TNR's Publisher Responds

Along with at least one other person who contacted Canwest Global CFO John McGuire as part of the letter-writing campaign, I received an email from Elisabeth Sheldon, publisher of The New Republic.

Dear Mr. Owens,

Thank you very much for your interest in The New Republic . Your concerns were forwarded to me from John Maguire in our corporate offices.

While getting conclusive information on the Beauchamp file has been challenging, the editorial team posted an update on the website last Friday, October 26.

You will have a complete response soon.

From a business perspective, the Baghdad Diarist represented 3 pages of over 1,100 editorial pages published during the past year. Yet, it has accounted for a hugely disproportioned amount of time in trying to deal with the response.

Please be assured that we share your interest in transparency and in clarifying TNR's position as soon as possible.

Once we publish the final findings of our investigation, we hope that your confidence in The New Republic will be fully restored.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Sheldon
Publisher

I responded to Publisher Sheldon and CC'd CFO Maguire:

Publisher Sheldon,

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond.

I do agree with you on a major point in your letter: getting conclusive information on the Beauchamp file has indeed been challenging, which is why, as an ethical publisher, you no doubt understand that when a part of a story, and entire story, or entire series of story contain elements that cannot be verified, it is incumbent on the publication to immediately retract some or all of those stories, even if conditionally.

We saw examples of how this should be addressed by publishing professionals last summer, when photographs taken by Adnan Hajj were discovered to have been manipulated on August 5, 2006. By August 7, after other discrepancies were found, Reuters "killed" all 920 pictures of Hajj's they had for sale, and by January 18, 2007 a top Reuters photo editor had been fired.

Reuters retracted the initial Hajj photo the same day it was discovered, and the next day disassociated themselves from the disgraced photographer after more evidence of doctored photos was found. 48 hours later, as a precautionary measure, they killed all of his work. A little more than five months later, Reuters fired the photo editor that let these manipulated photos slip into publication.

The comparisons between the Hajj case and the Beauchamp case are quite dissimilar.

When Michael Goldfarb challenged Beauchamp's story "Shock Troops" for the first time on July 18, his immediate responses came from soldiers in our military--experts, if you will--that strongly disputed the claims of the author, along with military vehicle experts. The New Republic had every reason to conditionally retract all three anecdotes in "Shock Troops" pending re-verification of the contentions of the author no later than the evening of July 18.

We all know, of course, that this did not happen. The story stayed up.

By July 20, it was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the author fabricated key elements of a previous story, "Dead of Night." In that story, the author claimed to have found a kind of pistol cartridge which does not exist. He also ascribes a murder to the Iraqi police because, "The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police."

Had the editors of The New Republic made even a passing attempt at fact-checking this story, they would have quickly noted that there is no such thing as a square-backed 9mm cartridge. They would know that the Glock pistol chambers a standard 9mm NATO pistol cartridge, easily the most popular and reproduced pistol cartridge on planet Earth. They would also have known, if they had even bothered to try so much as a Google search, that the Glock, far from being a weapon only provided to the Iraqi police, is among the most widespread handguns in the country of Iraq.

Likewise, it was noted that the author's first story, "War Bonds" was predicated on the author meeting an Iraqi boy while pulling security for a Humvee that was having its tire changed on a urban patrol. Because of the threat of ambush, it is standard operating procedure to tow vehicles that are disabled. There is also the not so minor detail that Humvees are all equipped with run-flat tires, a fact published no later than July 25.

At this point a responsible publication should concede to grievous problems with the three stories they published by this author, conditionally retract all three of them, and explain that this was done to ensure that this was done out of a respect for the magazine's readers, and that an investigation would be conducted quickly and competently.

Of course, we know that didn't happen.

Instead, Franklin Foe claimed, and has claimed, that "Shock Troops" was "rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published," a statement disproven by Foer when he had to shift the time of one key claim months into the past, and into another country. Doing so demolished the entire premise of the story, and again, should have necessitated a full retraction of this article. Once again, the editors of The New Republic failed their readers.

It has gotten worse, of course.

On August 2, "The Editors" attempted to claim that in attempting to "re-report" this story they interviewed:

...current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively. And we sought assistance from Army Public Affairs officers...

We know that multiple Army Public Affairs officers told The New Republic that the story was false prior to this publication, including Major Kirk Luedeke at FOB Falcon and Sergeant First Class Robert Timmons.

Since then, quite a few more experts have come forward to deny this story, as I noted earlier this week in a comment elsewhere:

Col. Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Multi-National Division-Baghdad. Beauchamp's CO. "He [Beauchamp] did admit to the investigating officer that the incidents did not take place."

Major John Cross, the investigating officer of the formal investigation which found all claims to be false.

First Sergeant Hatley, Beauchamp's Sgt, who stated from the beginning "not a single word of this was true."

Major Kirk Luedeke, FOB Falcon PAO.

Major Renee D. Russo. Kuwait-based PAO, called the burned woman claim an "urban myth or legend." Told that to TNR's Jason Zengerle months ago. TNR refused to print it.

William "Big Country" Coughlin, civilian contractor, Camp Arifjan Kuwait. Said such a woman never existed, other words unsuitable for print.

Doug Coffey, Head of Communications, Land & Armaments, for BAE Systems, manufacturer of the Bradley IFV. Debunked the physics/mechanics of the dog story. Also killed TNR's credibility when it was revealed TNR purposefully refused to provide him details of the story, in order to create their whitewash of an investigation with their "re-reporting."

Richard Peters, Iraq Veterans Against the War (formerly stationed at FOB Falcon in 2005-2006) who called Beauchamp's claims "elaborate lies" and Beauchamp himself a "loser."

There were, of course, more. There was a formal military investigation completed, and all of the claims made in "Shock Troops" we found false. Not just uncorroborated: false.

How have Franklin Foer and The New Republic defended their inaction to date?

They've failed to provide a single on-the-record statement by any expert or soldier to corroborate the author's claims. In fact, one of the experts interviewed by The New Republic, Doug Coffey, Head of Communications, Land & Armaments, for BAE Systems, revealed that The New Republic did not show him the claims made by Beauchamp at all, and once he did review the claims made in the story, found them highly unlikely.

In addition to failing to support the story, there is evidence that they have attempted to orchestrate a cover-up for the fact that they did not fact-check a single one of the author's stories prior to publication, even though claims made in those stories include acts of barbarity, cruelty, and even an spurious allegation of murder.

"Shock Troops" should have been conditionally withdrawn by the evening of July 18, and all three of the author's stories should have been withdrawn no later than July 20.

The Editors of The New Republic passed this point over three months ago. Since then, the editors in this story have only further dishonored themselves and the magazine as they concealed testimony, hid interviews, attacked the military, and other critics, and misused experts.

I would ask you, Publisher Sheldon, just how seriously you regard The New Republic's obligation to act within a framework of journalistic ethics, and to what standards you feel the editors of The New Republic should be held accountable.

Sincerely,

Bob Owens

It will be interesting to note how she choses to respond.

A Few Notes on "Emailgate"

I've seen over the past several days that Glenn Greenwald is focusing his attention to delving over emails attributed to Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. Army officer currently serving as the public affairs officer to General David Petraeus [full disclosure: I’ve used Col. Boylan as a source several times, due in no small part to the fact that he is a Public Affairs Officer] .

And who am I to mind bloggers paying attention to words that our soldiers wrote? Frankly, I think that's just grand.

This particular story started when someone purporting to be Boylan sent Greenwald a scathing unsolicited email several days ago, which Greenwald dutifully published, along with follow-up conversations between Greenwald and Boylan, where Boylan claims that he did not send the original email and that he wasn't all that worried about the imposter.

After numerous updates to that page, Greenwald wrote about it again here, here, and again today, here.

Greenwald is notably convinced of several things:

• That the email header information indicates that that the original email did, in fact, originate from Boylan or someone with the ability to fake that information convincingly;
• that the military needs Greenwald's email to track down whoever sent the original email;
• that this exchange, however it began, is indicative of a military attempt to control the media "when they step out of line;"
• that somehow, this is all the Bush Administration's fault.

I will readily agree with Greenwald on the first point, that the email header seems to indicate this came from the same computer as other email’s attributed to Col. Boylan. Whether that IP address in question belongs to an email server used by hundreds of troops, is Boylan's personal computer, or is entirely spoofed, I have no idea.

I am quite certain, however, that the military needs no help at all from Greenwald in tracking this email down internally. If a rag-tag group of bloggers can track a bunch of Greenwald-approving blog comments under various names back to Greenwald's own IP address, then I'm rather certain that that the Army's own IT guys can muddle through in determining whether or not an email originated from their own server, without his technical wizardry. If the disputed email is indeed authentic, it would be recorded on the Army email server's log files, which they obviously have, which could track it back to the computer in question, which they could then traced to the user ID of who was logged-on to that computer at the time.

As for whether or not such an email, if real, would constitute a military attempt to control the media "when they step out of line," I would gently ask the noted First Amendment scholar Greenwald to note where it states that soldiers give up all their constitutional rights to free speech once they put on a uniform.

Is it only when they disagree with liberals?

I ask because while the questionable email that started this particular conflagration was no doubt scathing, and emails apparently from Col.Boylan to other bloggers also disputed some of their content and fact-finding efforts, I fail to see how these private emails to bloggers were somehow inappropriate, unless Greenwald thinks that he and his compatriots should be able to attack the military—even to the point of fabrication—without any response.

Greenwald has a long and mercilessly well-documented history of being unable to take criticism. Somehow, I think that has as much to do with his focus on this topic than any real concern over a military email server may have been compromised.

Beating the Smallest Enemies

Jay Price of McClatchy Newspapers put up an interesting post yesterday afternoon that I happened to catch off of Memeorandum.com, which reminds us that traditionally, it isn't the dramatic wounds of battle that cause most military casualties, but disease and non-combat injuries, and that the supermajority of medical evacuations of military personnel from Iraq are not the result of enemy fire.

Disease, however, too is another native insurgency in which our military seems to have gained the upper hand:

An example of that success is the U.S. fight against leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sandflies that causes festering wounds and can attack the organs.

When the British army came to Iraq in the 1930s, leishmaniasis incapacitated up to 30 percent of the troops, said Lt. Col. Ray Dunton , a trained entomologist who's in Iraq serving as chief of preventive medicine for the 62nd Medical Brigade.

In 2004, hundreds of U.S. soldiers also were infected. Preventive medicine teams went into action, spraying insecticide and urging troops to use insect repellant. Infestations dropped from an average of 140 a month to nearly zero. Only 10 people have been diagnosed with leishmaniasis this year.

Informed of the situation, Harry Reid's staff is scrambling to issue a statement declaring the war against battlefield illnesses "lost."

An Eye For Detail

I had every intention of letting "Cheney Flag-gate" go uncommented upon as a non-story. Vice President Cheney went pheasant hunting at an exclusive preserve in Dutchess County, New York yesterday, and the hunt itself left only pheasants hitting the ground. It was a local interest story for the most part, until a sharp-eyed photographer and a self-promoting blowhard turned this local interest story into a national non-story when it was discovered that the inside of the back door of a garage at the hunt club was draped in a Confederate battle flag.

There is precisely no evidence that Cheney or anyone on his staff saw the flag, but that didn't keep the Daily News from running straight to Al Sharpton. The story ended in lots of hot air being spit by a man in love with the sound of his own voice, and many people fruitlessly wishing they had a way to somehow blame the Vice President.

I only mention this story at all because of the eye for detail it reveals in our media. Consider this a "teachable moment" for media fact-checkers.

Here is the flag photo, as captured by a Daily News photographer.

Note the detail the Daily News posted about the flag itself:

A Daily News photographer captured the 3-by-5 foot Dixie flag affixed to a door in the garage of the Clove Valley Gun and Rod Club in upstate Union Vale, N.Y.

Not to be outdone, Austin Fenner of the Post claimed:

But the veep only shot him self in the foot - by visiting the exclusive Clove Valley Rod & Gun Club in Union Vale, a sprawling preserve nestled along the western side of Clove Mountain, where a 5-foot-by-5-foot Confederate flag hung in a garage attached to the club headquarters.

Led by the tabloids, the Times "Cityroom" blog blindly follows, and ups the ante with a rather blatant embellishment:

Reporters who covered Mr. Cheney’s visit on Monday — including Fernanda Santos of The Times — were not permitted to enter the grounds of the hunting estate. But at least one eagle-eyed photographer captured images of a Confederate battle flag — about 3 feet by 5 feet in dimension — hanging in plain view in a garage attached to the club’s headquarters.

If it was in "plain view" as alleged, why didn't the Times' Fernanda Santos—or any other reporter or photographer than the one from the Daily News —notice it? Clearly, Sewell Chan had a much better view of the action from Manhattan.

But let's talk about the view for a moment, and about media accuracy. It is admittedly a small matter, but indicative of a greater pervading sloppiness.

Look at the picture again, and the descriptions. The Daily News and the Times puts the flag at "about" 3-by-5 foot in dimension, and the Post, inexplicably, determines the flag is 5-by-5 foot, proving that they failed rectangles and squares.

But before you laugh too much at the Post, make sure you include the Daily News and the Times, for they are far off the mark as well, as a little common sense would tell you.

Look back at that flag again.

Actually, look at the door.

When is the last time you saw an entry door that is 5-feet wide? This door is at most 36 inches wide, and many older buildings have rear garage doors commonly just 2'8" in width.

The flag, it would seem, is roughly half the size of that which the media claimed. This isn't malice, of course, just carelessness over the details.

The same sort of carelessness, however, gives us stories of brutal massacres that didn't happen. It gives us bullets that were never fired or never made. All of these stories are equally untrue because of reporters wanting to rush stories to print without getting the details right.

Speed to press will never save the print media. Bloggers will always be faster. The media must be more accurate, more diligent, and more credible. To date, they show little sign of learning this lesson.

Advertising Age Picks Up TNR Advertisers Campaign

And I love the key line from AdAge's Ken Whelton:

Of course, the news here is that The New Republic still had advertisers!

Not, for long we hope, but that depends on you contacting TNR's advertisers.

This isn't a matter of "pro-war" versus "anti-war" as many have tried to frame this story, but a matter of right versus wrong, truth versus fiction, and media accountability versus editors run amuck.

So agrees Richard Peters, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who stated of Beauchamp back in August that "People like him really get under my skin," and referred to the fabulist as a "loser." Peters may be on the opposite side of the war from I, but both of us agree that Beauchamp "spread elaborate lies."

We—and you—agree that obviously false stories such as those in "Shock Troops" harm the reputations of all soldiers, whether they are military veterans who have come to be against the conflict such as Peters, or they are currently-serving servicemen who want to see the mission through, or they are veterans who have served our country with honor in the past.

And so I say to you: Pick an advertiser, and respectfully ask them if the sick fantasies told in The New Republic and proven false by a formal military investigation are worth supporting with their ad dollars.

My guess is that advertisers can reach this same demographic by advertising through similar magazines that still support our troops.

Project Valor-IT Under Way!

Today marks the start of Project Valor- IT, a yearly effort to raise funds to buy Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops (VALOUR- IT).

Any interested bloggers can join the effort on the team of your choice, and anyone interested in learning more about the project can read all about it.

And if you're ready to donate... we've got that covered here, as well. Click the widget, and chip in!

A Point of Honor

Scott Beauchamp doesn't matter.

He's a twice-AWOL serial liar with a pending mental health evaluation who can't write believable military fiction EVEN WHILE IN THE MILITARY. He's powerless, has been tried, found guilty and punished, and at this point, a distraction. We've been focusing on the wrong things.

What matters is the New Republic's advertisers. No, not their editors, their advertisers.

We know that TNR allowed all three of Scott Beauchamp's stories to be published without being competently fact-checked, if fact-checked at all.

We know that the editors of TNR, led by Franklin Foer, lied when they said that the stories had been competently fact-checked, we know they deceived their readers and misled at least one civilian expert in an attempt to create a whitewash of an investigation.

We know The New Republic attempted to stonewall their way through obvious, blatant, and grievous breaches of journalistic ethics. In so doing, they have attacked the service, integrity, and honor of an entire company of American soldiers serving in a combat zone to avoid taking responsibility for their own editorial and ethical failures.

Foer will win the current game we're playing because he can stonewall his way though it. It is obvious his bosses don't care as long as it doesn't cost them money.

So we change the game.

Below are a list of recent advertisers that have placed ads with either the print edition of The New Republic or the web site tnr.com.

I'd ask U.S. military veterans, military families, active duty personnel, and the vast majority of Americans who support our servicemen and women to call these companies, institutions and agencies to pull their advertising from TNR, effective immediately.

Advertising with The New Republic represents a tacit support of their on-going support of an obvious lie, a continuing, unapologetic assault on the reputation of an American Army unit presently deployed in combat.

Advertising in The New Republic sends a message that advertisers do not care about journalistic ethics, or what most would consider editorial fraud.

I would ask advertisers to pull all of their advertising from the print edition of The New Republic and tnr.com until the senior editors responsible for this debacle are disciplined, with those at the top resigning.

The New Republic doesn't have an obligation to support the troops, or support the war in Iraq. It does have an obligation to retract stories for which they can provide no support.

Canwest MediaWorks, the Canadian company that owns The New Republic, does not have an obligation to decide the editorial policies of The New Republic, but it does have an obligation to discipline all editors who have refused to act ethically, who have misled readers, and who have attacked the military for defending itself from proven falsehoods and gross exaggerations (email Canwest Global CFO John McGuire at jmaguire@canwest.com, and be polite but firm).

We cannot force The New Republic to behave honorably, but we can make their dishonesty come at a price.

Update: I just had a conversation with a friend who had been the target of a boycott, and I agree that the best way to address this is to respectfully ask advertisers to pull their advertising from TNR as a show of support for the troops. The post above has been edited to reflect that.

Update: Added Canwest's CFO email address (h/t Tara).

10/29 Update: Steve Lunceford, Director of Global Communications for Bearing Point, states that "I believe we haven't advertised with that publication in years." As they are not apparently an advertiser, I'm striking them from the list.

And yet, the New Republic has them on a list of " recent advetisers" according to their Media Kit (PDF).

I'm Sorry... Was That Supposed to be Journalism?

There are so many fact errors, hinted slurs and innuendoes piled into Tim Rutten's "Drudge, New Republic battle over 'Baghdad Diarist,' that reading it, you would think you were reading the L.A. Times... oh wait.

You were.

Without fisking every line, here is why Tim Rutten should never be mistaken for a journalist.

He described the ridicule of a disfigured Iraqi woman, attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles...

The burned woman has never be described as being an Iraqi... Rutten is the first. Nor were the claims in the Bradley stories described as mere attempt; there were three successful and grisly killings alleged by the author.

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

No, the editors of TNR did not admit that anecdote was "concocted." They shifted the story to another time, in another country, but still maintain that it occurred.

The Army's investigators refused to release details of their findings...

Under federal privacy laws, the details of administrative cases cannot be released without Beauchamp's permission. He has not yet authorized this release.

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

Beauchamp has use of his personal cell phone and laptop computer, landline telephone, and may arrange formal interviews with any news outlet that wants to speak to him through the PAO system. He has made the choice not to talk to them, at TNR's explicit request.

Both the New Republic -- still unable to determine whether its story was true or false...

The editors of the New Republic have purposefully suppressed testimony provided them from many sources, suppressed the identities of the experts they've interviewed (military and civilian) to keep others from conducting follow-up interviews, and misled experts and misused their statements to create a whitewash of an investigation. They have only done so because they have been able to determine that they cannot support these stories honestly, and because they cannot support their previous claims that these stories and previous stories by this author had been throughly fact-checked prior to publication.

Far more interesting was the fact that within several hours, Drudge had, without explanation, removed the "exclusive" from his website. The item still can be found in the report's archives, but links to the documents have been disabled. No notice or explanation is appended to the archived item.

Why?

It's a fascinating question, but in the orgy of pro-war Internet comment that surged through the blogosphere, no one bothered to ask in any serious way why Drudge might have dropped an item of this consequence so quickly.

The Drudge Report, by design, adds, reorders, and removes stories after several hours and has done it this way for roughly a decade. To imply that a normal cycling of stories is evidence of some admission of wrongdoing is either ignorant, or purposefully dishonest. Further, considering the size of the documents (2.21 MB, 2.73 MB, 2.89 MB, respectively) and the amount of traffic the site normally receives, bandwidth considerations were the far more obvious reasons these files were removed as the story cycled off the front page.

There are questions to be asked, though you won't see them in the pro-war blogosphere:

* Who leaked the documents to Drudge and why, among all the documents the Army must have collected in this case, was one of them a transcript that could be used to put Foer and Scoblic in a bad light?

It is rather obvious who leaked the documents, at least in general terms, which contrary to Rutten’s ignorance, was published in a widely-read and linked article on September October 25 and on other blogs. The documents came from the military, though most likely outside those directly involved. A reading of the transcript shows what many consider strong-arm attempts by Foer and Scoblic not to retract his story, on at least one occasion alluding the the author's wife, who worked at The New Republic.

* Why did Drudge take the documents down and why hasn't he explained his reasons for doing so?

Answered above, with common sense and normal procedure.

* Why has the Army kept Beauchamp in Iraq where it can control access to him and he's beyond the reach of any other jurisdiction?

Beauchamp is a soldier assigned to a combat unit in Iraq, and Beauchamp chose to remain with his unit in Iraq when given the option of leaving the Army.

* Why hasn't the Army complied with the New Republic's FOI request?

We can start with the fact that The New Republic, by their own statements, did not do the rudimentary legwork necessary to file their FOIA request with the necessary FOIA office in the beginning, creating unnecessary delays.

Once filed with the proper office, FOIA requests to overseas combat zones have documents compiled, transmitted back to the United States, undergo legal review, and then are released, if it is deemed that the material asked for can be released. Depending on the information they have asked for, it is quite possible that releasing some or all of the information they seem most interested in may violate Beauchamp's privacy rights.

Not that Rutten bothered to interview anyone in the CENTCOM FOIA office, or ask TNR about the nature of the information they requested.

Who knew the Army was awash in such compassion?

Al Anbar province, for starters, but current events don't seem to be Rutten's strongpoint, either.

Why the attempt to shift attention off the alleged fabulist, Beauchamp, and onto the editors of the magazine, who after initially supporting the invasion, have turned decisively against the war?

A solider who lied in a series of stories and who has been punished for those lies is a minor story once he drops out of the public spotlight; a national magazine editors attempting to orchestrate a cover-up, smear critics, and then attempts to play the victim card? That's news.

Not that Tim Rutten is capable of finding any. There is a reason he writes for the L.A. Times.

He's not a capable enough journalist to hack it in the blogosphere.

The Never-Ending Story

Franklin Foer, Peter Scoblic, Jason Zengerle and other senior editors at The New Republic can't quite seem to get their hands on enough information to complete their investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" story published in mid-July.

As someone who has had a bit of success in separating the facts from the fiction in this and other instances of questionable media content, I can offer them some free consulting advice to expedite their final report.

In yesterday's Washington Post interview with Howard Kurtz, Franklin Foer made the following claim:

Despite the contentious conversation, Foer continued to defend the article days later. He did so again yesterday, reiterating that other soldiers whom the magazine would not identify had confirmed the allegations.

While Beauchamp "didn't stand by his stories in that conversation, he didn't recant his stories," Foer said in an interview. "He obviously was under considerable duress during that conversation, with his commanding officer in the room with him."

We'll overlook the fact that his commanding officer was not in the room. We'll also overlook the fact that the enlisted squad leader actually sided with Foer and Scoblic in their argument that TNR should be allowed to control the narrative and cancel interviews with both Newsweek and the Post. And we'll overlook that the only obvious duress in the transcript was Foer using the emotional blackmail regarding Beauchamp's wife and the further strong-arm tactics of reminding Beauchamp that if he recanted, any future career of his as a writer is over.

We'll ignore all that for now, because want to get to the truth.

So let's focus on this part of the claim:

...reiterating that other soldiers whom the magazine would not identify had confirmed the allegations.

There are 58 pages of sworn statements currently under legal review at Central Command's FOIA Office in Tampa that seem to directly disagree with that assertion, so let's get the facts as we know them out in the open.

To date, The New Republic has been very vague about the specific claims of these anonymous soldiers, including how many soldiers support each allegation, what their relative positions are within the company or incident that puts them in a position to support their allegations and what, precisely, they said in support of their allegations. I think that it is quite reasonable for the editors to release the full claims, if not the names of the claimant.

In addition, specific questions about each anecdote need to be answered for these claims to be regarded as truthful.

The Burned Woman Claim
In relation to the "burned woman" story, where Beauchamp claims to have verbally abused the apparent survivor of an IED attack in a dining facility that the author claims was especially crowded at that time, readers deserve to know: what was the date of the assault?

We don't need the specific day, but a week-long range—say, the first week of May, or the last week of September—that we can then compare that against the records of every known civilian contractor and military serviceperson on that base at the time, if nesessary.

The magazine cannot find asking for that detail of their sources to be objectionable, if they do still in fact maintain that she is real. The formal military investigation interviewed seven of Beauchamp's fellow soldiers and friends (and lists their names), and states they have never seen such a woman.

As a result the official report concluded that this story is "a tale completely fabricated by Private Beauchamp." If Franklin Foer and the other editors of TNR wish to contend this story is in fact true, they need to provide specific evidence stating why they think it is true, starting with when this supposedly took place.

The Skull Story
The second anecdote in "Shock Troops," was the one that triggered the formal military investigation as it involved the alleged desecration of human remains by U.S. soldiers. The author wrote:

...And, eventually, we reached the bones. All children's bones: tiny cracked tibias and shoulder blades. We found pieces of hands and fingers. We found skull fragments. No one cared to speculate what, exactly, had happened here, but it was clearly a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort.

One private, infamous as a joker and troublemaker, found the top part of a human skull, which was almost perfectly preserved. It even had chunks of hair, which were stiff and matted down with dirt. He squealed as he placed it on his head like a crown. It was a perfect fit. 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.

The private wore the skull for the rest of the day and night. Even on a mission, he put his helmet over the skull. He observed that he was grateful his hair had just been cut--since it would make it easier to pick out the pieces of rotting flesh that were digging into his head.

The formal investigation relates a different reality.

Upon initial reconnaissance of the area that would become Combat Outpost Ellis, Captain Erik Pribyla reported seeing a "skull and what appeared to be a human femur" at the site. PFC Tracy King recovered the skull (I'd further note that in the wording of the report, the skull seems to be referred to as an intact skull, not fragments) and buried the remains with as much dignity as possible. The other bones recovered were apparently animal bones mixed in with household trash, and were "commonly found on Iraqi farmsteads in trash piles where they are dumped after a meal."

If Foer wishes to maintain that Beauchamp's anecdote is true and that his "other soldiers" support the claim, he needs to provide us with some concrete evidence that there were human remains recovered during the digging process.

To date, the only verified human bones near COP Ellis were those two found on the surface. As only a skull and femur were recovered, it would seem to suggest that they may have come from a body located elsewhere, perhaps the victim of sectarian violence. According to the report Beauchamp's sworn statement says he admits only seeing animal bones.

If The New Republic wants to continue insisting this story is accurate, perhaps they could start by having their soldiers explaining, in detail, how a soldier could wear "the top part of a human skull" under the form-fitting pads of MICH helmets while out on patrol without their squad leaders finding out.

The Bradley Story
Frankly, there is nothing at all that Foer's batch of anonymous corroborating soldiers could do to provide any credibility the dog-killing Bradley driver story. The geography of the land around COP Ellis, the handling characteristics of tracked vehicles, and the physics of the driver's visibility make this claim all but impossible. The editors of The New Republic even made a deceptive attempt to use an armored vehicle company expert to spin this claim, but that didn't turn out very well when he found out the whole story, which leads me to another point.

What About TNR's Other Hidden Experts?
In addition to the anonymous soldiers Franklin Foer claims still support the allegations made in "Shock Troops," TNR has still refused to name the civilian experts which the magazine claims provide technical arguments supporting the possibility that these allegations are true. As we found when we interviewed the Bradley Vehicle company spokesmen, it appears TNR asked purposefully vague questions, which led to predictably vague answers, which the New Republic then claimed as proof the stories were real.

As their civilian experts face no possible penalty from the military, it is incumbent upon Franklin Foer to reveal specifically what questions were asked of them, provide specifically what their answers are, and of course, tell us who these experts are.

And Yet...
Remarkably, even after the release of a formal, thoroughly-documented U.S. Army investigation two days ago which concludes the stories published in "Shock Troops" were false, and the release at the same time of a transcript that shows the author of the piece will not stand behind his story and wished to simply walk away from it seven weeks ago, the editors of The New Republic have not retracted the story, nor have they yet resigned.

What Could They Be Waiting On?
The answer is revealed in the transcript of the September 7 call, where Franklin Foer and Peter Scoblic repeatedly focus on getting the two sworn statements signed by Scott Beauchamp—to the point of conferencing in his TNR-appointed lawyer—to try to get Beauchamp to release them.

I'm not sure what Foer thinks he will find in those two sworn statements by Beauchamp that will carry more weight than the sworn statements of every other soldier interviewed during the course of the investigation that refute the allegations in "Shock Troops."

There is nothing in those statements that can vindicate The New Republic's utter lack of fact-checking this story prior to publication, and then deceiving their readership about this failure even as they are forced to shift a key "fact" to another country and time. Nor is there anything in Beauchamp's statement that can justify the attempt of TNR to unethically spin the testimony of experts that they apparently keep in the dark about the nature of the work for which they were being consulted.

Beauchamp's fiction was long ago superseded by the duplicity and unethical behavior of the senior editors of The New Republic.

Two sworn statements cannot erase that stain to the credibility of The New Republic that has been created by editors who refused to concede the reality that they uncritically allowed the publication of obvious fiction. Nor can these documents excuse the editorial failures and ethical breaches of the magazine's senior editors that seem rooted in their inablity to face valid questions brought about by some of their most vocal critics over differences of political ideology.

On September 7, Executive Editor Peter Scoblic asked Scott Beauchamp if he would object to The New Republic fully retracting not only "Shock Troops," but alsohis previous articles, "War Bonds," and "Dead of Night." Beauchamp did not object.

Exactly seven weeks later, the deceptions of the editors and author still remain unaddressed.

Update: "The Editors" of TNR have once again posted on the "Shock Troops" controversy, and they are still standing behind the story because they claim that Beauchamp called Franklin Foer at home two weeks after the recorded call and stood by everything:

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

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

So if we are to beleive "The Editors," Scott Beauchamp called Franklin Foer at home two weeks after the transcribed call and claimed that he "continued to stand by every aspect of his story, except for the one inaccuracy he had previously admitted." That "inaccuracy," of course, being the placement of a woman that nobody else has ever seen in a different country (Kuwait) and time (pre-combat) than the country in which she had not been seen in previously (Iraq).

Sadly, this claimed conversation comes at a time when Beauchamp seemed to have rededicated himself to his fellow soldiers and has been making a concerted effort to re-earn their trust. If true, it would certainly damage the hopes his superior officers had of rehabilitating an already problematic Army career.

Update: Someone get Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger a stick. He's going to need it to scrape Franklin Foer off his shoe.

Did I Mention Those Other TNR Investigation Documents?

My latest on the Beauchamp/TNR is up at Pajamas Media.

I'd also advise reading the latest from Michael Yon and Laughing Wolf at Blackfive. For all of his issues with the creative writing , Scott Beauchamp isn't the focus of this story any more, and more importantly, seems to be trying to earn back the trust of his fellow soldiers.

The New Republic, however, long ago ran out of second chances.

Never Ascribe to Malice What Ignorance Will Explain...

...though there is probably copious amounts of both in this commentary on The New Republic's handling of the Scott Beauchamp "Shock Troops" affair.

I'll be rather more kind to Mr. Sargent than he probably deserves.

There's been a very interesting turn in the saga of The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist," the American soldier in Iraq who's been accused of fabricating negative stories about U.S. troops and publishing them in the mag.

For those of you who haven't been following this story, the soldier, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, came under withering criticism a few months ago by conservative bloggers who alleged he'd made up the stories about the troops. The Army conducted an internal investigation into the affair and concluded he'd largely fabricated them. TNR has stuck by Beauchamp, demanding that the Army publicly reveal whatever documents it had supporting the probe's conclusion. The Army has refused.

Time, facts and federal law have conspired against The New Republic, none of which are the exclusive domain of the United States Army.

Many documents related to this investigation, such as the sworn statements signed by PV-1 Beauchamp and other soldiers interviewed, in addition to certain aspects of adminstrative investigations (which this was), are not releasable to the public except as authorized by the soldier who is the subject of the report or statement.

In plain English, Beauchamp could likely release some or all of this documentation, if he desired to do so. The Army cannot release the information the magazine has asked for without his permission as a matter of federal privacy laws.

Well, guess what -- the Army may not be willing to reveal its docs to TNR, the target of its investigation, but it has just acknowledged that someone internally has willingly leaked them to Matt Drudge.

This again calls into question the Army's handling of this affair in a big way. It's bad enough that the Army hasn't been willing to show any transparency with regard to its probe into this. It's worse still that someone -- apparently an Army official -- is leaking some of the probe docs to Drudge, likely as part of an effort to get back at TNR.

"The Army" is a tremendously large organization, with varying viewpoints and points of contact. The PAO most directly involved with the overall story, Major Kirk Luedeke, came out almost immediately and acknowledged that the leak was in fact an Army leak. The Central Command FOIA office which has these and other documents related to the investigation stated in a pair of phone calls this morning that they were unaware of the Drudge story and the associated fall-out until today, and seemed genuinely surprised these documents could have become part of the public record.

I have good reason to believe, but cannot confirm, that this was an operation that happened outside the proper chain of contact for these documents. Those who are more involved with the story that would have had access to these documents know that they are part of pending FOIA requests in their final stages of preparation and legal review. The disclosure of these documents, in the manner they were distributed, is actually detrimental to the truth of the matter, which favors the military.

The Army's acknowledgment of this leak comes in Howard Kurtz's article today about this whole affair. Kurtz was following an item that appeared yesterday on Drudge revealing some of the docs from the investigation. At the end of Kurtz's article comes this, concerning TNR editor Franklin Foer:

Foer said the Army has refused to turn over supporting documents in the case, despite a Freedom of Information Act request, and then "selectively leaked" material to Drudge. In an e-mail to the magazine yesterday, Army spokesman Maj. Kirk Luedeke said he was "surprised and appalled that this information was leaked" and that the military would investigate.

In other words, an Army spokesman basically acknowledged here that while they're not willing to reveal the docs supporting their case to TNR, which is the actual target of its probe, someone internally is willing to give some stuff to Drudge, almost certainly with the intent to carry out payback against the mag. I'm not necessarily defending TNR here -- as Kevin Drum notes, this remains murky -- but the bottom line is that this Army conduct stinks really, really badly.

A completely inaccurate assessment. Acknowledgement of the leaks was occurring almost as soon as the story aired on Drudge. Far from Sargent's assertion that the military is in the process of stonewalling TNR on one hand while carrying out a smear on the other, the Central Command FOIA request office has been nothing but courteous, responsive, and professional when I've checked in for status updates and made additions to my original FOIA request, which was submitted September 9.

A simple phone call from TNR to the Centcom FOIA office in Tampa would provide them with the status of their request, a fact Foer and Sargent either did not know, or chose not to reveal. It is again worth mentioning that the documents Franklin Foer has directly asked for, such as Beauchamp's statements, could easily be released by Beauchamp himself.

The conduct of those soldiers I've worked with has been one of utter professionalism, not partisanship. We cannot say the same for Foer, or in regards to getting the facts accurately represented in this post, Sargent.

Glenn Greenwald, with his own sordid history of misrepresenting the truth in regards to the military, likewise attacks the Army in a similar manner, using the same flawed premises.

Greenwald accuses the military of being an "increasingly politicized, Republican-controlled division of the right-wing noise machine."

Reality, however shows us that as far as this story is concerned, it seems that only bloggers are doing the job that most journalists won't do, such as sending emails, asking questions, and making phone calls to those involved in the still-developing story.

Perhaps if Greenwald exhibited some interest in doing actual journalism from time to time, or even getting his facts in order before opining, I would not find him so easy to dismiss.

Boom: Drudge Scoops Docs to Sink TNR

Drudge scooped me (arrgghhh!) with two documents related to the Beauchamp/TNR story. I had asked for in a FOIA request submitted more than a month ago to the U.S. Army. Those documents including a transcript of the call between Scott Beauchamp, TNR editor Franklin Foer, and TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic on September 7. I first wrote about the conversation itself previously.

The other document was the Army's official report, which I first discussed with the investigating officer, Major John Cross, on September 10.

Knowing the documents exist is one thing; having them is quite another. Now that they have been posted on the public record, these disclosures should end careers at The New Republic.

Have at it:

Transcript, Part 1

Transcript, Part 2

Army Investigation

As always, Allahpundit is on top of the story over at Hot Air, so I'll send you over there for analysis until I can delve into the story again in more detail.

I would ask one question before I go, though:

Did Foer really get an email from Beauchamps' wife during the conference call, or was it merely the lie of a desperate editor trying futilely to save his job?

We know that Beauchamp had his cell phone and laptop returned to him after his op-sec violation investigation was over, which he could use every day when he was not working.

If Foer was bluffing, Beauchamp probably knew it in advance.

Update:A huge apology to Michael Goldfarb. If he hadn't had the sharp eyes to note probable fiction and ask for help from the blogosphere back in July, there is every possibility that Beauchamp's false narratives would have gone unchallenged as ""truth." The story started with Mike, and continues there today.

How It Ends

"We've won the war."

"The news out of Iraq just keeps getting worse."

Writing at his blog, Jules Crittenden, a Boston Herald editor and columnist notes the continuing failure of another media organization, the Associated Press, to also honestly deal with evolving conditions on the group in Iraq that have seen both Iraqi civilian deaths and U.S. military deaths drop in recent months.

In his new home at the Weekly Standard, Dean Barnett notes the plunging casualties:

The results of the surge, or "the escalation" as Harry Reid derisively called it, have been obvious in the Icasualties.org numbers. Before the surge, a bad month would claim the lives of roughly 3,000 Iraqi civilians and security force members. In February '07, the exact number was 3,014 Iraqi casualties. In March, the figure was 2,977. As the surge began to have its effects, that number dropped to 1674 in August. In September, with the surge taking full effect, the numbers showed a profound change--the Iraqi death toll plunged to 848.

Happily, September's figures don't appear to be an aberration. October has seen 502 Iraqi casualties so far. If the trend continues though the end of October, the final number should be around 650 for the entire month. That represents better than an 80 percent improvement from the war's nadir.

YOU'D THINK THIS would be a big story. After all, the mainstream media makes such a show of "supporting the troops" at every turn, you'd think it would rush to report the amazing story of our soldiers accomplishing what many observers declared "impossible" and "unwinnable" not so long ago.

But the mainstream media can't actually support the troops, can they?

Despite the onionskin-thin layers of nuance favored by those on the extreme edge of the progressive movement, the leadership (but not the rank and file) of the Democrat Party, and the editorial offices of many newsrooms, in real-life, supporting the troops really does mean supporting the mission.

The platitude of those that claim "we support the troops, but not the war," is an empty one; analogous to claiming that they support doctors, but not practicing medicine on certain patients even if they have the same disease.

"Iraqis? No. Why don't you go treat those people in Darfur instead..."

And so we get stories like the latest from AP’s Steven R. Hurst noted by Crittenden, where every possible silver lining is discarded in worship of the cloud.

We get editors that would rather torpedo their careers than admit they were wrong.

We get columnists that refuse to concede to hope.

And of course, we get faked massacres, fauxtography, gross inaccuracies, false premises, buried stories and preferrential treatment for fellow defeatists, all because those multiple layers of reporters, fact-checkers, and editors are determined to craft a message that they can be comfortable with publishing, that echoes their values and their beliefs of how the world should work.

In that world, a bumbling, semi-articulate President with approval ratings in the 30s, that has made on mistake after another related to the war, simply cannot be in charge when we win a war that they do not support, because of him.

As they have told us repeatedly: This. Is. Bush's. War.

They might be able to do a better job moderating their disdain for the military if it was simply run by the right POTUS; just preferably not a simpering idiot from Texas, or at least not a Republican one.

But as much as he is detested in newsrooms and dining rooms across America, George W. Bush is the President of the United States, and because of this unpalatable fact, it is simply unfathomable to the media and theri supporters on the fringe left that General Petraeus and the soldiers under him could shift strategies to take advantage of and exploit shifting public opinions in Iraq to execute a counterinsurgency doctrine that has Sunni and Shia joining forces with the U.S. and Iraqi security forces to stamp out criminal gangs, insurgents, rogue militias, and terrorists at what seems like an exponential rate.

We find ourselves in late October of 2007 with a war that, while not "over" in terms of ending all violence and all terror attacks, is "over" in that there is little doubt who the winner of the conflict will be.

There will not be a sectarian ""civil war" in Iraq, perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the media—excuse me, actual reporters in Iraq, not plaintive Times editorialists—have quietly let the claim die. Just as quietly, they have stopped wondering if Iraqi security forces will be able to hold together, and instead focus on corruption in the higher ranks.

At the present rate, the only way the media could shift goalposts faster is if the crane moving the goalposts was attached to Jeff Gordon's stock car.

While the opinion of the Iraqi people has drastically changed in past months and they seem to see the outcome being decided in their favor and sooner rather than later, the world media, led by the U.S. media, is refusing to acknowledge the possibility that the outcome of the war (if not the end of the counterinsurgency effort) may be decided before President Bush leaves office, making him the victor.

While the security forces of Iraq and allied nations seem to be turning/defeating the insurgency in Iraq, we are having considerably less success fighting an insurgent media that refuses to yield ground—unless forced every step of the way—by what they consider an unpleasant reality. The dead-enders of the Iraqi insurgency will likely meet their end via a bullet from Iraqi soldiers, policemen, or the growing number of civilians styled as "concerned citizens."

Some of the insurgent media is being "killed off" in rather spectacular blaze of glory, and some dead-ender media companies may one day collapse utterly for being unwilling to change. That admitted, most journalists, if for no other reason than their personal bottom lines, will eventually begrudgingly admit success, or at least change the subject.

Like the terrorists our soldiers fight, the biased media doesn’t have to like being defeated. Sometimes "winning hearts and minds" amounts to just beating them enough to take the fight out of them and focus their efforts elsewhere, which is already occurring on newspaper front pages.

This is the way "Bush's War" will end in the media: not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Pole-Vaulting Sharks

Not content with just jumping sharks, Think Progress is now going for big air:

Limbaugh calls female MSNBC anchor 'wifey' and 'whiney.'
MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough had on right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh to "talk about the Republican field." But Limbaugh quickly interjected and said he first had a comment about CNBC business analyst Erin Burnett: "I just heard Erin Burnett sounding a little wifey." Scarborough laughed and asked Burnett, "What do you think about Rush saying you're a little wifey today?" "Wifey today he said?" Burnett asked, confused. "Well you were whining," Rush explained.

Perhaps not surprisingly, others had a far different opinion of the comments made by Limbaugh, with TVNewser noting that "Rush Limbaugh Gushes Over Erin Burnett," and presents a slightly different and more expansive quote:

Scarborough: Let's talk about the Republican field… Limbaugh: Wait a minute, Joe. Before you go there, I have to say something. I heard Erin Burnett sounding a little wifey, Erin, you said you're gonna be listening. I love listening to myself, but it's great to know you're listening to me too. Nobody can big foot you, Erin... Burnett: I got bigfooted out, that's what happened Rush. Limbaugh: The truth is that anybody that follows you, Erin, can't match what you've done. Burnett: Thank you, Rush. Scarborough: That is big. Getting that from Mr. Excellence in Broadcasting right there. Burnett: You made my day. I'm done now, I'm going home.

Obviously, the TVNewser account tells quite a different story than that of Think Progress.

Which account is more accurate?

Ian Shwartz has the video that provides the answer.

Few people were ever under the impression that Think Progress was anything other than a left-leaning political muckraker's site, but their continuing assault this fall on conservatives, using comments ripped out of context to the point of dishonesty, has now become so bad that even fans of the site will be tempted to go elsewhere to get to the factual roots of the story that TP is spinning for political consumption.

There comes a point where a politically-motivated site can move so far beyond the bounds of rational criticism, and even beyond the much more lenient bands of spin, that it becomes essentially untrustworthy. Think Progress is perilously close to that point, and runs the distinct risk of becoming the next Truthout.org if they don't clean their act up soon.

Pink and Grey

Scott Lindlaw reports on the differences between the current wildfire evacuation to Qualcomm stadium and the scene in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes.

The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium.

Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires.

"The people are happy. They have everything here," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Monday night after his second Qualcomm tour.

Although anxieties ran high, the misery index seemed low as the celebrity governor waded through the mob. Scarcely a complaint was registered with him.

Predictably, the completely different ways these cities are dealing with their disasters only needed the common point of a stadium refuge to set keyboards a-clattering from both the left and the right.

At right-leaning Liberty Pundit:

Because these are mostly white people, and the response has been supposedly better, you can better believe that people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have taken note and will trot this out in the future whenever it suits their purpose. They’ll say that because these are white people and the governor is a Republican (jury is still out on that), and this was a better response, then it proves that our party hates blacks (or whatever minority they want to use to serve their purpose). Nevermind that the failures of Katrina were mostly the result of incompetent Democrats in New Orleans, it was still all George W. Bush's fault, because he didn't personally land in New Orleans and start bailing water.

At lefty blog Attytood:

Still, I can't help but think that other nations must look at these things -- the treatment of evacuees in one of America's richest cities (at least by housing price), and in one of its poorest -- and conclude that we're some kind of barbarians. The contrast between the wealth of water and food at Qualcomm, pictured at top of this post, with the scarcity at the Superdome is outrageous.

My biggest quibble with this AP article is the headline about "civility" -- which implies the contrast is the fault of the evacuees. That myth was pretty much punctured after Katrina, as in this article:

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know. "I think 99 percent of it is [expletive]," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

They just weren't given food or water...let alone massage therapists. You have to be haunted by these words from Superdome survivor Phyllis Johnson, written shortly after Katrina and well before yesterday's evacuation:

Johnson said many of the people she met inside the dome thought they were going to die there. But she didn't want to lay down and die. She escaped the shelter, slogged through chest-high water and finally caught a ride on a stolen truck. She ended up getting onto a bus headed for Houston.

Even though President Bush said today that race played no part in the botched evacuation efforts, Johnson strongly disagrees. She is sure that if the people who were stranded in New Orleans after the storm were white, they would have been rescued immediately and treated with dignity.

"They portrayed us as savages," she said.

How can you look at that picture up top from San Diego and not agree with Phyllis Johnson?

It's interesting that on both the right and the left, the natural inclination here was to make the issue one of color. The problem with both of these opinions is that they are predicated upon skin colors of black and white, and not one of tribal colors:

That has nothing to do with me being white. If the blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were there with me, it would have been that much better. That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that these instances are opportunities to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous. My Tribe is honorable, and decent, and kind, and inventive. My Tribe knows how to give orders, and how to follow them. My Tribe knows enough about how the world works to figure out ways to boil water, ration food, repair structures, build and maintain makeshift latrines, and care for the wounded and the dead with respect and compassion.

There are some things my Tribe is not good at at all. My Tribe doesn't make excuses. My Tribe will analyze failure and assign blame, but that is to make sure that we do better next time, and we never, ever waste valuable energy and time doing so while people are still in danger. My Tribe says, and in their heart completely believes that it's the other guy that's the hero. My Tribe does not believe that a single Man can cause, prevent or steer Hurricanes, and my Tribe does not and has never made someone else responsible for their own safety, and that of their loved ones.

My Tribe doesn't fire on people risking their lives, coming to help us. My Tribe doesn't curse such people because they arrived on Day Four, when we felt they should have been here before breakfast on Day One. We are grateful, not to say indebted, that they have come at all. My Tribe can't eat Nike's and we don't know how to feed seven by boiling a wide-screen TV. My Tribe doesn't give a sweet God Damn about what color the looters are, or what color the rescuers are, because we can plainly see before our very eyes that both those Tribes have colors enough to cover everyone in glory or in shame. My Tribe doesn't see black and white skins. My Tribe only sees black and white hats, and the hat we choose to wear is the most personal decision we can make.

That’s the other thing, too – the most important thing. My Tribe thinks that while you are born into a Tribe, you do not have to stay there. Good people can join bad Tribes, and bad people can choose good ones. My Tribe thinks you choose your Tribe. That, more than anything, is what makes my Tribe unique.

[snip]

Let's not talk about Black and White tribes… I know too many pathetic, hateful, racists and more decent, capable and kind people of both colors for that to make any sense at all. Do you not? Do you not know corrupt, ignorant, violent people, both black and white, to cure you of this elementary idiocy? Have you not met and talked and laughed with people who were funny, decent, upright, honest and honorable of every shade so that the very idea of racial politics should just seem like a desperate and divisive and just plain evil tactic to hold power?

If such a thing is not self-evident to you, please get off my property. Right now. I should tell you I own a gun and I know how to use it. I assure you that the pleasure I would take in shooting you would be temporary, minimal, and deeply regretted later.

Now, for the rest of you, let’s get past Republican and Democrat, Red and Blue, too. Let’s talk about these two Tribes: Pink, the color of bunny ears, and Grey, the color of a mechanical pencil lead.

I live in both worlds. In entertainment, everything is Pink, the color of Angelyne's Stingray – it's exciting and dynamic and glamorous. I'm also a pilot, and I know honest-to-God rocket scientists, and combat flight crews and Special Ops guys -- stone-cold Grey, all of them -- and am proud and deeply honored to call them my friends.

The Pink Tribe is all about feeling good: feeling good about yourself! Sexually, emotionally, artistically – nothing is off limits, nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law. We all have our own reality – one small personal reality is called "science," say – and we Make Our Own Luck and we Visualize Good Things and There Are No Coincidences and Everything Happens for a Reason and You Can Be Whatever You Want to Be and we all have Special Psychic Powers and if something Bad should happen it's because Someone Bad Made It Happen. A Spell, perhaps.

The Pink Tribe motto, in fact, is the ultimate Zen Koan, the sound of one hand clapping: EVERYBODY IS SPECIAL.

Then, in the other corner, there is the Grey Tribe – the grey of reinforced concrete. This is a Tribe where emotion is repressed because Emotion Clouds Judgment. This is the world of Quadratic Equations and Stress Risers and Loads Torsional, Compressive and Tensile, a place where Reality Can Ruin Your Best Day, the place where Murphy mercilessly picks off the Weak and the Incompetent, where the Speed Limit is 186,282.36 miles per second, where every bridge has a Failure Load and levees come in 50 year, 100 year and 1000 Year Flood Flavors.

The Grey Tribe motto is, near as I can tell, THINGS BREAK SOMETIMES AND PLEASE DON’T LET IT BE MY BRIDGE.

These paragraphs are from just a few brief moments of the excellent Bill Whittle essay Tribes, but it does much to help us understand the long-term differences between these two vastly different cities, and how different they will be in the weeks and months ahead.

The people of San Deigo and surrounding communities, liberal Democrats, moderates, and staunch conservatives of every color and creed, will rebuild and thrive again long before New Orleans does. They will do so because New Orleans, "The Big Easy," regardless of politics, is as Pink a city as there has ever been in the United States. It is a city of psychological poverty, and will be so until it finally falls into the Gulf in 5 or 50 years hence.

San Diego, evolving both demographically and politically, is often Pink, but is as Grey has it has to be, when it has to be.

It is about color. Just not the colors you think.

Re-tell News

I was rather amused by some of the comments made by bloggers and commenters from the community-based reality yesterday in response to Michael Yon's Resistance is Futile. Many seemed eager to dismiss Yon as a partisan with an agenda, or dismissed his work as anecdotal in nature only.

In their minds, it is obvious that wire services, network and cable television news channels and major newspapers are providing "better" and "more accurate" news out of Iraq than embedded journalist-bloggers such as Yon, Totten, Roggio, Aradolino, Emanuel, and Johannes.

Those that would continually downplay the accounts from these citizen-journalists make the argument that these men are only reporting anecdotes of what they see with their own eyes, and therefore cannot be trusted to present "the big picture."

Really?

With all of the citizen-journalists listed above, you are typically getting first-hand reports from people at the scene of the news. With a few notable exceptions, you will not get that from most western news agencies operating in Iraq.

When you see a story by a Western reporter bylined in Baghdad, in the overwhelming supermajority of instances you are not getting a firsthand account of what he or she saw. Wire services and news agencies send out local Iraqi reporters called "stringers" that have unknown allegiances, alliances, competencies, and track records, to do the field work of reporting. They take (and occasionally stage) pictures, talk to witnesses (or make them up), and compose a rough account of the events (or completely fabricate them) for the agency they work for. These stringers then turn over the rough-draft information to "reporters" who write news accounts on events they have not witnessed, relying on information they often cannot verify.

This is the normal state of affairs of media reporting in Iraq. Those who have their names on many stories aren't reporters, they're essentially transcriptionists who have very little idea at all if the stories they report are true, or just "truthy."

So you tell me who is providing the better news: is it the guy relating what he can see, or the guy relaying a story he can't verify?

Now consider the fact that the "big picture" so many rely on is built out of hundreds of accounts where some or all of the information being presented as the truth is uncorroborated or unverified by the writer with his name on the byline, and you start to understand how there can be such a huge discrepancy between what citizen-journalists and soldiers blogging from Iraq see, and what the "professionals" relay in our media outlets.

The dirty truth of modern mass-market journalism is that it is retail news, and re-told news, and often anything but reporting.

"Stonewall" Wasn't Just the Name of a General

Franklin Foer continues to erode the credibility of The New Republic as he refuses to address the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" scandal, which started out as series of questions about the veracity of anecdotes told by an anonymous soldier, but has now developed into a desperate bid by TNR's editors to stonewall their way through mounting evidence that they orchestrated an ill-conceived cover-up of their own editorial failures.

All three of the anecdotes told under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" in "Shock Troops" have been debunked by a combination of civilian contractor testimony, military veteran testimony, subject matter experts, and a formal U.S. Army investigation that spoke to every relevant soldier in the author's unit, only to come away without so much as a single corroborating account.

There was no "burned woman" at FOB Falcon that was abused by the author as a result of the horrors of battle he'd seen, which undermined the entire premise of the article. TNR sought to spin this as a trivial matter, even as it moved the location of this dark fantasy from FOB Falcon in Iraq after the author had been in combat and seen the horrors of war, to a staging camp in Kuwait before he had ever seen battle.

Instead of posting an immediate retraction, of course, TNR continued to slog on, even though it was quickly determine that there was no burned woman at the base in Kuwait, either, which was relayed to TNR senior editor Jason Zengerle, who was told the story was a rumor or "urban legand [sic]." Zengerle was told this well in advance of the August 10 story that has become the last word from TNR on the subject. Zengerle declined to tell his readers that this story was an urban legend. No one yet has come forward to say that they have seen such a woman, probably because she does not exist.

The second claim, that soldiers discovered human remains in what was described as a Saddam Hussein-era dump during the creation of Combat Outpost (COP) Ellis, and that one soldier wore part of a child's skull, was the anecdote in "Shock Troops" that was the single greatest concern in the formal military investigation, as told by the investigating officer, Major John Cross. Veterans, active duty soldiers, and civilians alike were dubious that someone would wear rotting human flesh directly against their skin for any length of time, much less the hours-long period told in this tale. Veterans familiar with the design of the close-fitting helmet flatly denied it was possible to even put such material between the wearer's head and the helmet. In the end, the formal investigation could find not a single member of Beauchamp's unit that would corroborate this story, which the author himself apparently refuses to support.

The third and perhaps the most outlandish claim, of a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV: a kind of tracked and armed armored personnel carrier with a crew of three) driver who used his vehicle to smash infrastructure and run over dogs, was one of the easiest stories to debunk, and one that also showed just how deceptive the editors of The New Republic were willing to be in continuing with their charade.

Veteran APC and IFV crewmen, including commanders and drivers, quickly discounted the possibility that the driver in the author's fantasy could make the Bradley do what he claimed; it simply wasn't designed in a way to move as he said it moved. Every single Bradley driver and and commander in his unit was interviewed during the course of the Army investigation, and all said the account was false.

But the depths of how far The New Republic was willing to go to deceive their readers was exposed when one of the anonymous experts the magazine claimed had supported their version of events in the Bradley story was found, and told a quite different story, indeed.

This morning at Powerline, Scott John keeps the pressur eon the dishonest and deceptive editors of The New Republic with It's the coverup that kills you, part 3.

We now know that TNR editor Franklin Foer and executive editor Peter Scoblic spoke with Scott Beauchamp on September 7. Dogged blogger Bob Owens learned of the call from an Army spokesman. Why have "the editors" not disclosed the substance of their conversation with Beauchamp?

In their conversation with Beauchamp, Beauchamp must not have provided Foer and Scoblic a single fact with which to substantiate his "Shock troops" column. Six weeks after speaking with Beauchamp "the editors" have not addressed the report that Beauchamp recanted his column in the course of the Army investigation of its allegations. And commanding officer Colonel Ricky Gibbs has since confirmed that report.

In their September 7 phone call with Beauchamp, Foer and Scoblic asked their author to cancel interviews he had scheduled with the Washington Post and Newsweek. Again, they seem to think that stonewalling will allow them to ride out the scandal. They must be counting on the kindness of their friends in the MSM to cooperate. And to date their confidence has not been disappointed.

Upon taking the reins of TNR, editor Franklin Foer declared: "My priority is to put out the most intellectually provocative, intellectually honest magazine possible." Foer's aspiration for TNR now reads like a piece of black humor.

Far from intellectual honesty, the senior editor staff of The New Republic have proven their intractable corruption. Editor Franklin Foer, Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic, and Senior Editor Jason Zengerle failed to do their jobs as editors, published a false story (though there are indications that all three of the author's stories were fabricated, in whole or in part), more than likely lied when they claimed the allegations made had been fact-checked prior to publication, and then ran a false investigation that involved misrepresenting the claims of at least one expert, while attempting to bury the story and exerting influence over the author to cancel interviews with other interested publications.

As Ed Morrissey notes today of a previous TNR scandal:

Near the end of Shattered Glass, Peter Sarsgaard as editor Charles Lane (now at the Washington Post) scolds Chloe Sevigny as Caitlin Avey after she keeps making excuses for Stephen Glass. "He handed us fiction after fiction and we printed them all as fact. Just because... we found him "entertaining." It's indefensible. Don't you know that?"

TNR knew it in 1998. Unfortunately, they no longer understand it in 2007. It's just as indefensible now as it was then -- in fact, given their history, even more indefensible now. Franklin Foer has managed to do more damage to the magazine than Stephen Glass did, thanks to an inept response and continued stonewalling in the face of the truth. In their silence, TNR has acknowledged that they care more for narrative than fact.

Details will continue to trickle out revealing just how deceptive the editorial staff at The New Republic has been to its readership and critics alike, and once those details are made public, I very much doubt that Franklin Foer, Peter Scoblic, and Jason Zengerle will be able to survive the coming purge.

Yon: Looking For A Few Good Readers

Michael Yon has his latest dispatch posted, blasting the current state of media affairs: Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed.

He begins:

No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

He does, however, have in mind a solution:

Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour. Why wouldn't they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from grace.

To illustrate the absurdity to which this conceit of the collective has grown, I'm tempted to borrow from the boy in the fairy tale, only this time pointing to and shouting at the doomsday-sayers parading by: "Hey, they aren’t wearing any clothes. . . . " Except in this case, I realize I am not a lone voice. Furthermore, with the help of other clear-eyed individuals, I may actually be in a unique position to do something to remedy this, if the experience I had with the AP response to my challenge to investigate and report on the disturbing gravesites in the Al Hamira village is any guide.

Although I can't answer to the cause of the problem, I humbly offer permission to media outlets to republish excerpts of the dispatch or the dispatch in its entirety, including my photographs from the story (if used as they are in the dispatch) at no cost during the month of July 2007. I only ask that the site receive proper attribution and that any publication taking me up on the offer email the website with the details.

That offer was dying on the vine until Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee took the Associated Press to task for their bungled reportage of a different mass graves news story, using my dispatch as a comparison. Although it took a little back and forth, and some additional pressure from all the other bloggers who started tracking on the topic, the AP finally dispatched a reporter to the scene. The resulting article was picked up by at least one other major media outlet, reaching thousands more people. This got me to thinking: what if I made a similar offer on a more permanent basis to a large media syndication, say, the National Newspaper Association?

And so Yon is going to syndicate his text and images, for free to get real, frontline stories of the war to the American people, doing the job that Americans the Manhattan and Washington, DC-based professional media won't do.

But it will take your help to make sure that your local paper newspapers take advantage of the offer.

Those readers can first check to see if their local paper is a member of the NNA . Because only NNA members will be able to

" . . . print excerpts of Michael Yon's dispatches, including up to two of his photographs from each dispatch. Online excerpts may use up to 8 paragraphs, use 1-3 photos, and then link back to the full dispatch on his site saying 'To continue reading, click here.'"

If their local paper is a member of NNA, readers can contact the editor, urging their participation. [If Bob Owens' experience is a reliable indicator, this might take several, uh, prompts.] By encouraging their local daily or weekly newspapers to reprint these dispatches in their print editions, more people without internet access can begin to see a more accurate reflection of the progress I have observed and chronicled in dispatches like "Achievements of the Heart," "7 Rules: 1 Oath," "The Hands of God," and "Three Marks on the Horizon."

In addition to making his work available to your local papers through the NAA, Yon is rebuilding his web site, and having it translated into a total of 17 languages, so that though people in nations where English isn't their primary language can get information from a source a bit less biased than Reuters, AP, AFP, or their state-run media.

None of this, of course, comes without a price. Click on over, and see what you can do to help fight the media war.

We can gripe about how poor and deceptive the media coverage in Iraq is, or we can do something about it. The choice is yours.

ABC News Credits Dems for Limbaugh Fundraiser; Reporter Botches Mission of MC-LEF Due to Laziness

Don Surber does an excellent job of reminding us why Americans have so little faith in the media:

Why do people absolutely detest the media? Is it the laziness? Is it the incompetence? Is it the bias?

This report from the ABC News blog shows all 3 elements. The headline: ”Bidding Over $2M for Dems Anti-Rush Letter”

It is not until Paragraph 7 that ABC bothers to mention that Rush put the letter on eBay.

As Matt Drudge correctly pointed ABC was crediting the perpetrators instead of the victim, Rush. That letter was not written to raise money — it was written to get a man fired for broadcasting opinions that 41 Democratic Senators wanted censured. He dares to support a war that a Democratic Senate authorized in 2002.

[snip]

Now ABC credits these anti-constitutional senators with the $4.2 million Rush raised — half of it from his own pocket.

Not one of those 41 senators — all of whom enjoy salaries that place them in the top 3% of the country — has matched that gift with 21 cents, let alone the $2.1 million Rush will give.

ABC News knows what it can do with its blog entry.

Perhaps not surprisingly, crediting Democrats for something they didn't do isn't the only display of bias and incompetence in this ABC blog entry.

The content of the seventh paragraph shows that ABC didn't even both to do the basic research necessary about the charity benefiting from Limbaugh's fundraiser:

All proceeds from the auction of the letter will go to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation, which distributes aid to the families to the children of fallen Marines on behalf of law enforcement officers.

First--and this is just a pet peeve of mine-- all of Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation should be in the link. That's just sloppy, amateur work.

Second, the content of the ABC News claim is inaccurate. ABC claims that MC-LEF "distributes aid to the families to the children of fallen Marines on behalf of law enforcement officers."

It would have taken reading all of seven sentences to get the basic mission of the foundation right:

The recent war in Iraq has certainly illuminated America�s commitment to freedom. We are reminded that freedom is not free. The price is great. No one knows that better than the left-behind sons and daughters of America�s fallen heroes.

Through the continuous support of our donors, we have distributed aid with a value of more than $29,000,000.00 to eligible children. This assistance was primarily rendered to children of Marines or Federal law enforcement personnel who were killed on duty or died under extraordinary circumstances while serving our country at home or abroad.

It would have taken ABC News perhaps 10-15 seconds to read that far.

Apparently ABC News felt that it wasn't worth spending those extra 10-15 seconds to get even one fact of their story correct.

Update: ABC is also censoring comments on the blog (mine, among others) for content that is anything other than profane, simply rewriting or deleting comments they do not like on apparent whims.

The former gatekeepers do not like to be told that they are wrong.

On Victory in Iraq

Thoughts from Greyhawk on the Iraq War, from 100 feet over Baghdad:

...I've been writing about Iraq here for four years now - in and out of country. I've been here during many of the most violent months of the war; from the second battle for Fallujah through the January, 2005 elections, and from the launch of the surge to the present - and I'm not homebound yet. In all that time progress has been achingly slow, and back steps have been mixed with forward - but never the majority. Throughout it all - until now - I've never declared victory, seen "light at the end of the tunnel", or even claimed to have "turned a corner" - you can take your bumper sticker slogans and shove 'em. Over here a tenacious and bloodthirsty enemy has fought a well-designed and multi-faceted campaign against us, perhaps secure in the knowledge that blame for every child they killed or each holy place they defiled would be shifted to us even as they washed the blood from their hands. Their efforts gained support from many quarters (not all of which were anticipated in preparation for or included in response to their actions) and condemnation from few. But the ranks of their opponents - at least here in Iraq - are large and still growing, and theirs are neither. The battles are diminishing but ongoing, losses will be suffered, and blood will still be shed. Still more of their supporters may redouble their efforts. But in short, while I recognize this will provoke immeasurable rage from those who feel we've lost, and consternation among those who know we've won but lack the fortitude to make the declaration at this point in time, I'll say it again: we've won the war in Iraq.

Rhodes' Trip

Air America host Randi Rhodes is back on the air, sort of explaining the circumstances that cause her dental work to intersect with the local infrastructure.

Listen for yourself.

You'll note very clearly and distinctly that one of the first things Rhodes said was that her hands did not break her fall. That's odd.

There is a quirk is the physiology and the psychology of conscious human beings that compels most of us to put out our hands to break a fall.Most of us know people who've suffered abrasions, lacerations, sprains, or even fractured bones in their hands as a result of a fall.

That Rhodes states so clearly that her hands didn't even begin to break her fall suggests that she fell while losing consciousness, or after she had already lost consciousness. That Rhodes will not reveal whether or not she had been drinking in the pub prior to her fall (at Gawker, a commenter alleges she had, and how), and that she readily admits to not have eaten that day, certainly seems to make a loss of consciousness both the most logical reason for her fall, and the most logical explanation of why she did not follow the quite normal human tendency of sticking out her hands to protect herself from impacting the ground.

Frankly, I could care less over the cause of Rhodes slipping into unconsciousness, providing of course it wasn't the source of a serious underlying medical condition (regardless of political differences, she is a fellow human being and I bear her no ill will). Whether she had been drinking or not on an empty stomach really matters very little.

What is of greater concern is her apparent need to immediately spin this cause-undetermined blackout into an assault with a two-line email in which she says she had been mugged.

That she almost immediately fabricated a dramatic excuse instead of merely stating what she actually knew about the incident should raise character issues about Ms. Rhodes. If she would lie so easily about this matter, it should cause Air America listeners to wonder just how cavalierly she is willing to dismiss the truth or manipulate facts on the air to deliver to a more entertaining story for her listeners.

The Huffing Wolf Challenge

Naomi Wolf has her latest pre-packaged "Bush is going to overthrow the Constitution and install himself as dictator with the help of Blackwater" stem-winder posted on the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington's menagerie of Who's Who in the DSM IV.

Wolf, true American patriot that she is, is criss-crossing these United States in a desperate bid to roll back the forces of Halliburton and the Illuminati, no doubt speaking with the same great oratory and care with the facts that we've come to expect from the Empress of Earth Tones.

She has all the answers to save this great nation from the plague of Bush, and writes with a truthfulness and accuracy that we haven't seen in over seven years... which can be your's for just $11.16 (You save $2.79).

Clearly, freedom comes with a price, but it wasn't until now that I realized it also comes with FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

"But wait, there's more!"

But what if she's wrong? What if--God forbid--she's profiteering from fears of overthrown liberty that may never be?

And therein lies the question, and well-deserved suspicion.

Is Naomi Wolf truly convinced that we have a grave constitutional crisis on our hands, that America about to succumb to dictatorial forces, and that only a book tour can save us? Or is Wolf cynically using the fears of the paranoid fringe to make a profit, filling her own coffers as a digital revivalist charlatan, ministering to those with more money than sense?

We could find out rather easily, I should think.

If Wolf truly believes what she writes, then she must believe that George W. Bush (the head of the American Nazi party she constantly alludes to, but never specifically names) will attempt to overthrow the country and establish himself a Hitleresque dictatorial figure by January 20, 2009, the day the next President of the United States is sworn into office (it would be kind of hard to do it after a new President is installed, after all).

If Wolf is sincere, she and others like her will no doubt be rounded up and shipped off to internment camps run by Michelle Malkin shortly after that date, soon to be fired in massive ovens run by a cigar-chomping Rush Limbaugh. No money she has saved, and none of her earthly possessions will mean a thing to her as her ashes waft in the breeze.

BUT...

What if Wolf is just peddling fear for profit? Shouldn't she be held accountable?

And so a modest challenge that an honest Wolf can easily meet.

If Wolf is honest and sincere about what she writes and the overwhelming majority of the United States continues to ignore her as a kook as they do now, then she'll be too dead to enjoy the money she's made selling her book to the lunatic convergence of Ron Paul supporters, truthers, and Indymedia conspiracy theorists.

"Now how much would you pay?"

But if she's merely been profiteering from fear, as I suspect she has been, then it only seems fair she should pay a price for her deception. Being the magnanimous person that I am and a capitalist, I won't ask her to return a dime to the suckers she's conned.

They, you see, need to be taught a lesson, too.

No, I propose a simple, cost-free solution: a promise from Wolf that if her fear-mongering goes for naught and the next President is sworn into office on January 20, 2009 without a coup d'état, that she will never write again in her current paranoia-outlet-of-choice, The Huffington Post.

The terms should be simple to enforce: if Wolf is right, Arianna Huffington will be rediscovering her conservative roots and swinging The Huffington Post to the right of David Horowitz's FrontPage Mag and will no longer in need of Wolf's services, and if Wolf is wrong and President Bush and his imaginary brownshirts shuffle off to Crawford, then the beautiful Ms. Huffington will still be mistress of her own quite successful domain, if a bit editorially top-heavy on end-of-the-republic-as-we-know-it conspiracy theorists, and needing to cut weight.

It's a simple challenge, really: Naomi Wolf should put her soapbox where her mouth is.

Somehow, though, I doubt she's up to even that mild challenge.

It might cut into her chances to market her next book, How President ________ Is Carving Up America's Soul With a Ginsu Knife.

Help Blackfive Win a Scholarship

Collegescholarship.org has a $10,000 scholarship for bloggers that are also full-time students. There are 20 finalists, and for whatever odd reason, they've decided to let voters decide who should win.

Frankly, I don't know 19 of them and they may very well be nice people, but the 20th I do know, and I think that he deserves your vote. His name is Matthew Burden, but you'd probably more familiar with him if I simply called him Blackfive.

So, like, go vote.

He Taxes Me (And You)

According to The Politico, Deomcratic Congressman Charles Rangel wants to engage in a two-front tax war.

Is it because he's trying to expand his beachhead?

Iraqi Geezer: 1 Suicide Bomber: 0

Doing the jobs that Americans won't do...

A 72-year-old man stopped a suspected suicide bomber from detonating himself at a checkpoint in Arab Jabour Oct. 14.

The man approached a checkpoint where Mudhehr Fayadh Baresh was standing guard, but did not make it very far.

Baresh, a tribal commissioner and member of the Arab Jabour Concerned Citizens program, said he ordered the man to lift his shirt - using training received from Coalition Forces - when he did not recognize him as a local villager.

The suspect refused to lift his shirt. Baresh repeated the command again, and the suspect exposed his suicide vest, running toward the checkpoint.

Baresh opened fire which caused the vest to detonate, killing the suspect.

Rebecca Aquilar would presumably not approve.

When Journalists Attack

Quite a lot of people are ripping the behavior of Dallas, TX KDFW-TV reporter Rebecca Aquilar right now and deservedly so. The journalist ambushed 70-year-old Army veteran James Walton as he got into his car, and bullied him into tears. She has since been suspended.

Why?

Walton is owner of Able Walton Machine & Welding in West Dallas, a salvage business where he lives in an upstairs apartment, that has been robbed no less than 42 times.

On September 22, at about 2:00 AM, Walton shot a man who was breaking in through a pried-open window. The man later died. Three weeks later on October 14 at 9:00 AM, Walton shot and killed another thief who had broken in.

After each shooting, Dallas police, as a matter of policy, processed each firearm used as evidence for the grand jury, meaning that a victimized Walton had to purchase yet another firearm with which to defend his life and besieged property.

It was as he was leaving the store after purchasing this replacement shotgun (a Remington according to the box markings) that Aquilar staged her ambush:

I'd ask you to note her choice of language, her obvious bias, accusatory tone and abrasiveness, and the careful positioning of her body between the car body and door, an old television reporter's trick that traps the victim as a hostage, so that he could neither exit the vehicle, nor close the door to leave in the vehicle.

Glenn Reynolds notes:

I was struck by reporter Rebecca Aguilar's body-language, literally standing over him in judgment with tailored suit and umbrella. The way she looked down, literally and figuratively, on an old man who had defended his life, entirely legally, and reduced him to tears seems to me to be representative of the worst stereotypes of Old Media.

Stereotypes become stereotypes because of behavior recreated and witnessed enough times that the behavior witnessed is thought to be a group norm.

I've witnessed it firsthand in the aftermath of an armed standoff with hostages. Minutes after the suspect surrendered himself, a television reporter with cameraman in tow came inside the building and started peppering the just-released hostages with questions, jabbing at them and I with a microphone. As news consumers, we've seen other instances of this ambush style of journalism, as other journalists have perfected it in both local and national media.

And there are instances where an ambush style of journalism is indeed warranted, such as confronting con artists or corrupt CEOs. But where journalists have failed the moral test is when they lost basic human empathy, and begin treating citizens as suspects, and victims as criminals, as Aguilar does here, without apparent remorse. This was horrific, but only grossly atypical in that the lopsided assault was broadcast in its entirety, and not edited.

It seems that what has happened to journalism is that far too many journalists have placed the importance of the story they would like to tell as the foremost thought in their minds, and made both facts and people subservient to that agenda. They've traded their empathy for an angle, and honest journalism for advocacy.

Media Laments Lost Opportunities in Iraq

Estes Thompson and Mike Baker of the Associated Press note that America's all volunteer military isn't taking advantage of opportunities the way their predecessors did:

American troops killed their own commanders so often during the Vietnam War that the crime earned its own name - "fragging."

But since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has charged only one soldier with killing his commanding officer, a dramatic turnabout that most experts attribute to the all-volunteer military.

[snip]

Both Roland and Anderson said today's all-volunteer military, compared with soldiers being forced into duty in Vietnam, is the primary reason why fragging attacks are almost nonexistent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The conditions in Iraq are also much less conducive to the crime, Roland said.

"There's not as much isolated operation," Roland said. "One of the things about Vietnam was the extremes of small-unit activity, where a squad or platoon would go out on patrol and it was just them and the jungle. They were out of sight of other Americans.

"In Iraq, you never know when a helicopter might be going over or a newsman comes along," he said.

You can almost feel their pain.

Update: Wretchard looks into what the "experts" cited in this story got wrong.

"Surge" Drawdown to Begin in December

Robert Burns of the Associated Press notes that the beginning of the end of the "surge" will begin in Iraq in December in Diyala province:

Commanders in Iraq have decided to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces in volatile Diyala province, marking a turning point in the U.S. military mission, The Associated Press has learned.

Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is returning to its home base at Fort Hood, Texas, in December, soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility, several officials said Tuesday.

In this way, the number of Army ground combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 20 to 19. This reflects President Bush's bid to begin reducing the American military force and shifting its role away from fighting the insurgency toward more support functions like training and advising Iraqi security forces.

The 3rd Brigade's area of operation will be added to the 4th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, and will provide something of a test-bed to see if Iraqi security forces really can "step up as we stand down."

American forces will still be ready to assist Iraqi police, 1920s (former insurgents) militiamen, and Iraqi Army units in this province that was the scene of a U.S. invasion just months ago. al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) had declared Diyala's capital of Baqubah their base, and had pledged a Fallujah-like defense that would extract heavy casualties from invading U.S. forces.

Instead, the 1920s turned on their former allies, and helped allied U.S. and Iraqi Army forces in Operation Arrowhead Ripper, an operation that saw more than 200 al Qaeda killed and more than 100 arrested. Baqauba and Diyala have had comparatively low levels of insurgent activity since Arrowhead Ripper completed August 19.

Only time will tell if Iraqi security forces (Iraqi Police, Iraqi Army, and 1920s militiamen) will be able to maintain the relative peace in the months ahead, which may be seen as a barometer of how effective "surge" operations have been in dislodging insurgents and terrorists from civilian populations.

Bush "Surge" Wrecks Portion of Iraqi Economy

Women, children, and minorities not hardest hit.

I say it tongue firmly in cheek. The authors of the McClatchy article, however, seem quite sincere.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .

"I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead," said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. "People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don't talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more."

I'll look forward for McClatchy's future article on the bleak jobs outlook for IED emplacers.

Newton Was a Fascist

Air America's Jon Elliott quickly succumbed to paranoia last night, claiming that his fellow Air America host Randi Rhodes would be out of work because of an attack that he claims was more than a mugging:

Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home."

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."

"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us."

The problem with this theory, other than Elliott's delusion of relevance, was the fact that Rhodes wasn't mugged, and wasn't assaulted. She fell.

Meet gravity, ladies and gentlemen: the newest member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Thanks For the History Lesson

I value the writers' service and their opinions as soldiers who have served in Iraq, but wouldn't this editorial have meant more if the Washington Post had managed to find soldiers to write it who had actually been in in Iraq in the last year?

Only two of the 12 captains had been in Iraq as late as 2006, with the rest all departing in 2005 or before. None of them are currently on active duty.

While their opinions are valuable from a historical perspective based upon what they've seen while they served, they hardly seem to be best qualified to be able to comment upon the current situation on the ground in Iraq, as it has changed so radically since the last of them departed.

Those officers who are serving in Iraq currently have quite a different opinion.

When is the Post going to ask them to pen an editorial?

It's the Coverup that Kills You, Part 2

At Powerline this morning, Scott Johnson is keeping the screws on the editors of The New Republic in a post entitled It's the Coverup that Kills You, Part 2, in which he continues to hammer editor Franklin Foer and executive editor Peter Scoblic:

On August 10, after assuring their readers that they had "not thus far uncovered factual evidence (aside from one key detail) to discount his personal dispatches" (how can a detail be key, but not factual?) the editors asked the Army to allow them, "or any other media outlet, for that matter," to speak with Beauchamp. This statement is particularly galling in retrospect, as we now know that it is TNR -- not the Army -- that has gagged Beauchamp. On September 7 "the editors" asked their author to cancel interviews he had scheduled with the Washington Post and Newsweek. Given their "commitment to the truth," one wonders why they would make such a request. But do they deny that they did?

TNR editor Franklin Foer and executive editor Peter Scoblic seem to think that they can keep up this charade indefinitely, but it is only the indifference of the MSM that has let them get away with it for this long. "The editors" closed their August 10 update by saying that they "refused to rush to judgment on our writer or ourselves" -- virtually the only honest statement we've ever gotten from TNR on this matter. But it should not be the last. At some point they'll have to say something on the subject, only then the questions won't be about Beauchamp. They will be about "the editors."

Johnson is keying in on what has emerged as the real story involving The New Republic in regards to the Scott Thomas Beauchamp stories.

We know, due to expert testimony from civilians in the region and in the United States, from veterans and soldiers, and a formal military investigation, that Beauchamp’s claims were without merit. For all practical intents and purposes, Scott Beauchamp’s role in this story is over.

The story of his editors at The New Republic, and why they have chosen to deceive both their critics and their readership, is the story now.

To borrow a paraphrase from another time, what did the editors of TNR know, and when did they know it? How will the Washington Post and Newsweek react to being "punk'd" by Franklin Foer? What do their advertisers think about the magazine’s continued refusal to admit their editorial failures, and will they be disgusted enough to consider suspending or closing their accounts?

The days and weeks ahead promise to be interesting for the editors of The New Republic.

Update: Beauchamp's second story, "Dead of Night" was quickly pegged from the very beginning as evidence of the fact that The New Republic was not making any attempt at all to fact-check Beauchamp's stories, back even before we knew his name was Beauchamp.

In "Dead of Night" Beauchamp alleged the Iraqi Police must have committed a murder, because according to him, only Iraqi Police carry Glock pistols.

Glock wishes that were so.

Another Questionable Fake War Story

Via a reader in the comments of the my most recent TNR post, a story about a solider wounded and a squad virtually wiped out in an apparent youth suicide bombing in Iraq in the Cleveland Daily Banner in Cleveland, TN:

Christopher H. Bagwell, grandson of Nancy and Richard Hughes of Cleveland, was severely wounded Tuesday, Sept. 18, in Iraq.

Bagwell and his squad leader were the only two survivors of a 12-member squad decimated when an Iraqi youth detonated explosives wrapped around his body.

A graduate of York Institute and Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Bagwell spoke with his grandmother last week.

She said the young soldier told her he had just passed the youthful bomber with his squad leader, with his squad following behind handing out candy to children. The Iraqi village was believed to be a friendly zone for the U.S. military.

The youngster, believed to be 10 to 12 years old, detonated the explosives as the soldiers were walking by. Ten members of the squad were killed, along with the youngster.Bagwell was severely injured.

The thing is, I can't find any such record of a young suicide bomber causing so many fatalities among U.S. troops in Iraq, or for that matter, even ten U.S. fatalities on Sept. 18 in total.

Anti-war casualty clearinghouse icasualties.org has no record of such an attack, or even anything similar. According to U.S. Central Command Casualty Reports, there was one attack on Sept. 18, where 3 soldiers were killed and 3 wounded near Tikrit. There was nothing like a suicide bombing attack that killed ten soldiers and wounded two. A search of Google News also fails to uncover a similar account.

Update: The military weighs in:

Sir,

After reviewing available information, we are unable to confirm the
story's legitimacy. Thank you.

V/R,

BRYON J. MCGARRY, 1Lt, USAF
OIC, JOC Public Affairs
Multi-National Corps - Iraq

10/15 Update: Catherine Caruso of the Fort Lewis PAO responds via email:

4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) is a unit stationed here at Fort Lewis, and is currently deployed to Iraq. Madigan Army Medical Center is also located on the installation, but I do not have access to patient names or information and can't release names of wounded Soldiers due to patient privacy laws- MAMC has their own public affairs office which may be of more help if you would like to contact wounded Soldiers who are assigned to the hospital.

There was an incident on Sept. 18th in which three Soldiers from the
brigade's 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, were killed...

...The editor of that paper called here a few minutes ago, and it appears
this may have been the same incident the paper referred to. I could not
answer all of his questions, but it appears he also believes the paper
may have inadvertently published inaccurate information re: the number
of casualties. For my part, I can confirm there was an incident that
date, but don't have details about the incident beyond what was in the
DoD release, nor do I have information about any Soldiers wounded in the
incident.

However, 2-23 IN has suffered 10 casualties since their deployment in
April through their most recent loss on Sept. 22 (this includes all
causes- accidents, combat, and medical). It seems likely that this could
be the source of the confusion re: the number of Soldiers involved, if
this is the same incident in which the Soldier referenced in the story
was injured.

Goracle Honored

And to think, I wasn't even aware that they had a Nobel Prize for deceptive rhetoric.

I'm now selling "smug offsets" via Paypal.

TNR Has Too Many Readers?

An interesting email from "Mahon," who states he is a The New Republic reader... or would be, if they didn't cancel his subscription.

Try this on. Although mainstream Republican, I have subscribed to TNR for many years and liked it (more for Jed Perl and the book reviews lately, but never mind.) So I get a bulk email from Marty Peretz asking me to renew, and I "reply" politely castigating them for the Beauchamp matter and suggesting I was unlikely to send them any more money until they came clean. Two weeks later I get a $31.00 check from them apparently refunding the balance of my subscription – which I never asked them to cancel in the first place. In fact, although I think they look like fools over Beauchamp I no doubt would have renewed eventually, and probably still will. They start bugging you six months early anyway, so why not fuss a while?

This seems like bizarre behavior for a small magazine. Possible explanations:

1. They are getting so many cancellations they just figured this was another one and dropped it in the hopper.
2. They have some new business strategy that calls for only having lefties as subscribers, so I've been purged.
3. Someone there is so huffy about this that he/she just said "well, we’ll fix you" regardless of business implications.

None of which really computes. You would think they would either ignore me or send back a note saying – something – and hoping I would reconsider, to which I would have been receptive. The whole thing suggests a pervasive lack of adult supervision top to bottom.

Mahon

Their advertisers must be thrilled that they are turning people away... don't you think?

Expelling Hate

Think back to your college days, and imagine this scenario:

You wake up on morning to discover that flyers speaking of hatred towards a minority group are plastered all over campus, and written at the bottom of the flyer is information that frames a group you belong to as the authors.

Sadly, this is not a hypothetical situation.

What should happen to the group of radicals that attempted to frame a student group with what most rational people would construe as hate speech?

The student group targeted has an idea, buased upon commits first posited by the Student Association Executive Vice President. Only time will tell if the university has the integrity to act swiftly and justly in dealing with this slanderous attack.

It's The Coverup That Kills You

Scott at Powerline weighed in last night on the Beauchamp Controversy with It's the coverup that kills you: A case study.

A taste:

Why would Beauchamp go silent and TNR along with him? Well, there can really only be one reason: the Army isn't stonewalling, its investigation isn't a whitewash, and Beauchamp's commanding officer isn't a liar. We already knew Beauchamp's stories weren't true, but now we must conclude that Beauchamp has told his editors at TNR that he no longer stands by his tales of petty cruelty and serious misconduct by himself and the men in his unit.

As for The New Republic, they are quite aware of the allegations being leveled against them of incompetence and a cover-up, as they are here every day, usually several times a day. You could say they are among my biggest fans...

But hopefully not of the Annie Wilkes variety.

Down In the Swamp

It was amusing to read Ezra Klein's What Has Happened to the Right? this morning, the sites he linked to, and then read Klien's comments section. Clearly, Klein views conservatives--and conservative bloggers and blog readers in particular--as having no moral fiber at all, while implying his own side's moral supremacy.

Klein laments:

Something has gone wrong on the Right. Become sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly. To visit Michelle Malkin's cave is to see politics at its most savage, its most ferocious, its most rageful. They say they've spent the past week smearing a child and his family because that child was fair game -- he and his family spoke of their experience receiving health care through the State Children's Health Insurance Program. For this, right wingers travel to their home, insinuate that the family is engaged in large-scale fraud, make threatening phone calls to the family, interrogate the neighbors as to the family's character and financial state.

This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he "really" needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

The shrieking, atavistic ritual of personal destruction the right roars into every few weeks is something different than politics. It is beyond politics. It was done to Scott Beauchamp, a soldier serving in Iraq. It was done to college students from the University of California, at Santa Cruz. Currently, it is being done to a child and his family. And think of those targets: College students, soldiers, children. It can be done to absolutely anyone.

This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience -- the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much -- in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.

There is an inherent and flagrant dishonesty in Klein's wailing and gnashing of teeth, for it is not only the right that has those souls who are "sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly."

How quickly he forgets that Daily Kos posters planned to do opposition research to hopefully "out" the son of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts... until it was discovered he was four-years old.

It is an obscure left-wing blogger that has become the poster-child for cyberstalking.

And while Klein intones that it is only a mater of time before a conservative does something horrible, the fact remains that to date, only a left-wing Indymedia journalist has been driven to murder purely to make a political statement.

We can go back and forth for hours, arguing cites over which side is "better" than the other, each side certain in their conviction that the other is the embodiment of evil, but that would accomplish nothing. The fact of the matter is that both sides have extremists capable of great barbarity and cruelty, we should all do more to denounce them, and therein lies the rub.

Klein is willing to attack "the right," but is mute and blind to those on the left that have equal amount of vitriol as those he criticizes, or worse.

Before he claims the moral high ground, perhaps he should make sure that he and his allies aren't also neck-deep in the swamp.

The New Republic Re-Interviewed Beauchamp... Over a Month Ago

For reasons as yet unknown, Memeorandum.com dredged up a Josh Marshall entry on Talking Points Memo from August 10 this past Sunday afternoon. Marshall cited a subscribers-only post by the editors of The New Republic released the same day, captured in its entirety by Google's cache.

It bears reading in full.

For several weeks now, questions have been raised about Scott Beauchamp's Baghdad Diarist "Shock Troops." While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy. We at THE NEW REPUBLIC take these concerns extremely seriously. This is why we have sought to re-report the story, in the process speaking with five soldiers in Beauchamp's company who substantiate the events described in Beauchamp's essay.

Indeed, we continue to investigate the anecdotes recounted in the Baghdad Diarist. Unfortunately, our efforts have been severely hampered by the U.S. Army. Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp's article and has found it to be false, it has refused our--and others'--requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation. What's more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants "to protect his privacy."

At the same time the military has stonewalled our efforts to get to the truth, it has leaked damaging information about Beauchamp to conservative bloggers. Earlier this week, The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb published a report, based on a single anonymous "military source close to the investigation," entitled "Beauchamp Recants, " claiming that Beauchamp "signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only 'a smidgen of truth,' in the words of our source. "

Here's what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army. He told us that these statements did not contradict his articles. Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com. Goldfarb has written, "It's pretty clear the New Republic is standing by a story that even the author does not stand by. " In fact, it is our understanding that Beauchamp continues to stand by his stories and insists that he has not recanted them. The Army, meanwhile, has refused our requests to see copies of the statements it obtained from Beauchamp--or even to publicly acknowledge that they exist.

Scott Beauchamp is currently a 23-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members. Our investigation has not thus far uncovered factual evidence (aside from one key detail) to discount his personal dispatches. And we cannot simply dismiss the corroborating accounts of the five soldiers with whom we spoke. (You can read our findings here.)

Part of our integrity as journalists includes standing by a writer who has been accused of wrongdoing and who is not able to defend himself. But we also want to reassure our readers that our obligations to our writer would never trump our commitment to the truth. We once again invite the Army to make public Beauchamp's statements and the details of its investigation--and we ask the Army to let us (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp. Unless and until these things happen, we cannot fairly assess any of these reports about Beauchamp--and therefore have no reason to change our own assessment of Beauchamp's work. If the truth ends up reflecting poorly on our judgment, we will accept responsibility for that. But we also refuse to rush to judgment on our writer or ourselves.

And how true that last line is, especially the part where they admit to not wanting to rush to judgment on themselves.

Tomorrow marks the two-month anniversary of this rather deceptive post, which also happens to be the last official word from Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle, and the other editors and reporters of The New Republic intimately tied to what one media critic has already labeled as one of the top 101 incidents of media dishonesty.

It was clearly established that as an administrative action, that Beauchamp's statements were not legally releasable by the Army to the public. In short, to give his statements to the media without his permission would be illegal, something that TNR knew, or should have known, prior to accusing the Army of being deceptive.

That said, Beauchamp himself could have released these documents to the public, including the media, as soon as the investigation was over if he so desired back in August. He has not apparently seen fit to do so.

Beauchamp was free to speak to the media as early as August 6, four days before The New Republic said that they could still not contact him. On September 10, Pajamas Media published my exclusive interview with Major John Cross, who led the official U.S. Army investigation into the allegations made in "Shock Troops" and found that not a single soldier would corroborate any of Beauchamp's claims.

After re-reading the August 10 statement by the editors of The New Republic, I contacted Major Kirk Luedeke, PAO for Forward Operating Base Falcon where Beauchamp is stationed, and asked him several questions in hopes of updating the story thus far.

The answers seem to indicate that Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle and the editors of The New Republic have indeed been pursuing their incestuous relationship with Scott Beauchamp further; they've just refused thus far to publish any of the answers they've obtained, for reasons yet unknown.

The interview discussed comments made in the August 10 TNR article cited above, and asked about developments since :

Q: At that time [August 10], the editors of TNR claimed that there were "five soldiers in Beauchamp's company who substantiate the events described in Beauchamp's essay." Have the editors of TNR made any requests to interview soldiers in Beauchamp' s unit, identified of them, or made any attempts to find out about their credibility?

A: Other than requesting and receiving interviews with Pvt. Scott Beauchamp and Maj. John Cross in September, TNR has not asked to speak to any additional Soldiers in the 1-18th Infantry Battalion through the 4th brigade public affairs channels.

Q: At that time, the editors of TNR claimed that, "the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp's article and has found it to be false, it has refused our--and others'--requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation." At the time those statements were made by TNR's editors on August 10, were they factually accurate? Since that time, have the editors of The New Republic spoken with anyone who would have, "information or evidence from its investigation, " such as Major Cross, the investigating officer I interviewed a month ago on September 10?

A: 4th brigade public affairs Soldiers were present for separate interviews conducted between TNR and Pvt. Beauchamp and Maj. Cross.

On Aug. 10, the Army was still in the process conducting an investigation into the possible violation of Operational Security by Pvt. Beauchamp, and therefore, he was not at liberty to conduct interviews pending the outcome of the active investigation. He was, however, able to communicate with his family during that time.

The interviews with Beauchamp and Maj. Cross occurred in the first two weeks of September, and to my knowledge, are the only ones conducted through official channels between TNR and any member of the Vanguard Battalion.

Q: TNR also claimed that, "the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants 'to protect his privacy.'" At the time those statements were made by TNR's editors on August 10, were they factually accurate? To your knowledge, have the editors of The New Republic spoken with Scott Thomas Beauchamp since August 10, and if so, when? Does Scott Beauchamp currently have the capability to speak to The New Republic if he so desires, and release all documentation relating to the investigation if he so desires?

A: The statements made by TNR on Aug. 10 about Beauchamp's availability were accurate- given the investigation's status, he was not authorized to conduct interviews with media outlets. However, as soon as the investigation concluded in mid-August, he was free to speak openly if he so desired. He rejected interview requests from Confederate Yankee and the Weekly Standard, but did in fact speak to TNR on the 7th of September, while Maj. John Cross conducted a separate interview with TNR roughly one week later.

Pvt. Beauchamp also canceled scheduled interviews with Newsweek and the Washington Post after speaking to TNR.

TNR interviewed Scott Thomas Beauchamp over a month ago. TNR interviewed investigating officer Major John Cross after I interviewed him for Pajamas Media roughly a week later.

At this stage of the game, one must wonder how much longer Franklin Foer, Jason Zengerle, and the other TNR editors involved in this farcical investigation can continue to hide the obvious fact that this was a series of stories that has not been corroborated, are partially or entirely fictional in nature, and poorly (or never) fact-checked, probably because of the author's relationship with a TNR staffer that he later married.

One must begin to wonder just how ethical Editor-In-Chief Martin Peretz and Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic are in not reacting to the obvious facts that key elements of the stories written by Scott Beauchamp were not fact checked, and that Franklin Foer and Jason Zengerle are running what appears to be a purposefully deceptive investigation to cover up the lack of fact-checking prior to publication, while apparently lying to readers, experts, critics, and perhaps even their own employers at TNR and CanWest Mediaworks.

I'd love to know what Scott Thomas and Major Cross had to say to TNR, but The New Republic seems content to continue to answer questions about their credibility and ethics with silence.

Your Lyin' Eyes

From Mike Yon this morning, via email:

Bob,

Basra is not in chaos. In fact, crime and violence are way down and there has not been a British combat death in over a month. The report below is false.

The NEWSDAY report he casts doubt on paints a far different story:

British pullout in Iraq leaves Basra in chaos
BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS.timothy.phelps@newsday.com; This story was supplemented with wire reports.
October 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - The British troop pullout from Iraq announced yesterday leaves Basra, Iraq's second largest and most strategically important city, in near total chaos both politically and militarily.

It comes at a time when at least four Shia militias are fighting over the city, which is surrounded by most of the nation's tremendous oil reserves and provides Iraq's only gateway to the sea.

Equally vital for U.S. strategists, the city also controls the southern portion of the road from Kuwait to Baghdad, along which mostly all U.S. supplies are brought in...

The article continues, of course, but is it worth reading?

Who are you going to believe... the reporter with th Washington byline, or the embed on the ground in Iraq?

Retard Released From Jail

Don't shoot the messenger for the choice of words, guys...

I would have simply called him "reality-based," whereas his prosecution seemed retarded.

Redefining "One"

The U.K. Telegraph, not exactly the voice of reason or accuracy when it comes hand-wringing hype of the possibility of war between the United States and Iran, has an amusingly self-contradictory post today by Tim Shipman that claims that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is "The man who stands between US and new war."

The thrust of the headline and the urderlying premise drummed up by the article is that Gates, and Gates alone, is the sole voice of sanity keeping the U.S. from a bombing campaign of Iran.

Unfortunately, the second half of the editorial (I hope this isn't supposed to be hard news) seems to exist merely to debunk that underlying premise:

Officials say Mr Gates's strategy bore fruit when Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, charged with devising war plans for Iran, said last month that the "constant drumbeat of war" was not helpful.

He was followed by General George Casey, the army's new chief of staff, who requested an audience with the House of Representatives armed services committee to warn that his branch of the military had been stretched so thin by the Iraq war that it was not prepared for yet another conflict.

Gen Casey told Congress the army was "out of balance" and added: "The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight, and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies."

Mr Gates has forged an alliance with Mike McConnell, the national director of intelligence, and Michael Hayden, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to ensure that Mr Cheney's office is not the dominant conduit of information and planning on Iran to Mr Bush.

The fact that the Army's Chief of Staff Casey, D-CIA Hayden, head of CENTCOM Admiral Fallon, and National Director of Intelligence McConnell have joined Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates in advocating that we try other means prior to war, apparently didn't register with Shipman, even as he wrote their names.

A great newspaper, the Independent. They never miss a thing.

Sacrificing the Dead

Baghdadi Omar Fadhil of Iraq the Model has a very provocative editorial in WSJ's OpinionJournal this morning which points out a significant momentum shift in Iraq, what al Qaeda is attempting to do to counter this primarily on the media front, and what Mr. Fadhil suggests as a possible solution.

He begins:

The latest chapter in al Qaeda's war manual in their war against the Iraqi people and the Coalition is this: raiding remote peaceful villages, burning down homes and slaughtering both man and beast. It's a campaign of self destruction.

For about a year al Qaeda has been trying to build a so called Islamic State in Iraq. On several occasions al Qaeda has even declared parts of Baghdad or other places in other provinces the capital of this Islamic State.

But now that they are losing one base after another, their objective seems to have changed from adding more towns and villages to the "state" to destroying the very same towns and villages. Obviously, it's all about making headlines regardless of the means to do that.

Fahil's statement that al Qaeda has been pushed out of major cities into the countryside may seem shocking to many casual western readers, but that is precisely what has occurred over the past year at an ever-accelerating pace. While small terrorists cells cannot possibly be eliminated in major cities, most significant groups of al Qaeda terrorists have found themselves pushed out of Fallujah, Ramadi, Baquba, Baghdad, and other metropolitian areas, and strikes by the group--and perhaps more tellingly, coalition strikes on terrorist safe houses, caches, and bomb-building factories--are mostly now occurring in remote rural areas and small, out-of-the-way villages.

As the much-maligned Iraqi Army, Police, and local militia forces are taking over once-contested neighborhoods and towns, al Qaeda has no sustainable presence or large urban areas under their control. No longer holding any sizable territory, they have been reduced to dispersing out into rural areas, and they typically only come together in numbers to launch raids un lightly-defended targets.

It is during these times on raids of villages when al Qaeda elements are massed, and often overwhelm remote "villages" that may be little more than a few tribal compounds without nearby police stations or Iraqi Army garrisons to call to provide a defense. The groups of heavily armed al Qaeda terrorists typically overwhelm the residents of these rural communities quickly, and massacre them.

Fadhil makes two proposals to deal with the threat of al Qaeda assaults on these remote villages.

The first is to establish a national alarm system which would alert the nearest coalition forces that would help villagers get out the word that an attack is underway. The problem is that often times the locations under attack are so remote that coalition forces may not arrive until after the villagers have already been massacred, leaving a victorious al Qaeda standing alone, gloating over the bodies of the dead. It is during this dark time, where most or all friendly civilians are presumed dead and al Qaeda forces are concentrated, that Mr. Fadhil makes a bold suggestion:

But even then if the troops fail to arrive in time to intercept the attack, which would be truly sad, the long distance that al Qaeda fighters would have to travel to go back to their base would require them to lose precious time since they have to rely only on ground transport on mostly exposed terrain while the troops very often have the advantage of the much faster air transport.

In the worst case scenario what's left of a village if the attack is not intercepted would be only al Qaeda fighters and the remains of what used to be a village. Now isn't that the perfect target for the countless aggressive fire units of the U.S. military?

Now please let's put emotions aside for a while because this is war we're talking about and if sacrifices cannot be avoided we should make sure the enemy pays the heaviest price possible. If reaction is quick enough--and timing here is of crucial importance--the hunt would be great and the results would be spectacular.

Critics are sure to latch onto Fadhil's comment as an echo of a flustered Major Borris' infamous "We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it" description of the re-taking of Be Tre in 1968, but that would be a statement based in ignorance and sentimentality.

Without the people, there is no village, just a collection of bullet-pocked buildings amidst a massacre, where the only men left standing are terrorists, and perhaps a handful of hidden villagers. What Fadhil is advocating is the destruction of the concentrated al Qaeda force in the event that it becomes apparent that there are no villagers left. He advocates striking al Qaeda either as they escape, or in the village itself as a last resort.

The response he advocates may sound callous, but it is pragmatic. If several dozen terrorists can be identified in a given location after a village is destroyed, either while they are still in the village or are attempting to escape, all available coalition firepower should be brought to bear to wipe out the cell, if for no other reason than to keep them from surviving to carry out future attacks on other remote villages.

After a handful of such counterstrike missions are executed successfully and al Qaeda knows that each attack on a village is tantamount to a suicide mission, one has to wonder how many more they will be willing to carry out, and what options they would have remaining in a country increasingly out of their reach to control.

Rape is not the Flu

Sexual assault is no caused by a bacteria or prion. Rape is not a virus, with gang rape being a more virulent strain of a virus.

Rape is an act of power, control and brutality. It is not an epidemic, and attempting to call it such strips away the fact that it is caused by a brutal act of will. It is not an unfriendly act of nature, a microbe following what it is designed to do, and using language that portrays it is such is inexcusable.

When Any Bombing Photo Will Do

I don't know much about the "World News Network," but I can tell them this: if you're going to write a story about people killed in bombings during Ramadan in Iraq, it is probably best that you don't use a picture from a March truck bombing in Tal Afar.

Update: As noted in the comments this photo apparently came from--where else?-- a Reuters feed. At least that gave the military photographer, Chris Brogan, the credit.

Commercially Insane

Feminist author and progressive political activist Naomi Wolf has had some rather interesting statements published in the Huffington Post recently, from her April insistence that the Bush Administration is on a ten-step program to launch a military coup, to her more recent outburst/description of "Don't tase me, Bro" boy's experience as the "iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded."

Her Sept. 24 Huffington Post blog entry insists that the Senate's toothless resolution condemning MoveOn.Org's "General Betray Us?" ad is evidence of the current Presidential administration's ever-starting transformation to a dictator reminiscent of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or perhaps even Genghis Khan.

All of Wolf's cries on The Huffington Post over the past year have been erratic, and to all but the most dedicated partisan, are immediately dismissed as increasingly bizarre tropes of someone who seems to be afflicted with a regrettable degree of paranoia.

Or is Wolf just "cashing in" on crazy?

She continues down the path of perpetual paranoia today with Blackwater: "Newly Created Thug Caste," where she appeals to the readers of firedoglake (home of manbearpig?), a group that once indulged in a community-based fantasy that believed putting a Jew in blackface would win an election for a WASP.

In this latest post--which, imagine that, links to her new book--Wolf whips up the Folsomesque masses further.

But how much of what Wolf says is true, and how much of it is the most dishonest sort of stem-winding (and cash-flow generating) propaganda?

In her latest dark fantasy in the Huffington Post, Wolf penned such an insulting falsehood that it warrants a direct response instead of the usual head-shaking dismissal.

Wolf stated:

Joseph Goebbels pioneered the 'embedding' of reporters with military troops as a way to support favorable coverage; William Shirer was embedded with German troops in the invasion of France and Nazi filmmaker Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded with German troops in Poland.

This claim is made by a blinded partisan who is only capable of seeing history as it can be molded to suit her desire to link infamous totalitarians of the past with our present (and lest she forget, popularly elected) president.

Reality, of course, is something quite different.

Whether she is talking about the term "embedded reporter," or the practical application of them, Wolf is hopelessly and laughably wrong when stating Goebbels or the Nazis had anything to do with them.

The modern term "embedded reporter" came about not in Hilter's Germany in the 1930s, but in a direct and new partnership between literally dozens of news organizations and the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003.

It isn't a perfect arrangement; the unprecedented media access to war comes at the risk of a lack of objective distance between the reporter and the reporting of the war. That said, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the most well-documented invasion in human history, with no less than 257 journalists from a multitude of news organizations embedded directly with coalition military forces.

Further, Wolf was wrong and perhaps purposefully duplicitous, in attempting to link CBS' William Shirer with Leni von Riefenstahl's blatant propaganda efforts.

Shirer did travel with German troops to Paris, and he broke the story of the 1940 armistice between Germany and France, but Wolf refused to mention that Shirer wrote to CBS and complained about German attempts at censorship, and that he fled a building Gestapo case against him in December of 1940 as a result of failing to play by their rules.

Shirer's impression of Goebbels' pronouncements, "invariably banal, the product of a mind that though nimble was fundamentally mediocre," are not those of a fan.

Unlike Shirer, Leni von Riefenstahl wasn’t anything remotely like a journalist, another important distinction a duplicitous Wolf tries to smear over. A dancer, actress, and eventually a director, this personal friend of Joseph Goebbels and acquaintance of Adolph Hitler created a film, Triumph of the Will, that became known as one of the most effective propaganda films in history.

It is a slap in the face of today's embedded journalists that Wolf would compare them to a blatant propagandist like von Riefenstahl. ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who are still recovering from wounds suffered in an IED blast in January of 2006, are journalists. Likewise, Wolf smears experienced Russian photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev a veteran of conflicts in Chechnya, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and Iraq. killed with American soldiers by another IED just this year.

Perhaps Wolf does not like the mixed reviews of some embedded journalists in Iraq and certainly loathes stories filed by others, but that does not make them propagandists. It makes them human, reporting what they find, when they find it.

There is no legitimate way to compare today's embedded journalists to Goebbels' propagandist, no way to compare Shire to Hitler’s filmmaker von Riefenstahl, no honest way of linking von Riefenstahl to Bob Woodruff.

There are indeed propagandists at work. Wolf herself has become one, not to peddle her philosophy, but to pad her coffers.

Returning once again to her post today at FiredogLake, Wolf once again traffics in her own "big lies," as she attacks North Carolina security company Blackwater USA. In this post, she calls these military contractors a "thug caste" and compares with the Blackshirts:

Congress doesn’t get who Blackwater contractors are. Prince likes to wrap his people in the flag and say they are facing `bad guys.’ Prince actually systematically recruits the baddest of the `bad guys’: Jeremy Scahill reports that Blackwater intentionally recruits former military and paramilitary personnel from regimes that specialize in neofascist repression of their own populations and who train their paramilitary and military in the torture and subjugation of their own critics, journalists, political leaders and other civil society figures: Ecuadorans, Nigerians, Chileans, Syrians. That is who we can find ourselves facing in the streets of New York — or Kansas City — tomorrow unless Congress rolls back the horrific laws that gave the President and Prince these dark-side powers.

My God! Blackwater is infiltrated with neofascist foreigners looking to take over and torture Kansas City! Only, this isn't the truth... in fact, it isn't remotely close to being true.

Blackwater does hire foreign contractors in a subsidiary called Greystone Limited, but these contractors are hired for general duties (such as convoy escort) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are not deployed within the United States.

There are no armed Nigerian mercenaries plotting to take over Los Angeles, or contract death squads of Syrians to repress citizens in Sacremento, unless they wandered up from San Diego on their own over a virtually undefended border .

As a matter of real facts, a condition of general contract requirements at Blackwater is that an applicant must be a U.S. Citizen and proof of citizenship is required. Further, potential contracting employees must be honorably discharged from the military, and have no felony, violent crimes, spouse or child abuse convictions.

But this is reality, and reality doesn't excite those who the author would convince into buying her book. Wolf is trying to make a living by pandering to the paranoids, the black helicopter sect of the fringe left, in order to profit from their distrust of President Bush.

I wish her the best in profiting from her peddling of snake oil over the next 473 days. Her readers however, are likely to feel very betrayed on January 20, 2009.

2007 Weblog Awards Open the Nominations

The nomination process for the 2007 Weblog Awards is now open in 49 categories until October 15.

Go on over and nominate your favorites after reading the nomination FAQ.

Somehow, I Just Don't Think That's the Whole Story

Via VOA News:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed concern that the slow process of approval for U.S. arms sales is forcing some countries, including Iraq, to buy weapons elsewhere. VOA's Al Pessin reports from Santiago, Chile, where Secretary Gates is visiting.

Frustration over the slow approval process resulted in a $100 million Iraqi arms purchase from China, announced in Washington Wednesday by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The light weapons are for Iraq's police forces. Secretary Gates says that causes him some concern.

"We have been concerned that our process is taking too long. On the other hand, the first request we received from the Iraqis for weapons was in January. We have already delivered over $600 million worth of weapons," he said.

Secretary Gates says another two-to-three-billion dollars worth of Iraqi purchases are in the process of being approved. The secretary says he is not particularly concerned that the Iraqi police purchase went to China, but he says the United States needs to improve its Foreign Military Sales Program for all its customers.

"This is an issue that we have to look into and see what we can do in the United States to be more responsive and to be able to react more quickly to the requirements of our friends," said Gates.

If his Wikipedia bio is accurate, Robert Gates has never had any sales experience, which explains a lot. Let me take this opportunity, as someone who had sold a weapon or two, to explain what probably really happened here.

The slow procurement process may have been a good excuse, but for this particular $100 million small arms purchase from China, an excuse is probably all it was. The truth is that U.S. small arms are inferior for Iraqi needs.

The primary U.S. military assault rifle these days is the M4, a variant of the decades-old M16. It shoots a 5.56mm, .22 caliber bullet.

The M4 features a much shorter barrel than the M16, which means that the small 22-caliber bullet doesn't build up that much velocity or power. The result? Bad guys often don't go down even when shot multiple times, and are often quite capable of still fighting back. Because of this poor performance from short-barreled rifles, various other calibers are being tested as a replacement, including the 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendal.

In addition to stopping power issues, the M4/M16 family of weapons, while typically quite accurate, require diligent maintenance, and if they aren't take care of, quickly become inoperative. As a result, variants of the weapon with completely different operating systems are under development, and trials to replace the entire weapons system ebb and flow around the obsolete design.

Compounding all of this is that fact that these are not inexpensive firearms, with variants potentially costing into the thousands of dollars for a single firearm when all the bells and whistles are added, and the magazines (which are considered consumables), parts and cleaning kits are also costly over the life of the weapon.

By contrast, the AK-pattern rifles popular in Iraq and elsewhere are favored for a number of obvious reasons. They are quite inexpensive to produce and purchase, require far less maintenance than most comparable weapons systems, and fire a far more effective cartridge(7.62x39) than the 5.56 NATO, which also happens to be far more readily available and less expensive on the open market.

If you have $100 million to spend to arm a police force composed primarily of new recruits who will get only moderate (and uneven) training, are unlikely to practice a diligent maintenance schedule, who live in harsh environment when sand and grit will constantly be introduced to their weapons, and prefer that the people they shoot act like they've been shot, which weapon would you choose?

If I'm in charge of procurements, I'm going for the more reliable, powerful, less expensive weapon every time, a decision not made any more difficult by any gratuities that may result of this already no-brainer decision.

We've got an antiquated weapon system requiring far too much TLC that fires an anemic round.

That we're delivering it slowly isn't exactly our greatest problem.

Blimps of War

Yep, you read that right, and no, Rosie O Donnell didn't have a change of heart.

Via MNC-I Press Release.

KALSU, Iraq - A helium blimp provided Coalition Forces the viewpoint to see four insurgents responsible for a roadside bomb attack Sept. 30.

The camera located inside the AEROSTAT, a helium blimp used for aerial surveillance, allowed forces to identify the location of the men who attacked a Coalition convoy southeast of Iskandariyah.

"This engagement was tailor-made for the AEROSTAT," said 1st Lt. Vitaly Gelfgat of Princeton, N.J. "We saw the blast, found the insurgents responsible and then responded with the necessary force."

This was the second kinetic action that was initiated by AEROSTAT surveillance.

"The mission of the AEROSTAT is to monitor roads, impact areas, provide battle damage assessments and give constant aerial surveillance for defensive purposes," said Sgt. Reuben Carrington of Cabot, Ark.

This multi-million dollar blimp is equipped with a specialized camera that allows its user to see a full 360 degrees with distances ranging from 10 meters to several kilometers 24 hours a day.

Madhi Army Martyrdom Successful

When a heavily-armed, air-supported U.S. Army unit comes to town, it is rarely in your best interests to fire on them unless entering the afterlife is your goal:

U.S. forces killed at least 25 members of a rogue Shiite militia in a heavy firefight early Friday, the military said.

The troops were targeting a militia commander believed to be associated with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force and responsible for moving weapons from Iran into Baghdad, the military said.

A group of men opened fire on the U.S. soldiers with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and at least one man was carrying what appeared to be an anti-aircraft weapon, the military said. Two buildings were destroyed and at least 25 people were killed in the ensuing battle.

U.S. aircraft repeatedly bombed the Shiite section of Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi army official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. At least 17 were killed, 27 were wounded and eight others were missing, he said.

You'll note that groups associated with Iran's Quds Force and their smuggling networks have been repeatedly hammered since the start of the "surge," and that as a result, attacks on coalition forces with EFPs have dropped significantly.

Still Waiting

Just how long does it take to pen a retraction?

I only ask because it's been roughly a month since The New Republic had their first solid chance to interview Scott Thomas Beauchamp since he returned from duty at COP Ellis.

Since then, he's been online--hence, available--at least several days every week, including today. Beauchamp even had time to talk with Laughing Wolf from Blackfive as recently as September 30. Why not TNR?

Is Scott not talking to Franklin Foer, or is Franklin Foer simply unwilling to print what Scott has to say?

Update: More from Michelle Malkin.

Liberal Values

Just under 1 in 5 Democrats favors defeat in Iraq. And if that isn't bad enough, another 20-percent of Democrats "don't know" if the world would be better off with a defeat.

I never thought I'd see the day that 39-percent of Democrats were either in favor of, or "don't know" if the world would be better off if we lost a war that would essentially destroy a fledgling democracy.

They call themselves "Democrats," but they seem to think we'd be better off with one less democracy. Perhaps it is time they consider a party name change to something more in line with their beliefs.

Whatever these defeatists re-brand themselves, they should keep their mascot.

It fits.

VIDEO: Blackwater Chopper Evacs Polish Ambassador after IED Attack

Via LiveLeak.com, those are Blackwater USA personnel evacuating the wounded Polish ambassador to Iraq after his convoy was hit by at least two IEDs. Polish security guard, Bartosz Orzechowski and an unnamed Iraqi civilian died in the attack.

Blackwater didn't fire a shot during this mission, as shocking as that may be to some. It is one of at least 15,805 Blackwater USA missions where shots were not fired. I'm not justifying prior behavior, just attempting to point out the behavior that is more typical.

As for the atypical missions such as the recent disastrous shooting at Nisoor Square, Congress is taking steps to rectify deficiencies under current law that some argue makes private security contractors immune from prosecution.

Attempting to Force Others To Fast For Your Cause?

Desperate to salvage a defeat in Iraq before progress becomes too obvious for the professional media to contain, some leftists have decided on last ditch effort via direct action.

Due to the projected shortage in wait staff, those of you in college towns should plan to "dine in" on October 17.

Somewhere in Time

It becomes more apparent every day that the reactionary progressive Democrats that pinned their hopes of a future ascendancy upon a defeat in Iraq are psychologically unable to come to grips with the reality on the ground in that nation.

This was demonstrated again today by Senator Russ Feingold in the Huffington Post:

Over in Iraq, our troops get up every day and risk their lives in the middle of an Iraqi civil war. They have to do their job, no matter what the risk, and no matter what the cost. They do what they are asked to do...and so should Congress. Congress's job right now should be to bring our troops home safely, and we can't turn away from this issue just because it's tough going. The only way we will ever get our troops out is by putting constant pressure on supporters of this disastrous war. Let's make them vote again and again, so that they have to go back home and explain why they keep voting to keep our troops in Iraq. When they feel the heat for their vote, that's when they will change their vote, and that's how we will bring our troops home.

I have news that will no doubt come as an absolute surprise to Senator Feingold: the Iraqi civil war never materialized.

As a matter of fact, Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki formally stated that even the threat of a civil war in Iraq has been averted. Like many Democrats, Feingold seems mired in a past that could have been, instead of the reality of what Iraq is today.

al Qaeda bombers intended to trigger a civil war with the bombing of the revered al-Askari "Golden Dome" Mosque in Samarra in February of 2006, but though nearly 200 hundred people were killed in retaliatory strikes in the days that followed, Shia leaders refused to be pulled into a full-scale civil war. The civil war was trumpeted as about to happen or happening by Democrats and in the press, but despite these constant calls and hype here in America, it simply never occurred (as opposed to the Palestinian Civil War in Gaza, which the media stubbornly refused to admit there was a civil war until it was all but over).

Nor does Feingold seem to have a grasp of what American voters signified in the 2006 elections:

The message from the voters last November was clear -- safely redeploy our troops out of Iraq.

Actually, what voters indicated they wanted in exit polls and interviews after the election was a change in our Iraqi policy. They got that, and the change they got was immediate.

One day after the 2006 midterm elections, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down and was replaced by Robert Gates.

In January, just two months later, President Bush nominated General David Petraeus to become the commanding general of all American forces in Iraq, and was unanimously confirmed to that postion by the Senate after testifying about the revised counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine he supported implementing, including how he would use a "surge" of troops already planned for Iraq before his nomination. The American people got precisely what they wanted--a change in strategy--even if it wasn't the defeatist strategy of withdrawal favored by Feingold and others.

But Feingold, safe in his own community-based reality, continues:

Telling ourselves "we don't have the votes now, so what's the point" doesn't cut it. I understand that we may not get to 67 or 60 or even 50 votes on Feingold-Reid right now. But remember, when I first proposed that Congress use its constitutional power of the purse to end the war, support was scarce at best. Now, the majority of Senate Democrats, including our leadership and presidential candidates, are firm supporters. If we give in to the defeatist "we don't have the votes" attitude, we're playing right into the hands of the president and supporters of his war who cannot wait for the day they don't have to talk about Iraq. If supporters of this war are going to vote to keep our troops in a situation that is hurting our military as well as our national security, they should be prepared to defend it every day.

The calendar tells us it is October 3, 2007.

Even after the assassination of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the "Awakening" movement continues to spread from al Anbar across Iraq. In police patrols in Fallujah and in food drops in Ramadi, we see American Marines patrolling with police and militiamen that were once former insurgents, but who now see their hope for the future in political reconciliation instead of war.

The same has occurred in Diyala, where 1920 Revolutionary Brigades fighters--former insurgents--now go out on patrol with the U.S. Army.

Diyalal Province, Iraq: U.S. Army M-1 tank behind 1920s fighters heading back to their neighborhood.
(Photo courtesy of Michael Yon)

Just yesterday, Bartle Bull published an essay in the U.K. Prospect Magazine, offering the clear picture of the actual state of the war in Iraq, a reality that Feingold and his fellow defeatists would rather ignore. He follows up today in the Wall Street Journal with a variation of the same theme, The Realignment of Iraq.

Feingold goes on to mutter though the rest of his "Vote on Iraq Again and Again," sounding very much like a threadbare street-corner shouter as he insists that we look at his shaded remembrance of November of 2006, instead of the reality of October, 2007.

He, like Harry "the war is lost" Reid in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha in the House and their allies, are desperate to salvage at least the appearance of a defeat from a war that the Iraqi people and embedded journalists all seem to understand is still on-going, but quite possibly already decided.

The national media, with fewer car bombs to exploit or pending possible nightmare scenarios to trumpet, are quiet slipping Iraq out of the spotlight. "If it bleeds, it leads," has always been the newsroom battle-cry, but the corollary that peace doesn’t sell papers, and so it doesn't fill them.

The war in Iraq is quietly becoming the peace-keeping and nation-building operation for an ally, and yet Democrats still try to call it a quagmire and ignore the dramatic successes of the past year. One must wonder how much longer Democrats can continue to pretend we are at another place in time, and how much longer they can continue to cheer for defeat in a war all but won.

New Democrat Attempts to Lose the War in Iraq

Too craven to directly vote for the surrender in Iraq that they would like to hang around the neck of President Bush as a defeat, desperate House Democrats are seeking other ways to lose the war in Iraq. One technique they are trying is simply stalling the 2008 war budget.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined an almost $190 billion request last week for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming year. But House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) said this morning that he had "absolutely no intention" of reporting out a bill this year to fund "any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

At the same time, the same Democrats behind this plan to cut funding to our soldiers are threatening to cripple us with taxes unless they get a commitment to withdraw.

Why are Democrats so desperate to change in U.S. policy in Iraq?

Probably because the "status quo" isn't a status quo and hasn’t been for some time, and their window to salvage a defeat in Iraq appears to be narrowing (h/t Instapundit)

• On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.
• Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi "civil war"? That seems to be fading.
• The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.
• Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse — despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.
• Military officials say U.S. troops have killed Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into the country. Not surprisingly, the pace of foreign fighters entering Iraq has been more than halved from the average of 60 to 80 a month.
• Last month, 1,200 Iraqis waited patiently in line in Iraq's searing heat to sign up to fight al-Qaida. They will join an estimated 30,000 volunteers in the past six months — a clear sign the tide has turned in the battle for average Iraqis' hearts and minds.
• Finally, and lest you think it's all death and destruction, there's this: Five million Iraqi children returned to school last week, largely without incident, following their summer vacations.

These developments are occurring just one week after Iraqi PM Nouri al-Malaki claimed that the threat of civil war in Iraq has been averted and that Iranian interference has "ceased to exist," and on the exact same day that al-Malaki announced that Iraqi defense and police forces were ready to take over all security responsibilities from the British in Basra in two months.

Yesterday, CBS News published an account by National Review's Pete Hegseth that indicates U.S. strategy has crippled al Qaeda.

Over the past few years, Democrats have shamelessly crafted their political road ahead on the future rhetoric of "we told you so," intending to be able to look back and point out to the American people that they predicted the Iraq War would be a failure well in advance, while never admitting they helped craft the failure. The goal of this plan is to re-establish some of national security credibility that the Democratic Party forfeited decades ago.

Towards that end, and to further their political goals, they have worked against the best interests of the American military, the American people, and the citizens of Iraq.

This latest attempt by Obey, Murtha, and other House Democrats shows that they will continue to attempt to craft policy to ensure the failure in Iraq that they think will most benefit their political party.

But iff the trends towards lower civilian and military deaths continues, as the Awakening spreads across provinces both Sunni and Shia, how much longer will Democrat politicians be able to claim that the war is "lost?" How much longer will out nation's media be able to hide signs of progress?

At this moment, the two most prominent stories relating in any way to Iraq are an contrived smear campaign against a radio talk show host by a special-interest group linked to a Democratic Presidential candidate, and the Congressional investigation into the apparent brutality of American security contractors working for Blackwater USA, who have fired their weapons in 195 missions out of more than 16,000 since 2005—roughly 1.2%--and recorded 16 Iraqi casualties since 2005, prior to the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that left 11 Iraqis dead and 14 wounded.

And yet while these stories dominating the news media from Iraq are about aspects of the war, they are far from being the whole story about Iraq, or even the most important stories.

The important stories--those being largely ignored by the progressional media--are being told in food shipments to the poor in quieting towns that "al Qaeda lost," in now routine city council meetings in Fallujah, and by businessmen and mayors in Diyala and elsewhere, and written by American and Iraqi alike.

The War in Iraq is going badly for the Democratic Party, but it appears they will not go down without a fight.

Update: A very interesting and mostly concurring British opinion on the matter at Prospect Magazine (h/t PJM):

Iranian-made rockets will continue to kill British and American soldiers. Saudi Wahhabis will continue to blow up marketplaces, employment queues and Shia mosques when they can. Iraqi criminals will continue to bully their neighbourhoods into homogeneities that will give the strongest more leverage, although even this tide is turning in most places where Petraeus's surge has reached. Bodies will continue to pile up in the ditches of Doura and east Baghdad as the country goes through the final spasm of the reckoning that was always going to attend the end of 35 years of brutal Sunni rule.

But in terms of national politics, there is nothing left to fight for. The only Iraqis still fighting for more than local factional advantage and criminal dominance are the irrational actors: the Sunni fundamentalists, who number but a thousand or two men-at-arms, most of them not Iraqi. Like other Wahhabi attacks on Iraq in 1805 and 1925, the current one will end soon enough. As the maturing Iraqi state gets control of its borders, and as Iraq's Sunni neighbours recognise that a Shia Iraq must be dealt with, the flow of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Iraq from Syria will start to dry up. Even today, for all the bloodshed it causes, the violence hardly affects the bigger picture: suicide bombs go off, dozens of innocents die, the Shias mostly hold back and Iraq's tough life goes on.

In early September, Nouri al-Maliki said, "We may differ with our American friends about tactics… But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude. To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern world… We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light." Here is an eloquent answer to the question of when American troops will leave Iraq. They will leave Iraq when the Iraqis, through their elected leadership, tell them to. According to a September poll, 47 per cent of Iraqis would prefer the Americans to leave. The surprise is that it's not 100 per cent. Who, after all, would not want his country rid of foreign troops? But if Iraqis had wanted government by opinion poll, they would have written their constitution that way. Instead, they chose, as do most people when given the choice, representative government.

I highly recommend reading the entire article. If the author is correct, it may be past the time that the Democrats can engineer a defeat in Iraq.

Have we really "turned the corner?" Frankly, I've heard the pronouncement one time too many to buy it at face value, but if the author is right, then we will be able to start bringing home American troops not in defeat, but in victory.

al-Dura Denied

The televised death of Muhammad al-Dura on Sept. 30, 2000 at the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada was replayed over and over again as propaganda by Palestinians, in a conflict that eventually claimed thousands of lives.

Seven years later, the footage has been denounced as fauxtography by the Israeli government:

Seven years after the death of the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza, the Prime Minister's Office speaks out against the "myth of the murder".

An official document from Jerusalem denied – for the first time – that Israel was responsible for the death of al-Dura at the start of the second intifada.

The document argued that the images, which showed al-Dura being shot beside his father and have become a symbol of the second intifada, were staged.

"The creation of the myth of Muhammad al-Dura has caused great damage to the State of Israel. This is an explicit blood libel against the state. And just as blood libels in the old days have led to pogroms, this one has also caused damage and dozens of dead," said Government Press Office director Daniel Seaman.

The arguments were based on investigations that showed that the angles of the IDF troops' fire could not have hit the child or his father, that part of the filmed material, mainly the moment of the boy's alleged death, is missing, and the fact that the cameraman can be heard saying the boy is dead while the boy is still seen moving.

In The Atlantic in 2005, James Fallows explained why the story matters:

Al-Dura was the twelve-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed during an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators on September 30, 2000. The final few seconds of his life, when he crouched in terror behind his father, Jamal, and then slumped to the ground after bullets ripped through his torso, were captured by a television camera and broadcast around the world. Through repetition they have become as familiar and significant to Arab and Islamic viewers as photographs of bombed-out Hiroshima are to the people of Japan—or as footage of the crumbling World Trade Center is to Americans. Several Arab countries have issued postage stamps carrying a picture of the terrified boy. One of Baghdad's main streets was renamed The Martyr Mohammed Aldura Street. Morocco has an al-Dura Park. In one of the messages Osama bin Laden released after the September 11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he began a list of indictments against "American arrogance and Israeli violence" by saying, "In the epitome of his arrogance and the peak of his media campaign in which he boasts of 'enduring freedom,' Bush must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. If he has forgotten, then we will not forget, God willing."

It is quite possible that this defining moment in the Palestinian intifada cited even by Osama bin Laden was not the death of an innocent at the hands of callous Israeli soldiers, but the deliberate murder of a child for propaganda purposes in which the Palestinian cameraman may have been a willing actor.

Limbaugh Blasted for "Phony Soldiers" Crack by Fake War Hero Harkin

I've pretty much avoided this entire non-story, but the entire situation has become such a farce that I feel compelled to link this.

Carnival of the Bizarre

Both U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties have plummeted in Iraq. Thousands have apparently been killed and their bodies dumped in the jungle in clashes with government forces in Mayanmar/Burma. A college football player is gunned down and classes are cancelled for thousands as the search for the suspect continues.

A volcano erupts in the Red Sea, killing soldiers on a remote island outpost. There is yet another story about U.S. plans for attacking Iran.

And yet with all these developments affecting or potentially affecting lives around the globe, CNN and Fox News focus on the death of an irate passenger who apparently managed to strangle herself with her handcuffs after being arrested for disorderly conduct after missing her flight.

Don't get me wrong. It is a tragedy that this 45-year-old mother of three died. But this shouldn’t be a top story in national news.

For those not related to her, her death is merely an exploited curiosity, a carny act inexplicably promoted to the the center ring. It matters little that she is the daughter of relatively obscure political figures, or that the cause of her death is being ascribed to the oddest of circumstances. This is sideshow material promoted to the front page for it's ability to shock and entertain.

I thought that the Weekly World News collapsed because they couldn't find readership for their kind of "news." Apparently, they were simply driven out of business by larger organizations more adept at exploiting a more brutal kind of infotainment.