you can think of.

By the next day, Americablog had latched onto this creative fiction as well:

Of course, the right wing blogosphere went nuts, accusing TNR of fabricating a soldier and lying about his experiences. There were repeated attempts to prove that Scott Thomas was a fake.

Even yesterday, at Mercury Rising yesterday, a blogger wrote:

Of course, once they found out about it, all of the Usual Suspects in the conservative’s mighty Wurlitzer - Malkin, Powerline, the whole schmear - set out to prove that “Scott Thomas” didn’t exist and that this was all just liberal lies to smear the armed forces and turn the country against the war. They went berzerk proving to themselves through “semiotic analysis” and other such crapola that this whole thing was just made-up liberal media lies.

And so it is that "this whole thing"—the claim that conservative bloggers said Thomas didn’t exist or wasn’t a soldier—comes squarely back onto the shoulders of liberal bloggers who created the meme themselves.

When pressed to provide a specific quote from any conservative blog stating that Scott Thomas didn’t really exist, was fabricated, or was an imposter, these and other liberal bloggers have utterly failed to do so.

Why they failed should now be obvious: they made up these claims themselves.

Update: A bit dog barks. Gavin M. at Sadly No! (cited above for claiming "WingNet accuses soldier/journalist of being an impostor") tries to support liberal bloggers' charges that conservative bloggers said Beauchamp didn’t exist, was fabricated, or was an impostor.

How does he mount his brilliant defense?

He cites devastating examples, such as Bryan at Hot Air using scare quotes around the word soldier... Twice. He also highlights a truism observed by Bryan in that post that anyone in the military would be able to tell the difference between a fellow soldier's uniform and that of a civilian contractor.

A great defense mounted so far, but wait, there's more!

Gavin M. blasts Charles at LGF for using the phrase, "purported to be written by a soldier." Charles used the "P" word to describe someone hiding behind a pseudonym? Why, that's the exact same thing as directly calling him an impostor, isn't it folks?

And yet Gavin presumably has a day job that doesn't involve balloon animals.

But hang on, he has more evidence... Ace of Spades also used the damning scare quotes... twice. Gavin's a regular Perry Mason, isn't he?

And the killing blow... before Beauchamp came out, Michelle Malkin, vile, prevaricating Malkin, addressed the liberal blogosphere's greatest unknown soldier as--and watch out for the scare quotes--as "alleged."

Purported and alleged, two bread-and-butter words in any journalist's quiver for when the facts are hazy in the least, have--according to Gavin--become the same as calling him an impostor. Using scare quotes in the same manner is morphed by Gavin into a declarative emphatically stating that he doesn't exist.

That's his case. Really.

Sanchez on Beauchamp

... from FOB Falcon itself.

A taste:

"Record Media Attention"

New York Times, O'Reilly Factor, ABC, CNN, Hot Air, in the past two weeks, Major Luedeke has dealt with more media inquiries over the Beauchamp controversy than any other subject in his entire career.

After several terse conversations, it was obvious soldiers at FOB Falcon took the events described in The New Republic very seriously. What was not so obvious was how seriously The New Republic editorial staff treated the matter. If the investigation proves the "Baghdad Diarist" stories to be false, what will The New Republic do? Will they retract the story? Will they reveal the process they used to vet the original information? Every soldier I spoke to realizes he or she is accountable for what is said and done while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Careers can be ruined because of scandals like the "Baghdad Diarist."

Getting a Fair Shake

"The Army works hard to get the soldier's story out to the media, unfortunately the media only wants to hear about bad things," said several soldiers who did not want to be identified. Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp is currently on FOB Falcon, but unavailable for comment. Once the official investigation started, the key issue was to protect the soldier's rights. Needless to say, The New Republic has no such responsibility.

I'll have a bit more to say about the subject--specifically, the dishonesty of some of those blogging about the unfolding Beauchchamp/New Republic scandal--in the very near future.

Stop the hate

Some, including the host of this fine weblog, seem to doubt the authenticity of the recent claims made by Scott Thomas Beauchamp. I for one, however, have no doubt Mr. Beauchamp is speaking the "truth" as he knows it.

Conservative webloggers, ace from ace of spades, Bryan and Allahpundit of Hotair, Michelle Malkin and countless others have tried to dispute his claims making wild and baseless accusations. So far they have successfully managed to have all forms of his communication cut off, except for his prestigious weblog, scottthomas.us.

For the life of me, I cannot seem to figure out why these "webloggers" insist on harping on this one pour pitiful soul, who is obviously lost and far from home. Do we doubt General J.C. Christian, the manliest of all conservative "webloggers", when he eviscerates liberals like Bill O'Reilly who are trying to pose as conservatives? Do we doubt the concern tbogg displays so proudly for our conservative brethren? Who could forget the sincerity displayed by Markos Zúniga when he expressed concern for anyone, especially civilian contractors, overseas in Iraq.

Yet, those billing themselves as "conservatives" continue to mock and shame Mr. Beauchamp for trying to shed light on a very difficult situation in Iraq. When Michelle Malkin's commentors revolted and showed support for him did she change her mind? Not even in the slightest. Even though Franklin Foer has launched and investigation and confirmed Mr. Beauchamp's allegations, the mocking continues. I suspect the only comfort Mr. Beauchamp is able to find is in the wanton arms of the ethnically pure women in Germany who keep throwing themselves at him.

To Mr. Beauchamp, I say soldier on. This to shall pass and the "truth" will set you free. Just as we've confirmed that 9/11 was a plot by President Bush and that Karl Rove is using mind control beams to make us all his subjects. Luckily there's a place like this, under the big-tin-foil-tent, to keep us safe from harm.

Scott Beauchamp's Problems Are Just Beginning

In addition to his short-lived career as a probable fabulist in The New Republic, Scott Thomas Beauchamp's blog has turned up a self-incriminating clear violation of operational security:

Another long day...cleaning an M16, landscaping, dipping Pro Masks (gas masks to civilians) into strange concotions, a little bit of office work...basically a hodpodge of menially tasks to keep me busy. We finally got official dates on Iraq deployment: May 15 - Our Bradleys get shipped to Kuwaite June 11- Advanced Units move in June 28 - Bravo Team, second squad, first platoon, Alpha Company, first battalion, 18th brigade, first infantry division (the breakdown of who I belong to) deploys. Were probably going to sit in Kuwaite for some unknown amount of time, and then move into Baghdad...

That post is over a year old and was obsoleted be a changed deployment schedule, but the facts are clear: Beauchamp clearly violated operational security regulations by posting the deployment schedule for his unit to his blog.

Major Kirk Luedeke, PAO for 4th IBCT, 1st ID at FOB Falcon, stated in response to my inquiry about this blog entry:

It most certainly is an OPSEC violation.

What the U.S. Army decides to do about this operational security violation will probably be kept under wraps until their investigation is complete, but I would not be surprised if Beauchamp soon finds himself charged with UCMJ violations.

Blog History Repeating

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Scott Thomas Comes Forward... And Answers Precisely Nothing

The New Republic blog The Plank is featuring an entry from disputed diarist Scott Thomas, who has now come forward as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, and now the fun truly begins.

There are two parts to this entry: a preface from "the editors," and then a statement by Beauchamp himself. I'll now discuss each at length, and in turn.

The Editor's Preface
They state in full:

As we've noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist "Shock Troops," published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon, a formal military investigation has also been launched into the incidents described in the piece.

Although the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published, we have decided to go back and, to the extent possible, re-report every detail. This process takes considerable time, as the primary subjects are on another continent, with intermittent access to phones and email. Thus far we've found nothing to disprove the facts in the article; we will release the full results of our search when it is completed.

In the meantime, the author has requested that we publish the statement below. --The Editors

First, I think it is a bit unfair of TNR's editors to claim that "some" have questioned the details of Beauchamp's three dispatches, including many active-duty soldiers in Iraq, and several at FOB Falcon in specific.

The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of those who have written about this subject at all are overwhelming critical of TNR, their editors, the apparent failings of their editorial vetting process, and their seeming unwillingness to address the substantive criticisms leveled at the accuracy of the accounts Beauchamp related in these stories.

This criticism comes not only from without, but from within: scan the comments on"A Note to Readers" by Franklin Foer on July 20, "A Note to Readers" by the Editors on July 24, and a substantial number of commenters on today's "A Statement from Scott Thomas Beauchamp," and many of TNR's own subscribers continue to heavily criticize Beauchamp's stories and Franklin Foer's supposed vetting process... and with just cause.

It gives me no joy to say this, but say this I must: Franklin Foer and the editorial staff of The New Republic are inaccurate—purposefully, I suspect—when they claim that the article "Shock Troops" was, "rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published."

If they had done their due diligence as editors, they would have discovered that outside of Beauchamp himself, no other soldier stationed at FOB Falcon—including both named and anonymous sources stationed at FOB in the recent past and present—have ever seen the mysterious disfigured female contractor Beauchamp claims to have so brutally verbally assaulted.

No Time for Fact-Checking
How easy would it have been for Franklin Foer to do a cursory fact-check to even see if a contractor matching that description has been on base in recent memory?

About this hard:

Dear Major Luedeke,

My name is Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic.

I've recently been submitted a story that mentions the existence of a female contractor that is said to have significant facial burns and scarring as the apparent result of an IED attack in the past. She was not recently injured, and is apparently healthy, other than the scarring. I would like to simply check to see if someone matching that description is presently at FOB Falcon, to make sure that this description is correct.

Franklin Foer
The New Republic

I didn't have Major Luedke's email address when I started composing this email containing just one of the questions Franklin Foer should have asked before going to press with Beauchamp's now heavily disputed accounts.

It took my a grand total of 29 minutes to get Major Luedeke's email address, within which time I was able to compose this fictitious email of Foer's, and a very real email that I did send with far more probing questions that I'd hoped to have answered.

Unfortunately, Major Luedke responded just 38 minutes later to let me know he could not respond to my questions, citing the "active, formal investigation on the allegations Pvt. Scott Beauchamp has made in the New Republic."

57 minutes... apparently that was too much time for TNR to invest in fact-checking Beauchamp's claim.

Rigorous Editing and Fact-Checking?
Nor do I think there is any way Foer can claim that Beauchamp's two previous articles could have been "rigorously edited and fact-checked."

In fact, the editors don't make that claim, which is a smart move on their part: I think I have proven beyond a doubt that Foer and his team didn't so much as crack open a Web browser window in fact-checking Beauchamp's second post, Dead of Night, or they would have known that there are no such things as a square-back shell casing, and that Glock pistols are common among all strata of people in Iraq, and not just the Iraqi police.

That Franklin Foer "and the Editors" at The New Republic did not do their jobs as editors in vetting the stories submitted by Beauchamp before publication seems readily apparent.

If they had done their jobs as editors adequately, TNR would not have needed to launch an investigation which has now stretched over a week, nor would they find a need, as they've phrased it, "to the extent possible, re-report every detail." This strikes me as nothing less than an admission that they did not vet these stories prior to publication.

Franklin Foer seems to be well on his way towards being known as the "Mike Nifong of Journalism," rushing to push a narrative before the facts have been established, based solely on the unverified claims of a witness who has, shall we say, "credibility problems."

Editors can't be disbarred, but they can be replaced, and I've yet to hear a compelling explanation from Foer or The New Republic explaining why that should not occur.

And now on to the statement of Scott Thomas Beauchamp:

My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discrete view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

Beauchamp claims he wants to "talk honestly about my experiences," and that his words "were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military."

Really?

A Purposeful Deception
In his alleged verbal assault on the IED-disfigured woman in the FOB Falcon dining facility (the one that no other soldier stationed at the base seems to have been able to see):

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq. She wore an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn't really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor. The thing that stood out about her, though, wasn't her strange uniform but the fact that nearly half her face was severely scarred. Or, rather, it had more or less melted, along with all the hair on that side of her head. She was always alone, and I never saw her talk to anyone. Members of my platoon had seen her before but had never really acknowledged her. Then, on one especially crowded day in the chow hall, she sat down next to us.

Not just any day, but an especially crowded day. Beauchamp then goes on to describe how he and his friend verbally assaulted this disfigured woman:

...loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables.

According to his story Beauchamp and his friend loudly abused a burn victim during "one especially crowded day" in the chow hall, loud enough "for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables" to hear them, with no registered response from the surrounding soldiers, and that is not meant as a reflection of every soldier stationed there?

In his claim that a fellow soldier wore part of a child's rotting skull on his head, he indicts his fellow soldiers by stating:

As he marched around with the skull on his head, people dropped shovels and sandbags, folding in half with laughter. No one thought to tell him to stop. No one was disgusted. Me included.

Again, how is this not an assault on the integrity and basic humanity of his entire unit?

Once more, waxing poetic about the dog-murdering Bradley driver:

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.

Again, he implicates everyone in his unit as being a sadist or a sociopath, and that is not meant as a reflection of everyone around him?

Far from being accidental, I think that implicating every soldier he is serving with as an accomplice to sadism is his express intent in "Shock Troops," in every line of florid prose.

But he isn't quite done yet:

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq.

This might come as something of a shock to Private Beauchamp, but it doesn't take combat experience to spot suspicious stories based upon even a rudimentary knowledge of human nature.

Few men, military or not, are going to stand idly by while a couple of punks publicly berate a burn victim. Few men, military or not, are going to find a man prancing about with a rotting section of a long-dead child's skull on his head entertaining, and no matter how entertaining a single sociopath or even a pair find it to be, I strongly doubt than anyone wants to wear rotting flesh in the hot sun for his own amusement.

Nor does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that the commander, crew, and soldiers riding in a Bradley IFV would not appreciate being thrown about the cramped metallic interior, and would not allow such events to occur repeatedly, much less find themselves "nearly rolling with laughter" as a sadist allegedly repeats attempts at canine murder and smashes through the corners of buildings and market stalls.

No, I've never served in the military, but I've done several tours in upper-level undergraduate and graduate level writing courses including several creative fiction courses. In each one, peer review was a staple. The subject matter was different; but the lack of ability of some writers to tap into the humanity of others in any meaningful way is remarkably echoed here.

And Scott just for the record: civilian or not, I suspect I know far more about firearms than you do, but at the very least, I know that the square-backed 9mm pistol cartridges you claim to have found does not exist, and I also know that your claim that only Iraqi police have Glocks is likewise laughably false.

Initially reluctant
Beauchamp states:

I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join.

Interestingly enough, his blog entries seem to indicate a rather different mindset, from his stating that he feels "retarded for joining the army" to the statement he is "getting more liberal each day."

Beauchamp, at some point, established contact with Franklin Foer and The New Republic.

Beauchamp established a relationship with the magazine—one that, if Ace's tipster is correct, one that will end in a wedding to a TNR staffer this October—and decided to write articles for them.

Not only was Beauchamp willing to join an ideological battle; he had to go out of his way to join it.

Ain't That a Kick in the Head
Beauchamp closes:

That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

The laughable irony of all this? It was Beauchamp, and Beauchamp alone, that called his fellow soldiers' character, integrity, and basic humanity into question.

Before Beauchamp wrote these words and had them delivered to the New Republic for publication, the most prominent stories written about the 1st Infantry Division were quite positive.

Even though the author is finally revealed, Scott Thomas Beauchamp remains unconvincing as a probable fabulist, and Franklin Foer and The New Republic have thus far provided no evidence corroborating the claims that they have promised that they "rigorously edited and fact-checked."

They keep telling us that Beauchamp's story is true, and yet to date, they have utterly failed to come up with the facts that support their claims.

I suspect that the reason for this is that the facts simply aren't there.

Update: I screwed up and impropery cited Beachamp is belonging to the 4th ID a couple of paragraphs up. As he clearly states, he is a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

House of Glass

Incredible Claims
It was precisely one week ago yesterday that Michael Goldfarb focused the blogosphere on the third in a series of dispatches from a U.S. Army soldier in Iraq, posting under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" in the magazine, The New Republic.

The name of third dispatch was "Shock Troops," (subscription apparently no longer required). In it, Thomas showed a callous and shocking disregard for a series of brutalities. These included a vicious verbal assault on a woman for disfiguring facial injuries she sustained as the result of an explosion of an improvised explosive device, or IED. This assault allegedly occurred in the dining facility at Forward Operating Base Falcon.

Thomas maintains that during the construction of a combat outpost southwest of Baghdad, soldiers constructing the outpost uncovered the bones of children, and a fellow soldier wore part of a skull he found that "...even had chunks of hair, which were stiff and matted down with dirt," on top of his head for the rest of the day and night, and even wore it under his helmet. Thomas further claims that:

No one thought to tell him to stop. No one was disgusted. Me included.

The third story Thomas relays in "Shock Troops" was of a sadistic Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) driver who liked:

...to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs.

In his blog entry entitled "Fact or Fiction?," Goldfarb, asked the milblogging (military blogging) community to investigate the veracity of Thomas claims.

Doubters—including active duty U.S. Army soldiers currently or formerly posted at FOB Falcon and nearby areas—immediately began to deconstruct and dismiss Thomas' claims as probable works of fiction.

Soldiers stationed at FOB Falcon in the recent past and present deny ever seeing a burned woman such as Thomas described as being on the base. To date there has been no corroboration that a wounded woman matching this description has ever been at FOB Falcon.

Other soldiers have cost doubts on whether there was ever a grave full of children's remains uncovered while constructing a combat outpost southwest of Baghdad, though others find it plausible that an unmarked cemetery—apparently not all that uncommon in the area—may have been found and moved. Regardless of whether or not a cemetery may have been uncovered, other soldiers flatly deny that the close-fitting modern Army helmet has enough room for anything other than the wearer's own skull.

Soldiers and military vehicle specialists intimately familiar with Bradley IFVs have flatly stated that these vehicles cannot be driven as described in Thomas' account due to their construction and the limitations of the laws of physics.

In all three examples cited by Thomas in this third dispatch, the behavior of the actors and the apathy displayed by apparently dozens of soldiers during each atrocity has been heavily criticized by military veterans who flatly deny that such events could take place in a military culture where such inaction can be a criminal offense for those who refuse to report it or intervene.

Absolutely Fabulist
Elements of Thomas' two previous dispatches have also come under fire for being very unlikely.

In "War Bonds" (subscription required), Thomas claims that:

In Baghdad, a busted infrastructure has left entire neighborhoods navigable by vehicle only. The sector we soldiers patrol is known unaffectionately as "Little Venice" because of the dark brown rivers of sewage that backwash from broken pipes. The biggest fear in these parts isn't sniper fire or IEDs, but a flat tire that forces you to wade through the reeking fluids.

The brief amount of information allowed outside the New Republic subscriber firewall neglects to mention the specific kind of vehicle in question, but as only wheeled vehicles have tires, the description weeds out both Bradley IFVs and M1 Abrams tanks. That leaves us with HMMWVs (Humvees) and eight-wheeled Stryker Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICVs) as the two most-common wheeled vehicles used on patrols. Both of these vehicles classes are equipped with run-flat tires designed to go for miles before needing to be changed. That intentional design detail engendered into both vehicles would make changing a tire in a river of "reeking fluids" a very unlikely event.

Sandwiched between these two increasingly suspect stories was Thomas' second dispatch, one that I think should have sent up a red flag to the editors of The New Republic.

In "Dead of Night," (subscription required), Thomas made an embarrassing gaffe, followed by a potentially defamatory charge:

Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belongs to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of modern firearms knows that no pistol, rifle, submachine gun, or machine gun deployed in the world today uses ammunition "with a square back," in 9mm Parabellum, or in any other caliber. For feeding reliability, all currently used ammunition has tubular cases with a round rim. But past this wildly inaccurate of description of the recovered casing , Thomas went on to defame the Iraqi police, inaccurately stating as fact that, "the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police."

That statement is so astoundingly incorrect as to be laughable. While Glocks are carried by many Iraqi police officers, Glocks are among the most common handguns in Iraq, easily found and purchased, and carried by those on each side of the conflict and Iraqi civilians alike.

A Pattern of Failed Editorial Oversight
All three stories sent to The New Republic by the soldier writing under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" has elements that may have been worth questioning by an alert editor.

I honestly doubt that most editors would have known that many American wheeled combat vehicles have run flat tires, and so I can readily forgive them for not making that particular catch. I'm still left to wonder, however, if having a sharp editor with a military background might have been able to deflate Thomas as a fabulist in advance of the publication of his very first post.

But even without a military background, I'd expect for most editors to recognize the red flag present in his second post--when he makes the claim of a "square back" cartridge casing--just from watching the occasional episode of CSI. I'd also expect them to make at least a cursory attempt to check Thomas' inflammatory claim only the Iraqi police carry Glocks, and recognize all the political undertones that such a loaded charge implies.

It would have taken very little effort—no more than several minutes on Google with any variation of "iraq" and "glock" as the search terms—to note that these pistols are very popular and quite common in Iraq, being coveted by soldiers, police, militiamen, insurgents, criminal gangs, contractors, and civilians alike. These few brief moments un-taken would have shown Thomas' claim and implication to be flatly wrong.

The editors at The New Republic did not bother to take that time.

TNR editors apparently did not bother to challenge Thomas to provide support for the verbal assault he claims to have committed again a disfigured woman on FOB Falcon. There is no indication that they ever made the attempt to contact the Public Affairs Officer at FOB Falcon to see if such a woman even existed, even though I've found in my experience PAOs are typically far more likely to respond to requests from journalists—and even bloggers—in a more timely manner than would an infantry soldier on extended patrols.

TNR editors apparently failed to ask the common sense questions about the desecrated bodies claim. Why would any soldier subject himself to wearing a section of a human skull covered with rotting flesh both day and night? Even if the audience did find it uproariously funny, what sight gag remains entertaining for hour after hour? Why would any group, no matter how jaded, be "folding in half with laughter" at the sight of a man parading around wearing a portion of child's rotting skull as a cap? Could a soldier even get a piece of skull into an Army helmet and wear it?

There is no evidence that TNR saw fit to question any of this story at all.

Likewise, either through carelessness or laziness, Franklin Foer and his editorial staff never apparently made the common-sense connection that Bradley drivers do not have the latitude to joyride alone through the streets of Iraqi towns, randomly and sadistically destroying infrastructure, buildings, and stalls in crowded markets, while swerving recklessly to attack dogs. The unlikelihood of this story being true, again, apparently went unchallenged until after publication.

Picking Up The Pieces at The New Republic
So what becomes of Franklin Foer and the now twice-fooled New Republic? We'll know soon enough if there are any jobs lost as a result of this scandal, but I would opine that if dismissals do result, there is certainly enough justification for them.

One thing I would hope that TNR and other news organizations might now consider is hiring military veterans to vet stories coming out of combat zones for obvious inconsistencies. It would, at the very least, provide a more contextual, experienced layer of fact-checking to flag stories that may not be accurate.

And What of Scott Thomas?
The New Republic has an interesting decision to make regarding Scott Thomas. While I'd generally consider advising against "outing" lairs hidden by pseudonyms, Thomas apparently created stories that were little more than defamous fiction.

They owe Scott Thomas nothing for his treacherous deceit of both TNR and the U.S. Army. Publicly publishing who he is—or at least communicating his name to his commanders—might be the first step in recovering from this debacle.

It's time to pay the piper. I wonder how many people will share paying the bill.

Two Simple Questions for Franklin Foer

Yesterday, after days of withering criticism by named military officers, well-recognized combat journalists, and anonymous soldiers over the claims made by pseudonym-hidden "Scott Thomas," I suggested that the New Republic boil down their investigation to answering two simple questions:

• When did the verbal assault take place on the badly-burned woman at FOB Falcon?
• What was the name and location of the combat outpost where a mass grave was discovered?

This are eminently reasonable questions to ask at this time and I think most would agree that these questions should have been asked by Franklin Foer, editor of the New Republic, well before Thomas' claims were published in the first place.

The New Republic has had six days to investigate Thomas' disputed claims. I think the time has come for Franklin Foer to provide detailed answers.

Near Certainty

For his sake, I hope that Franklin Foer, editor of the New Republic, is merely suffering from unfortunate phrasing:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

Considering the explosive allegations made in Thomas' claims against both American soldiers and the Iraqi Police, Foer meant "absolute certainty," didn't he?

(h/t reader AMac)

Update: Yes, he did.

RIP: Christiana Hendrix

Christiana Hendrix, wife of Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury, died this weekend in a motorcycle accident. Mike, you and your family have my sincere condolences and prayers in this most tragic of times.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

--Psalm 121: 1-8.

As Glenn notes, "Words are completely inadequate in these situations, but they're also essential."

Please stop by and offer your condolences for the loss Mike and Christiana's family is experiencing, and if you are a religious person, consider offering up a prayer for those who remain behind.

Update: Jeff Goldstein's grandmother passed away today as well.

Doubting Thomas: Simple Questions for the New Republic

As time wears on, it seems increasingly unlikely that the writings of the pseudonym-shielded soldier "Scott Thomas" in the New Republic are anything other than works of macabre creative fiction.

"Thomas" has written three "dispatches" for the New Republic thus far, but once the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb began questioning the veracity of claims made in Thomas' third story, experienced military veterans and observers in the blogosphere who read the account began to doubt that these claims took place.

In his third dispatch, Thomas claimed that he and another soldier openly, verbally assaulted the appearance of a severely burned woman who had survived a prior attack by an improvised explosive device, or IED. The alleged attack took place at the dining facility of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Falcon.

Presumably, this episode was meant to show the brutality and inhumanity of soldiers thoroughly desensitized to basic human decency and dignity because of the on-going violence of the Iraq War.

It is perhaps a "larger truth" that war does horrible things to the psyche of those who experience it. That some do and say horrible things as a direct or indirect result of their experiences during such turbulent circumstances, and sometimes for years afterward, is beyond dispute.

But though strong adverse reactions may indeed be true for some veterans who experience such brutality, it is by no means true for all.

It is also equally true that there seems to be very little concrete support for this specific allegation, and significant anecdotal evidence against it.

Major Kirk Luedeke, the Public Affairs Officer at FOB Falcon, categorically denies the presence of a woman with these unmistakable severe burns at the base. Another man who claims to be a soldier currently deployed to FOB Falcon states that:

In the 11 months I've been here I've never once seen a female contractor with a burned face. In a compact place like this with only one mess hall I or one of my guys would certainly have noticed someone like that. There are a few female contractors, I think maybe a dozen, but none fit the horrific description given in that article. Further, I've personally seen guys threatened with severe physical harm for making jokes of any kind about IED victims given the number of casualties all the units on this FOB have sustained. It is not a subject we take lightly.

Another claims:

I was based at Falcon last year for six months with the 101st Airborne. I never saw a woman who fits Thomas's description. That's not conclusive since I haven't been there for almost eight months.

Another soldier (an officer whose ID I have positively identified but whose name I do not have permission to publish) who has been at FOB Falcon since March describes the claims of Thomas as "total nonsense."

The New Republic must establish the following if they intend to continue claiming that this story of abuse by Thomas is true.

They must produce the year, month, and week that this attack took place, and make this time public knowledge.

If the New Republic cannot or will not release the time-frame during which the claimed assault took place, then there is no way for the military and agencies employing contractors at FOB Falcon to check their logs to prove or disprove the existence of a severely wounded soldier or contractor matching the description provided by Thomas.

The only reason for the New Republic not to release this information is to cover up the distinct possibility that Thomas' claims is false.

If the New Republic wants its readers to believe it is operating honestly and ethically, they cannot refuse to release the date of the alleged assault as precisely and as soon as possible.

Tuesday, July 24, while an arbitrary date, is a reasonable release date for this information, as the New Republic claims to have been investigating the claims made by Thomas for nearly a week, and they should have already acquired this information prior to the story's publication.

Another claim made by Thomas in his third dispatch to the New Republic is that his unit, while spending several weeks building a combat outpost southwest of Baghdad, uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of children, presumably from the time of Saddam Hussein's reign. Thomas then claims that an extended desecration of the bodies was perpetrated by a fellow soldier, without fellow soldiers, more senior enlisted men, of officers stepping in.

Returning once again to the blog of combat correspondent Matt Sanchez, we encounter the claim from FOB Falcon PAO Major Luedeke there were no mass graves uncovered during the construction of any combat outposts in the Rashid District, at any time.

This strong refutation is a definitive statement by a U.S. Army soldier, for the public record.

If the New Republic wishes to continue to stand behind this Thomas claim, they have no choice but to publicly publish the name and location of the combat outpost where the mass grave is supposed to exist.

I am fairly certain that if the New Republic were to make this information available, that the United States military would be very interested in exhuming those who fell at Saddam's brutal hands so that they could be given a proper, dignified burial. Further, I'm reasonably confident that the military would allow the media to document the exhumation and reburial... if such a mass grave exists.

Once again, the only plausible reason for the New Republic to not release the name of the combat outpost and the location of the mass grave in question, is to obfuscate whether or not Thomas is providing the New Republic with an accurate account, or a clever work of fiction.

As the New Republic should probably have already obtained the name of the base and the location of the alleged mass grave prior to publication, and would certainly ask for this information during the course of their investigation into Thomas' claims, a Tuesday, July 24 deadline to publish this information seems quite reasonable.

In my mind, Thomas' third claim, that a private took great joy in smashing a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) through curbs, concrete barriers, and market stalls, along with using the vehicle to deftly attack and kill dogs with the vehicle's tracks, is too absurd to even need further refutation.

While apparently a claim that the New Republic was willing to publish based upon Thomas' credibility, it ignores the fact that Bradley drivers are not left unattended to use their vehicles as destructive playthings as they see fit. A driver follows the orders of his vehicle commander, who must protect the lives of his crew and the soldiers in the fire team the IFV carries. Further, Bradley IFVs rarely, if ever, operate alone.

Bradleys typically operate in the support of larger American formations involving other Bradley IFVs, American Abrams tanks, Stryker armored vehicles, Humvees, other medium and heavy trucks, and squads, platoons, and companies of soldiers.

For Thomas' claims to be true regarding this driver, it would probably require that dozens of soldiers and their commanders repeatedly allow their lives to be needlessly risked and their mission subverted, so that one sadistic, destructive driver could attempt canine homicide.

Thomas' story would also require that the driver and vehicle perform at or beyond a Bradley IFV's upper limits of performance, stealth, vision, maneuverability, and structural strengths.

There is no evidence that the New Republic can produce to substantiate this claimed series of atrocities short of unedited videotaped footage showing the vehicle and driver performing these incredible acts.

And so we we are left asking the New Republic to answer two very basic, very simple questions that any journalism student should have been able to answer before publishing a similar story:

• When did the verbal assault take place on the badly-burned woman at FOB Falcon?
• What was the name and location of the combat outpost where a mass grave was discovered?

If the New Republic cannot or will not specifically answer these quite reasonable and very basic journalistic questions, then we will be forced to ask the magazine's senior editors and its publisher far more probing questions in the near future.

Update: Via Sitemeter, I noticed three different visitors from the New Republic dropped by early this afternoon in the span of half an hour. Obviously, they got the message, and it only remains to be seen whether or not they will provide a response.

The Previous Libel of the New Republic's Scott Thomas

Michael Goldfarb, who been leading the charge against suspicious and apparently false reporting by the New Republic's "Scott Thomas," posts some interesting content from a previous Thomas story:

Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

Many people have keyed in on the fact that no Glock pistol (or any modern mass-produced commercial or military firearm, for that matter) has ever fired a 9mm cartridge that had a square case rim as "Thomas" so poorlyand inaccurately wrote here. What Thomas was ineptly trying to describe is that the striker of Glock pistols can leaved a squared mark on the primer of a fired shell, as opposed to the more common rounded edges of marks of firing pins of most other pistols.

But far more damning than Thomas' incompetence is the demonstrably false assertion he made that "the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police."

Glock pistols have been on the commercial market for decades, and are quite common worldwide. Glocks are a common and favored handgun on the Iraqi black market:

Glock pistols were also easy to find. One young Iraqi man, Rebwar Mustafa, showed a Glock 19 he had bought at the bazaar in Kirkuk last year for $900. Five of his friends have bought identical models, he said.

There are literally dozens of stories of Glock pistols being recovered from insurgents, terrorists, and militiamen. They have been captured in cordon-and-search operations, in targeted raids, in weapons caches, and of course, from the dead and wounded in violent confrontations.

American soldiers have them, as do civilian contractors from many nations in many lines of work. Ordinary Iraqi civilans (men and women) buy them to protect their families as well. Glock are quite likely the most ubiquious handgun in Iraq, carried officially or unofficially by those on all sides, and those on no side at all.

For "Scott Thomas" to claim that "the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police" is laughable, and coming from someone who claims to be a United State soldier in Iraq who would certainly know that to be a false statement, is perhaps as clear an audacious a display of willfully libeling the Iraqi police as has been written in the American media.

A Matter of Lessening Credibility

I just sent the following to letters@tnr.com:

Dear The New Republic,

I just finished re-reading the claims made in Shock Troops, an article by "Scott Thomas" in The New Republic containing very inflammatory, very hard to believe claims.

TNR states that Thomas is a pseudonym for someone that claims to be a soldier operating in Iraq.

An active duty officer currently serving at Camp Falcon considers the Thomas stories "absolute nonsense." Highly-respected Iraq War combat journalist Michael Yon, who has embedded with the 1-4 Cav stationed at Camp Falcon, emailed me a while ago to state that the story "sounds like complete garbage."

But perhaps more problematic for TNR are the biological, medical, and forensic improbabilities--and what some experts consider absolute mechanical impossibilities--of the stories told by this author. I am forced to conclude that the claims made by "Scott Thomas" are either gross exaggerations or outright lies that TNR editors could have easily verified before publishing this inflammatory article if they were interested in publishing an account that meets assumed journalistic standards of accuracy, fairness, and editorial integrity.

Did New Republic editors ask for credible documentation from "Scott Thomas" to prove his identity as a present duty soldier or as a discharged veteran? If so, did they receive such documentation, and did New Republic editors make an attempt to verify the accuracy of that documentation? Considering not dissimilar and thoroughly debunked claims by fake Ranger and former member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) Jesse MacBeth, this would be the only prudent first reaction upon reading such dramatic claims as those made by Thomas, especially considering TNR's own Stephen Glass problem.

Did it ever cross the minds of New Republic editors to determine the approximate date that the burned woman in the dining facility was verbally brutalized by Thomas? Did it ever occur to the New Republic to check with the military to see if such a person existed at that base, at that time, or ever?

Did the New Republic ask for verification of the mass grave discovered at the site of a combat outpost south of Baghdad, to see if the story was even possible? Did it not seem unlikely to NR editors from even the fictional television forensic dramas such as CSI, that Saddam-era mass graves would contain extremely decomposed bodies, not those like the author claimed were still rotting?

Did it ever occur to any New Republic editor to contact someone who is an expert on Bradley IFVs--say, the companies who build them, the soldiers that drive and them, etc--to see if Thomas claims of being able to attack dogs and structures in such a manner are even technically possible? Former Bradley drivers and other tracked vehicle personnel have all stated Thomas' claims verge from improbable to impossible.

But beyond merely fact-checking Thomas' series of suspicious and unlikely claims, where was an opposing viewpoint? Where is even the appearance of journalistic objectivity in this article?

To borrow a phrase from another periodical with apparently similar standards, "enquiring minds want to know."

Update: Does anyone know Richard Peters? Stationed at Camp Falcon from "15 Nov 05 - 18 Nov 06," I'd be willing to bet that if Iraq Veterans Against the War Member Peters has heard or witnessed the stories told by Thomas, then he'd probably be more than willing to share or confirm them.

A Series of Highly Incredible Events

Has the greed of the New Republic for stories depicting our nation's soldiers as depraved barbarians led to a downfall of what little credibility the rag still maintained?

Writing today at the Weekly Standard, Michael Goldfarb thinks he smells a rat in the writing of a man who claims to be a soldier currently serving in Iraq, discussing a series of brutal allegations concerning the alleged verbal abuse of a burn victim, the wearing of child's skull, and a dog-murdering Bradley IFV driver.

Let's look at few problems with each of the claims of "Scott Thomas," the pseudonym of man who authored the New Republic article.

The burn victim story.
First, it is all but impossible for a U.S. soldier not to be able to determine the uniform differences between an active-duty soldier's unifrom and a civilian contractor's apparel. Second, it is highly unlikely that a person as horribly burned as the one described would be medically fit for active duty. Third, if two soldiers began taunting a wounded IED survivor, I think it quite likely that other soldiers would quickly and violently end their display.

The child's skull story.
First, it is biologically improbable that a piece of a child's skull would fit on an adult human's head. Second, it biologically improbable that a Saddam-era mass grave in a hot desert country like Iraq would contain flesh that was still rotting. Third, it is highly unlikely that any military unit would stand for such behavior.

The dog-murdering Bradley IFV driver.
The most preposterous story of all. IFV drivers don't run willy-nilly around and over everything in their path, and have to answer to his own vehicle commander, the rest of the crew, and any infantrymen carried by the vehicle if they make erratic, dangerous, and perhaps life-threatening decisions such as those claimed here. There is also the fact that Bradley's cannot slip up on a dog and run him over as claimed, and I find it highly unlikely that this Bradley is so nimble that the driver could repeatedly hit, wound and kill dogs, or that he would be allowed to repeatedly hit stationary objects, without being removed from his position by his immediate commander, his platoon commander, his company commander, or others.

I think it is highly probable that each of these stories is false, and will be very interested to see if the New Republic can in anyway support these outlandish claims.

Errata

Wait a minute... This can't be right, can it?

...Senate Republicans pushed through a nonbinding resolution stating that "precipitous withdrawal" from Iraq would "create a safe haven for Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, who are determined to attack the United States and (U.S.) allies." The vote was 94-3.

Last I checked, there are right around 100 Senators, total.

If the Politico is accurate in their overwhelming vote count of 94-3, then this strongly suggests that a supermajority of Democrat Senators are admitting that the withdraw plan they clamor for will result in creating "a safe haven for Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, who are determined to attack the United States and (U.S.) allies," and they still favor it.

Please tell me why these Democrat Senators will admit that they support a plan that they believe will encourage terrorism?

This telling vote was pulled from an article about how Republicans are rallying around the President and are attempting to surge in support of the surge, even as grandstanding Democrats plan to hold a sleepover in protest, no doubt telling themselves for the hundredth time that the war is lost in an effort to make that sentiment a reality.

Interestingly enough, as Senate Democrats "rough it" for the cameras on hotel-quality rolling beds, men who would consider such "hardships" a luxury are telling quite a different story.

Max Boot notes the dramatic turnaround in al Anbar Province, and posts a letter from a U.S. Army Colonel in Ramadi stating precisely how much things have changed.

General Peter Pace, the out-going chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff more-or-less dumped by an un-supportive Bush Administration, has few political reasons to help Bush, and yet, he says things like this:

After conferring with Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin and other commanders in this provincial capital west of Baghdad, Pace told reporters he has gathered a positive picture of the security environment not only here but also in Baghdad, where he began his Iraq visit on Monday.

He was asked whether this would inform his thinking about whether to continue the current strategy, with extra U.S. troops battling to secure Baghdad and Anbar province.

"It will because what I'm hearing now is a sea change that is taking place in many places here," he replied. "It's no longer a matter of pushing Al Qaeda out of Ramadi, for example, but rather — now that they have been pushed out — helping the local police and the local army have a chance to get their feet on the ground and set up their systems."

Pace said earlier in Baghdad that the U.S. military is continuing various options for Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his "surge" strategy needs a further boost.

Interestingly enough, the military's consideration for increasing troop numbers because of the success of the surge thus far, comes just one day after Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon said that if the success of the surge continues in his area of responsibility, then the number of troops he requires may be halved.

Some folks seem to think this is a contradiction, but that simply shows that they don't understand how counterinsurgency operations are being run.

As some areas see a significant long-term turn-around, the communities they are in stabilize, begin to normalize, and have less need of a large number of combat forces. This is what Mixon was relating.

Because the new counterinsurgency strategy is showing significant signs of progress in many areas where it is being implemented--Pace called it a "sea change," remember?--the Democrat Congress and Senate are increasingly desperate to lose the war while they still can (see the overnight loserpalooza engineered by Senate Democrats tonight as a prime example of this). Should they fail to lose and Iraq emerge as some sort of even moderately successful representative government, they'll lose their foreign policy credibility for decades to come.

Knowing the sharp knives aimed at their backs and feeling a successful strategy is well within their grasp, it is quite logical that some military general officers may desire to expand the counterinsurgency operations to many other areas of Iraq perhaps faster than they otherwise might in order to satisfy a politically-craven call for an arbitrary withdrawal date.

Because of these realities, these seemingly (but not really) contradictory things could happen at the same time. While troop strength could lessen and perhaps even halve in areas where the counterinsurgency has matured, there could be a significant push to expand the "surge," requiring an influx of troops overall.

Definitive Surge Progress Could Lead to Troop Reductions

The Coalition counterinsurgency strategy dubbed the "surge" has been so successful that U.S. soldiers in one part of Iraq could be halved by January, 2008:

Now at full strength, the U.S. troop surge in Iraq is showing "definitive progress" and the number of forces serving in Iraq’s Multi-National Division-North could be halved by summer 2009, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon said.

A reduction of U.S. forces under the general's command could begin as early as January 2008, he told Pentagon reporters via videoconference.

Mixon, commander of both Multi-National Division-North and the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division, is responsible for six Iraqi provinces in northern Iraq, including the city of Baqubah -- site of the ongoing Operation Arrowhead Ripper.

He said he has given U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, a plan indicating a possible reduction of force in Multi-National Division-North during 2008.

Mixon said the current debate over troop withdrawal should revolve around reaching a strategic "end state."

"It seems to me that we should first decide what we want the end state to be in Iraq, and how is that end state important to the United States of America, to this region and to the world, and then determine how we can reach that end state, and how much time that will take," he said. "To me, that seems to be the most important thing, because there will be consequences of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq."

"It cannot be a strategy based on, 'Well, we need to leave,'" he added. "That's not a strategy, that’s a withdrawal."

But, doesn't the General know that the new Pelosi-led Congress and Reid-led Senate--deliberative bodies with roughly as many major legislative accomplishments as the Iraqi Parliament they criticize--are far better judges of success or failure in Iraq than the officers and soldiers actually waging the war?

Iranian Rockets Recovered In Iraq [with Photos]

Via MNF-I:

After several rockets hit FOB Hammer on July 11, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team maneuvered to find the source of the attack. Early on July 12, the 3rd HBCT’s unmanned aerial vehicle located 46 rocket launchers in the northern section of Besmaya Range Complex aimed at FOB Hammer. Thirty-four of the launchers were armed with Iranian 107mm rockets. The Besmaya Range Complex is adjacent to the Coalition Force base. Soldiers of the 789th Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, currently attached to the 3rd HBCT, immediately responded to the site. According to Capt. Justin Gerken, from Red Wing, Minn., commander of the 789th EOD team, 12 of the 46 rockets had already been used to attack FOB Hammer the day prior. EOD Soldiers were able to determine that the rockets originated from Iran after analyzing the unexploded ordnance. The 789th EOD team was successful in neutralizing the remaining rockets.

That press release went up yesterday. I got copies of the photographs documenting the scene from MNF-I PAO this morning.

Iranian 107mm rocket captured while aimed at U.S. FOB Hammer in Iraq. (click photo for full size).

U.S. Army EOD securing Iranian 107mm rockets and launchers captured in Iraq. (click photo for full size).

Unfired Iranian 107mm rockets recovered after attack on U.S. FOB Hammer in Iraq. (click photo for full size).

Update: Some seem to expect these rockets and previously-captured Iranian munitions to be marked with some sort of "Iranian" language markings, whether Farsi or Persian or some other regional language.

The fact of the matter is that many countries, including Iran, use English language markings on some or all of their military ordnance, and Iran even has an English-language web site for exporting these and other military munitions.

Anti-Bush Terrorist Convicted

It's pathetic how far BDS will lead some people.

Neighbors: Edwards Campaign HQ A Nuisance

Silky Pony's campaign headquarters is not feeling the love:

Thursday marked the second postal scare in four months at John Edwards’ campaign headquarters in Chapel Hill.

Both incidents proved to be harmless, but for businesses in Southern Village, Edwards’ headquarters is becoming more of a nuisance.

Businesses complain that they're losing money. Some of them shut down for the day. Business owners told WRAL they're tired of the scares and tired of the business day interruptions. One business owner plans to do something about it.

Dr. Annelise Hardin runs a pediatric dentist office on the same floor as Edwards’ campaign headquarters. She said she has had enough of bomb scares and evacuations.

Her office plans to draft a letter to the building's management expressing frustration about the loss of business. She is planning to get other companies in Southern Village to sign the letter.

Keith Getchell runs a restaurant two doors down from Edwards’ campaign headquarters. The bomb scare wiped out his lunch crowd, he said. He, too, is frustrated and plans to sign Hardin's letter.

This is actually the third time Edwards campaign HQ has been evacuated. While the latest scare involved digital watches, the two previous threatening packages involved an inert white powder.

Chapel Hill Police have narrowed down the suspects in these three cases to the rest of the North Carolina.

Harry Reid's Attemped Dodge

ABC's Jake Tapper attempted to get Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to answer a simple question: Will Iraq be safer for Iraqi civilians if we pull out?

He spins, he twists, he dives, but Harry Reid refuses to answer the question.

Gee, Who do You Pull For?

The good news, of course, is that either way, someone detestable is going to lose:

A U.S. citizen once convicted of running a private jail in Afghanistan for terror suspects and torturing them has sued The Associated Press, alleging it engaged in defamation, libel and slander.

Jack Idema, a former Green Beret from Fayetteville, N.C., filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking at least $110,000 and other unspecified damages.

Idema, who listed a current address in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., was convicted of charges including torture and operating a private jail and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Afghanistan in September He was later pardoned by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and left that country in June.

In his lawsuit, Idema accused the AP of ignoring truths about his work in Afghanistan to generate a "hot salient and torrid story of abuse in Afghanistan" to compete with a CBS story about allegations of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

He also accused the AP of reneging on promises not to publish photographs and videotaped images provided by Idema or his lawyers unless it obtained publishing rights from his licensing agent, Polaris Images.

Dave Tomlin, AP associate general counsel, said: "The whole lawsuit is nonsense. The claims that reflect on the integrity and professionalism of AP staff are especially outrageous."

That last line, by Tomlin...

It made me laugh.

Lazy, Stupid, or Wilfully Ignorant?

Frankly, Jules, I don't think it is any of those.

I don't think these news organizations are lazy, as they can churn out one story after another on how the Iraq War was a mistake and a failure and by the way, Bush is tanking in the polls.

They aren't stupid, either, or we'd catch them faking the news far more frequently than we already do.

Nor do I think that they're willfully ignorant, as far too many critics have told them precisely what they are doing wrong, and loudly enough that an honest journalist would have certainly heard them.

No, what we are dealing with in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press is the purposeful subjugation of journalism to an anti-Bush, anti-U.S. political agenda.

"DonK," who claims to be a veteran Associated Press reporter, had this to say in the comments of Laws, Sausages, and Journalism:

As a former AP newsperson (15+ years), the deterioration of the AP's product makes me ill. The AP used to concentrate on the facts; Analysis and opinions were clearly labeled. However, under the new administration of Tom Curley, there seems little question that standards for verification have fallen sharply and the emphasis on facts over opinion has all but disappeared. The anti-Bush (and anti-US) tenor of AP reporting these days is appalling and makes me embarrassed for my former employers and some of the people I used to work with, who know better.

Update: In the comments, former journalist Jay K. proves my point (my bold):

it's one thing to make wild a** claims about an anti-bush/anti-america agenda in the press. it's another to explain realities like judith miller and bob woodward. i spent fifteen years as an award winning journalist before making a career change. it is based on that experience that i say if the press was doing it's job, and not just acting as administration stenographers, we would most likely not be in iraq, al queda would probably not be back to full strength, and the cheney administration would have never been elected to office in 2004. perhaps you are confusing editorial pages with journalism. journalists ask hard questions. it seems that in the last six years the only real journalists have been working for the mclatchy papers.

Perhaps unwittingly, Jay K proves my point. He strongly suggests that journalists take the role of activists, and that if they had done their jobs, then, "we would most likely not be in iraq, al queda would probably not be back to full strength, and the cheney administration would have never been elected to office in 2004."

The problem, which "DonK" noted above and another journalist obviously agrees with, is that the media are a special interest group, that is overwhelming aligned with the Democratic Party by 9-to-1 or more.

That the Salon.com readers slobbering in the comments disagree with that assessment does not make that fact any less true.

Update: Heh.

Murtha's "In Cold Blood" Slur Fails to Impress Marine Hearing Officer

In November of 2005, Democrat John Murtha (Okinawa), accused American Marines of cold-blooded murder:

A US lawmaker and former Marine colonel accused US Marines of killing innocent Iraqi civilians after a Marine comrade had been killed by a roadside bomb.

"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," John Murtha told reporters. The November 19 incident occurred in Haditha, Iraq.

Today, a Marine hearing officer said that charges against the first Marine coming to trial should be dropped:

The government's case against a Marine accused of fatally shooting Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha lacks sufficient evidence to go to a court-martial and should be dropped, a hearing officer determined.

The murder charges were brought against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt for killing three Iraqi brothers in November 2005.

The hearing officer, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, wrote in a report released by the defense Tuesday that those charges were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories. He also wrote that the case could have dangerous consequences on the battlefield, where soldiers might hesitate during critical moments when facing an enemy.

"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in the 18-page report. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."

A final decision on whether or not to drop the case will be made by Lt. Gen. James Mattis.

Laws, Sausages and Journalism

A little bit of cross-referencing reveals that the photographer "Talal" mentioned in Michael Yon's dispatch Second Chances is Associated Press photojournalist Talal Mohammed.

In "Second Chances," Yon recounts:

To see what the AP might have by way of reliable, mainstream, news resources, on the morning of 07 July, I asked Talal, an Associated Press stringer in Baqubah, if he had heard about the Al Hamari murders, and our conversation went something like this:

“Yes,” answered Talal.

"How many had been killed?" I asked.

"35," answered Talal. Not "about 35", but precisely 35.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"A medic at the Baqubah hospital told me,” Talal said.

“What was the medic’s name?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Talal.

“You didn’t ask?”

“No,” he said. Talal said a doctor told him the same thing, but that he did not know the doctor’s name. He had not asked. Besides which, Talal said, the doctor and the medic were afraid to give their names.

“How were the people killed?” I asked.

“They were shot,” answered Talal as he motioned shooting with a pistol.

“Did you tell someone at AP headquarters in Baghdad?” I asked.

“Yes,” answered Talal.

“Who did you tell?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Talal.

The International Herald Tribune on July 10 makes it clear that Talal's account—an account in which he didn't know the medic or doctor he cited, and didn't bother to ask their names—was received by someone at AP in Baghdad, who felt quite comfortable running the account, not matter how vaguely sourced:

The fight underlines the struggle in Diyala Province, where militants believed to be from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have reportedly left mass graves of victims in areas under their hold.

[snip]

Soldiers have found whole streets and buildings wired with explosives, bomb and weapons factories and prisons run by extremists - and, Iraqi officials say, the bodies of 35 people slain by militants and dumped in a village on the outskirts of Baquba.

Michael Yon's solid documentation—the units involved, their commander's names, the exact GPS coordinates of the site, video, and still photographs of the bodies, and a face-to-face meeting between Yon and AP reporter Robert Reid—and we get al Qaeda "reportedly" left mass graves.

In the second graph, through the magic of the AP's Baghdad Bureau, a nameless medic and fearful anonymous doctor are now, "Iraqi officials."

Otto von Bismarck was once credited with stating, "To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making."

As we gain a greater understanding of how one vague, phoned-in account after another is squeezed into an Associated Press casing and squirted across the wires, we're forced to face the reality that like sausages, many of the "facts" in an Associated Press story are those we'd never swallow for a second if we knew what went into them.

Update: What do you know... it only took a week-long blogswarm, but AP finally published on the massacre documented by Michael Yon.

Peekaboo

I see you.

What is It?

I guess got a very interesting email request from Brian at Snapped Shot, who wanted me to take a look at this AFP picture published on Yahoo News.

The caption states that the woman in the photo claims that the bullet in her hand hit her bed during an overnight raid by U.S. forces in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.

But there are a few inconsistencies in her story, or at least, odd observable phenomena surrounding what she's holding in her hand.

For starters, lets look at an enlarged, cropped version of the photo, focusing on the bullet.

While we don't have anything in the camera's frame and we don't know an exact size of the woman's hand to help determine size and scale, we can tell right off the bat that whatever this is, it is not any variation of 5.56 NATO ammunition issued to American forces. The shape is wrong, there are no markings consistent with U.S. 5.56 NATO ammunition, the object in the picture is far too large to be a 5.56 bullet, and quite obviously, it has no discernible jacket.

And while it might be closer in size to the 7.62 NATO chambered for some U.S. weapons systems (including M240 machine guns and M14 rifles), we once again run into the problem of the object's shape being far too rounded for most common 7.62 loadings I'm familiar with (including those generally issued to the military), no jacket, and no markings.

The object is also too rounded in shape (and perhaps too short) to be most the most common variations of .50 BMG bullets I'm familiar with, and quite frankly, only one .50 BMG military loading that I know of comes close.

The M903/M962 SLAP is a tungsten-core saboted 7.62 armor penetrator is the only non-jacketed round .50 BMG-round that I can think of that would have the color this bullet does, lack of markings, the ability to withstand impact with little to no deformation, and the lack of easily observable rifling on the bullet (due to the sabot grabbing the rifling, then being discarded in flight). The problem with this theory is that unless it hit some major masonry on the way in (this armor piercing bullet designed to punch through personnel carriers and vehicles), it would not have been stopped by her bed.

Are there any weapons experts out there who can definitively ID this as a U.S. bullet, or are we looking at something else?

AP: Screw the Facts, Protect the Narrative

As noted Saturday, the Associated Press has ceased being a wire service of journalists, and has fallen to become little more than an agency of lazy transcriptionists.

Seeking an excuse to explain why AP would run a faked claim of a sectarian massacre based purely upon hearsay, Associated Press Director of Media Relations Paul Colford attempted to claim that these anonymous sources were reliable (obviously, they aren't) and claim that an American military spokesman supported those claims. He has, despite a specific request to do so, failed to provide the name of the alleged military source.

Further, Colford stated that the Associated Press did not run Michael Yon's Bless the Beasts and Children exposure of a real massacre because:

With regard to Michael Yon, the Iraqi police and the U.S. military – to our current knowledge – have issued no statements to the AP about 10-14 bodies being found on June 29 in a village outside Baquba, even though the military, according to Mr. Yon’s online account, were involved in the discovery.

Ah... no press release, then no story?

Why, then, do we need the Associated Press at all?

Sadly, Colford's transcriptionists could have easily verified the story, if they were so inclined.

I'm sure you remember the old axiom, "A picture says a thousand words." Presented in context, this photo shows everything that is wrong with the Associated Press.

On the right in this photo is Associated Press Special Correspondent Robert Reid in the back of a Stryker in Baquba Saturday morning. He was just 3.5 miles from the site where Iraqi and American forces dug up the bodies of between 10-14 men, women and children that locals say were slaughtered by al Qaeda.

Directly across from Reid, taking this picture, is the man that chronicled the grisly discovery in words and in pictures... Michael Yon.

Yon and Reid spoke about the carnage Yon documented. Reid was within four miles of the gravesite excavated, and had precise GPS coordinates to view the site for himself. And yet, when Reid goes to press what does he write about the massacre Yon wrote about in al Hamira?

Nothing.

Not one word.

American military PAOs know well of the massacre Yon documented, from General Petraeus' PAO Col Steven Boylan, to Brigadier General Bergner's PAO Major Elizabeth Robbins, to LTC James Hutton of MNF-I.

The Associated Press, ostensibly a news-gathering organization, did not apparently ask these sources about Yon's account or what their soldiers had witnessed. Nor did they apparently ask any other American or Iraqi PAOs.

Why?

That is a question the Associated Press doesn't seem willing to answer.

Update: Michael Yon has posted his latest dispatch from Baquba, where he discovers that the number of bodies at at al Hamira (or as he later found out the correct spelling, al Ahamir) may have been much larger than the 10-14 originally thought:

Today, there are indications that the massacre might be much bigger than what I initially reported in “Bless the Beasts and Children.” Shortly after I published “Bless the Beasts and Children,” I asked a local Iraqi official about the village and the graves. The Diyala Provincial councilmen, Abdul Jabar, went on video explaining why he believes that there might be hundreds of people buried in the area, and he said the correct spelling is actually al Ahamir. (Most Iraqis’ names seem to have variant spellings.)

It will be interesting to see if that claim turns out to be accurate.

But this isn't the only item of note by Yon.

While Paul Colford and the Associated Press earlier seem to intone that they had no account of the al Ahamir discovery of the bodies of beheaded, massacred families (and thus, were waiting for military PAOs to drop the story), it appears an Iraqi stringer working for AP was in the area the entire time. He places the massacre body count as being much higher (read Yon for the details), and says he informed AP in Baghdad.

Guess who is at AP HQ in Baghdad? Kim Gamel.

AP Responds to DecapiGate

As most CY readers know, I sent a letter to Associated Press Director of Public Relations Jack Stokes and several of the AP Board of Directors on July 5.

I—along with many other bloggers, and a few journalists, it seems—were curious as to why the Associated Press would so willingly run a poorly-sourced and ultimately false story of a sectarian mass beheading, while passing up the freely-offered, well-documented, carefully photographed eyewitness account of an al Qaeda massacre by noted combat correspondent Michael Yon.

Yesterday afternoon, July 6, I was contacted via email by Paul Colford, Director of Media Relations (not Jack Stokes, another AP fact error) for the Associated Press with his response.

Here are the relevant sections:

AP’s initial version of the story about 20 headless bodies in Iraq, reported on June 28, was attributed to two Iraqi police officials who have been consistently reliable sources for AP. They were unnamed because Iraqi police officers often will speak to reporters only if they are guaranteed anonymity, for security reasons.

As is our practice, we kept reporting the story and noted that another police officer, also known to be reliable, had heard the same report of decapitated bodies found on the banks of the Tigris River near the city of Salman Pak, but this officer said a police visit was called off because clashes between police commandos and extremists made the area too dangerous.

However, the police in east Baghdad told the AP that the bodies had been recovered and were en route to the Baghdad morgue.

In addition, a U.S. military spokesman said that U.S. aircraft had spotted what appeared to be bodies on the banks of the Tigris north of Salman Pak.

On June 30, the AP, along with other news organizations that had been following the story, reported that the U.S. military had declared the reports of 20 beheaded bodies to be untrue.

With regard to Michael Yon, the Iraqi police and the U.S. military – to our current knowledge – have issued no statements to the AP about 10-14 bodies being found on June 29 in a village outside Baquba, even though the military, according to Mr. Yon’s online account, were involved in the discovery. We have consistently reported on atrocities committed by insurgents in the Baquba area.

In a war that has claimed the lives of five AP journalists, including three since last December, we take seriously our role in reporting the news reliably and fairly despite the dangerous environment.

This is my response, emailed to Mr. Colford.

Mr. Colford,

Let's be blunt about what you mean when you claim, "Iraqi police officers often will speak to reporters only if they are guaranteed anonymity, for security reasons."

The fact of the matter is that because so many Iraqi police officers were leaking false information to the media—the Associated Press being the single greatest offender—the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior earlier this year slapped a gag order upon all active duty Iraqi police officers not formally designated as press contacts in an attempt to cut down on inaccurate information and purposefully planted propaganda.

AP's most infamous police source, Jamil XX-XXXXXXX [named redacted for blog publication], known to the world by the pseudonym Jamil Hussein, was one of many police officers told point-blank not to provide stories to the press. XX-XXXXXXX was cited in particular as an example of a particularly bad source, as 38 of 40 stories sourced to him by the Associated Press could not be verified by any other news agency or government source as having actually occurred, and the vast majority of those stories coming form outside of his precinct, where he would have no direct knowledge at all.

When you state that you keep their names hidden for security reasons, you mean nothing more or less than that you are trying to keep their named hidden so that they will not be arrested and thrown in jail for violating their orders and Iraqi law.

You claim that these two anonymous police sources have been reliable in the past.

Sir, I hope that the Associated Press is a little more worldly than to fall for one of the oldest propaganda/intelligence tricks in the books. Dime-store spy novels are full of stories of spies and secret agents that pass along little truths to establish trust, in order to deliver disinformation once they are trusted. Apparently, the Associated Press has not learned that lesson.

In this instance, your two distant sources were quite wrong, as was your source who told you that the decapitated bodies have been recovered.

Further, I'd like for you to provide me the name of the U.S. military source who you claim said bodies were found on the banks of the Tigris, so that I can ask him myself precisely what information he relayed.

Interestingly enough, you seem to be claiming that you need to have some sort of press release from the U.S. military to run with Yon's story.

What an interesting double standard the Associated Press has incorporated.

You'll run a false sectarian massacre based upon hearsay evidence from anonymous police officers that are violating their own orders, as absolute, unequivocal fact, without any official comment or support whatsoever,

-BUT-

When you are offered—free of charge—a story citing named U.S. and Iraq officers and named U.S. and Iraqi units, taking party in the discovery and recovery of bodies from an al Qaeda massacre by perhaps the most well-regarded and highly respected combat correspondent of the entire war, with copious photo evidence, you suddenly need an official military press release before even considering it?

Perhaps I'm not a professional journalist, but I do know that if a journalist hears something interesting--say, an account of a massacre just a little more than three miles way--than he shouldn't wait on a press release before springing into action. He should immediately start asking questions. If he's going to merely rely on press releases, he isn't a journalist, he's a transcriptionist.

Your reporter Sinan Salaheddin was merely a transcriptionist for a pair of anonymous sources that the U.S. military seems to regard as insurgent propagandists. I would like your assurances that these sources will never be used again, and that Salaheddin, who has used disreputable sources such as XX-XXXXXXX in the past, will have his work more thoroughly vetted before publication, and that AP's Baghdad editor, Kim Gamel, who has also been know to publish stories from questionable sources, be more thoroughly supervised as well. Quite franky, I think their continued pattern of behavior in publishing poorly-sourced and ultimately false stories should warrant their termination, but I am not in the position to make that call.

I do know, Mr. Colford, that AP Special Correspondent Robert H. Reid is presently no more than a few miles for the site of the massacre that Yon reported.

Perhaps Reid will be viewed with more credibility than Yon and his multiple eyewitnesses and photographs, and perhaps as much as the insurgent propagandists with whom the Associated Press continues to place so much trust.

As noted above, Michael Yon told me via email this morning that AP Special Correspondent Robert H Reid is in Baquba, and I think he has pretty good evidence supporting that claim:

That's Reid (right) in the back of a Stryker armored vehicle just 3.5 miles from the scene of the ambush Michael Yon documented in Bless the Beasts and Children. Hopefully, he'll get the story out about the massacre at al Hamira, even though al Qaeda is suspected, and this doesn't fit the sectarian violence storyline AP seems to prefer.

Update: AP's/Mr. Colford's response to my rebuttal:

We have nothing further beyond yesterday's response.

Associated Press Prints Immediate Correction

As many of you know, I sent an letter on July 5th to the Associated Press Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes and members of the Board of Directors. This letter asked "when does a massacre matter?" and asked Stokes and the AP Board why they were willing to run the suspicious claims of distant anonymous sources as fact in reporting a mass beheading that sounded sectarian in nature, but had not taken up Michael Yon on his offer to run--free of charge--a first-hand, eyewitnessed, videotaped and photographed account of an al Qaeda massacre discovered by Iraqi and American troops.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Paul Colford announced himself in the opening of his response to my questions as the new Director of Media Relations at the Associated Press. He indicated he would like a call or email acknowledging his response.

I acknowledged that I got his email and told him I'd respond within the next day, and also asked if he wasn't the third person in that role this year. Linda Wagner, an accidental source of useful information during the Hurriyah/Jamil "Hussein" scandal, quietly decided that she needs to go back to college and resigned from her position not very long afterward.

Since then, as the screencap below shows, Jack Stokes has been listed on the AP's Contact page as their new Director of Media Relations.

Mr. Colford responded:

The third person in this position?

Not at all.

My predecessor, Linda Wagner, was the AP's first director of media relations.

I am the second to hold the position.

Jack Stokes remains with the AP, working for me. His title has always been media relations manager.

I then sent Mr. Colford the link to the Associated Press Web site Contact page, which has shown Jack Stokes as the Director of Media Relations since at least late April.

Then, for the first time I can recall, the Associated Press issued an immediate and unquestioned correction:

At the very least, this shows that have the capability to correct their inaccuracies, if not the inclination.

As for the fake massacres the Associated Press will report, and the real massacres they won't, I'll address Mr. Colford's response, and provide my rebuttal sometime in the very near future.

A Hunting We Will Go

The response to my letter to the Board of Directors of the Associated Press and AP Media Relations Director Jack Stokes was overwhelming, and apparently, continues to grow.

I noticed in the comments to my post (and some of those linking to it) that many people seem genuinely interested in writing to the Board of Directors of the Associated Press directly.

According to the Associated Press, this is their Board of Directors:

William Dean Singleton – Chairman
Vice Chairman and CEO
MediaNews Group Inc.
Denver, Colorado

Gary Pruitt – Vice Chairman
Chairman, President and CEO
The McClatchy Company
Sacramento, California

R. Jack Fishman
Publisher and Editor
Citizen Tribune
Morristown, Tennessee

Dennis J. FitzSimons
Chairman, President and CEO
Tribune, Co.
Chicago, Illinois

Victor F. Ganzi
President and CEO
Hearst Corporation
New York, New York

Walter E. Hussman Jr.
Publisher
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Little Rock, Arkansas

Julie Inskeep
Publisher
The Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne, Indiana
jinskeep@jg.net

Mary Jacobus
President and Chief Operating Officer
The New York Times Regional Media Group
Tampa, Florida

Boisfeuillet (Bo) Jones
Publisher and CEO
The Washington Post
Washington, D.C.

Mary Junck
President and CEO
Lee Enterprises, Inc.
Davenport, Iowa

David Lord
President
Pioneer Newspapers, Inc.
Seattle, Washington

Kenneth W. Lowe
President and CEO
E.W. Scripps Company
Cincinnati, Ohio

Douglas H. McCorkindale
Retired Chairman
Gannett, Co. Inc.
McLean, Virginia

R. John Mitchell
Publisher
Rutland Herald
Rutland, Vermont
john.mitchell@rutlandherald.com

Steven O. Newhouse
Chairman,
Advance.Net
New York, New York

Charles V. Pittman
Senior Vice President-Publishing
Schurz Communications Inc.
South Bend, Indiana

Michael E. Reed
CEO
GateHouse Media, Inc.
Fairport, New York

Bruce T. Reese
President and CEO
Bonneville International Corp.
Salt Lake City, Utah

Jon Rust
Publisher
Southeast Missourian
Co-president, Rust Communications
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
jrust@semissourian.com

Jay R. Smith
President
Cox Newspapers, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia
Jay.Smith@coxinc.com

David Westin
President
ABC News
New York, New York

H. Graham Woodlief
President, Publishing Division
Vice President,
Media General Inc.
Richmond, Virginia

You'll note that I only have four active email addresses (inserted above) for the 22 directors... several email addresses that I once had appear to have been changed, and some of the emails I sent yesterday bounced.

My letter had a chance of getting to just four members of AP's Board of Directors and AP Media Relations director Jack Stokes, if that email was not screened and summarily deleted by a "helpful" administrative assistant somewhere along the line. To date, I've had no response whatsoever by anyone at the Associated Press.

Sadly, I'm crunched for time today, and cannot hunt down the email addresses, phone and fax numbers, and mailing addresses of these 22 board members myself...

I'm wondering if someone out there can do what I cannot.

If you can track down this information, please post what you have found in the comments. I'll then update the list above. There seem to be quite a few of you who are highly upset with how the Associated Press keeps repeating a pattern of false stories without so much as a retraction or correction, and ignoring real stories.

You deserve a chance to take your complaints to the very top.

Palestinian Body Armor

Very brave, don't you think?

Is it simply a defect in the character of Palestinian militants that they use a wall of civilian youths to discourage Israeli soldiers from returning fire?

In most other parts of the world, I'd expect "freedom fighters" to attempt to protect their own civilians, encouraging to leave the area of hostilities, perhaps even endangering themselves to protect the people for which they claim to be fighting.

This thought is perhaps merely a western notion, as this kind of civilian abuse—can it really be called anything else?—is well-documented and frequently observed in Gaza.

All too often, this abuse leads to the headlines and photos the militants so obviously crave:

The journalists covering the conflict (here, Ibraheem Abu Mustafa of Reuters) refuse to provide the context of how a child could have been injured in a clash against Israeli forces, nor do they ever chide the Palestinian militants for endangering children and other civilians for using them as nothing less than body armor.

It is perhaps something approaching a miracle that in this engagement stretching back to yesterday, that nearly all of the dead on the Palestinian side have been Hamas and allied militants, including the Hamas field commander in central Gaza.

Israel, of course, gets little to no credit for their very selective use of force by the world media, perhaps due to the fact that most of those reporting for the Associated Press, Reuters, and other news agencies comes from men with names like Irbahim Barzak, Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Mohammed Abed, and others that might be culturally less inclined to see such restraint.

Nope, no inherent bias on display, at all.

Building on a Foundation of Socks

There exists a well-known parable spoken by Jesus in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7, that uses the example of foolish builders who build houses on the sand, only to watch those houses wash away in the flood because it had weak foundations.

Writing today at The Moderate Voice, Jeb Koogler builds his house upon the sand of noted sockpuppet Glenn Greenwald, questioning the role of al Qaeda in Iraq:

About two weeks, Glenn Greenwald wrote a widely-cited post that questioned the oft-stated notion of a strong al-Qaeda role in the Iraqi insurgency.

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term “Al Qaeda” to designate “anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq” is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as “Al Qaeda.”

Greenwald goes on to point out that such statements are misleading, given that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that al-Qaeda’s role in Iraq is quite small. Indeed, most studies have found that, rather than a large presence of foreign al-Qaeda fighters, the Iraqi insurgency is largely made up of disaffected Sunnis, Saddam loyalists, and ex-Baathists.

The problem with building his post upon Greenwald's theory is that Greenwald's claim is demonstrably false; a simple review of the MNF-I web site's press releases, feature stories, and daily stories shows conclusively that the military only cites al Qaeda as an actor in a clear minority of cases, typically less than a third of the time, even as surge operations are heavily targeting al Qaeda cells as part of Operation Phantom Thunder.

Perhaps in the future, Koogler should base his posts on a more solid factual foundation and go directly to the source (MNF-I) instead of repeating the already discredited claims of a known partisan dissembler such as Greenwald.

The only think more dangerous than building one's house upon a foundation of sand is building that same house on a foundation of sockpuppets.

When Does a Massacre Matter?

I just sent the following to Associated Press Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes and the Associated Press Board of Directors.

When does a massacre matter?

I ask this question, because on Thursday, June 28, The Associated Press—and to a lesser extent, Reuters, and a small independent Iraqi news agency—ran stories claiming that 20 decapitated bodies had been found on or near the banks of the Tigris River in Um al-Abeed, a village near Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, with sectarian violence strongly implicated.

There were no named sources from this story from any media outlet, and the two anonymous Iraq police officers cited in the widely-carried AP account were nowhere near the scene of the alleged massacre, with Um al-Abeed being roughly 12 miles from the southeast edges of Baghdad, and Kut being 75 miles away, respectively. Further, in the Associated Press story by Sinan Sallaheddin, the massacre claim itself was purposefully distanced for the dubious location of the anonymous police officers by an account of a bombing in Baghdad.

This claimed massacre never happened, and was formally repudiated by the U.S. military on Saturday, June 30, who ascribed the claims to insurgent propaganda. To date, the Associated Press has refused to print a retraction or a correction for this false story, just as it has failed to print a retraction for previous false beheading stories.

Apparently, correcting misinformation you've disseminated ranks low on the list of Associated Press priorities.

At the same time, the Associated Press has refused to run the story of a verified massacre in Iraq discovered on June 29 and supported by named sources, eyewitness statements, and photographic evidence provided by noted independent journalist Michael Yon in his dispatch, Bless the Beasts and Children.

I would like for the Associated Press to formally explain why they are willing to run thinly and falsely sourced insurgent propaganda as unquestioned fact without any independent verification, but refuses to publish a freely offered account by a noted combat corespondent that some consider this generation's Ernie Pyle.

Is it because the massacre documented by Yon was conducted by alleged al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists, and could not be ascribed to sectarian violence? It certainly could not be because of cost, as Yon has offered both his text and pictures to any and all media outlets free of charge. It could not be because of a question of validity, as his account was photographed, videotaped, and witnessed by dozens of American and Iraqi soldiers, some of them named, who could easily be contacted by the Associated Press for independent, on the record confirmation.

Why is the Associated Press willing to run the claimed of a false massacre on June 28, but unwilling to report a well-documented and freely-offered account of a massacre that was discovered just one day later?

I await your response with interest.

Actually, I don't expect a response at all, but if they should respond, I'll be sure to publish it.

Sadly, I think Glenn's source is correct.

07/06/2007 Update: Actually, it's a non-update: 24 hours after sending the letter above to various Associated Press directors and their director of media relations, the Associated Press has not responded in any way, shape, or form.

Muslim Doctors Discussed Florida Terror Strike?

Considering this is the Telegraph, I'd take this claim with a grain of salt:

One message read: "We are 45 doctors and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America.

"The first target which will be penetrated by nine brothers is the naval base which gives shelter to the ship Kennedy." This is thought to have been a reference to the USS John F Kennedy, which is often at Mayport Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida.

The message discussed targets at the base, adding: "These are clubs for naked women which are opposite the First and Third units."

It also referred to using six Chevrolet GT vehicles and three fishing boats and blowing up petrol tanks with rocket propelled grenades.

I haven't been to Mayport in years, but I rather suspect that the method of attack described above would have been repulsed well shy of their stated military targets.

As for the strip clubs... well, they are certainly a much softer targets than a military base and I suppose they could have killed or wounded many people if they had competently been able to carry out an attack.

If there is anything to this story, I expect that we'll see the arrest of any suspects here in the United States very soon.

Happy Independence Day

For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.

I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures.

No later than the third of July - sometimes earlier - Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July.

I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker" - giant meaning it was about 4 inches long.

But enough of nostalgia. Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.

There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton.

Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world.

In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

Ronald Reagan
President of the United States
1981

CNN: We Suck At Building Car Bombs, Too

In an effort to show what the failed FAE car bombs in London and Glasgow could have done, CNN commissioned explosives experts at New Mexico Tech to build and detonate a similar device.

Unfortunately for CNN, they made it a little too much like the failed jihadi's device.

Note when you watch this David Mattingly report that at about 1:21, the expert says, "what will happen is that this entire car will turn into shrapnel."

Eh, not so much.

After a long-winded set-up, they finally detonate the car bomb in front of a hastily-constructed wood-framed structure no more than 10 feet--perhaps the width of a parking space--away from the blast.

Mattingly's audio at around 3:34 is priceless:

Watch in slow motion as the car is blown to pieces."

Well, the back and side glass blew out, and the windshield spider-webbed and the drivers door was flung open, but as the video clearly shows, this was not successful car bomb. the Jeep was not "blown to pieces" as Mattingly claimed, nor was the expert's claim "that this entire car will turn into shrapnel" even remotely true. If this had been a successful FAE explosion, that wooden building would have been flattened and scattered like matchsticks, along with the Jeep.

The expert even admits, "casualties would probably be fire victims."

Why? Because the bomb burned, and created a small blast, but utterly failed as a a fuel-air explosive bomb.

I was amused to watch Mattingly shift gears post-blast, and explain that if this device had gone off outside of a London club, "fire could have claimed many lives." Well, yeah, providing the nightclub didn't have any other doors, or a sprinkler system.

But the kicker was watching him walk approximately 30 feet to the rear of the vehicle to pick up a nut that dribbled that far from the blast, and try to explain that it could have caused casualties. Well, I suppose it could have, but considering my seven-year old daughter can chuck one equally as far, I doubt the damage would have been that severe.

For comparative purposes, here is a video clip of a much smaller successful fuel-air explosive detonation from Futureweapons.

As you can plainly see, the blasts aren't even remotely similar in effect.

In the CNN video, the only apparent ejection of any material with any force was one of the propane tanks they claim was ejected 150 yards. Interestingly enough, I didn't see that tank ejected in any of the blast video angles show above. Did any of you catch it?

These Are Not the Droids You're Looking For

Via a previous request to Multi-National Corps-Iraq, a picture of Iranian-manufactured TNT (top) and C4 (bottom) explosives captured in Iraq by coalition forces (click image for larger version).

U.S. EOD says a chemical analysis of these explosives matches those of known Iranian explosives. Because this analysis comes from explosives experts that are both (a) American, and (b) military; Glenn Greenwald is sure to allege they were actually manufactured by Halliburton in the White House basement over the weekend.

In related news, a senior Hezbollah officer working for his Iranian terror masters was captured in Basra and is singing like a bird, implicating Iranian involvement in the sophisticated January Karbala raid that left five U.S. solders dead.

Jules Crittenden separates the wheat from the chafe in the Times story, that seems to have received some "editorial help" back in New York before publication.

Update: As commenter "BohicaTwentyTwo" notes in the comments, if the explosives above are supposed to look like American munitions, they miss the mark widely.

Here is a picture of an actual M112 charge (PDF).

I don't think that Iran was seriously attempting to mimic U.S. charges (U.S. charges are marked with taggants, signature trace elements that determine not just the country of origin, but also the company). I think that they were perhaps just trying to muddy the waters enough so that a generalist media could avoid looking at the evidence too hard, while allowing apologists to deny that these were Iranian charges because they were printed in English instead of Persian.

Decapitating the Truth

More on "Decapigate," as posted exclusively at Pajama's Media.

Note that the deception was worse at some levels and at some news outlets than first thought, and that oddly enough, only one news outlet actually had editors that were "fair and balanced" on this particular story.

The original CY post the broke the story is here and the follow-up containing the official denunciation is posted here.

Bless the Beasts and Children

I'll never understand why the media in Iraq finds it necessary to run poorly-sourced, suspect reports of false atrocities, when real ones are so easy to find.