Knight and Fog
A soldier named Scott Beauchamp who published a “Baghdad Diarist” in the Non Republic and set off another warblogger frenzy has, if Michael Goldfarb and MNF-I’s public affairs office are to be believed, recanted all three of his articles, including the two earlier ones that nobody much minded. Previously TNR reported that Beauchamp “stood by his story” and that their own investigations, per five of Beauchamp’s colleagues, confirmed all but the location of one anecdote, which supposedly took place in Kuwait rather than Camp Falcon.
Now something Beachamp has written is not true, either the recantation or the articles. But why believe the new statement over the old ones? Or, for that matter, the old over the new? There’s the screamingly obvious possibility that Beauchamp signed his recantation under duress, given that he “had his cell-phone and computer taken away and is currently unable to speak to even his family” as of last week – so screamingly obvious that Goldfarb won’t even broach the possibility. But we can’t be sure the military coerced Goldfarb into recanting any more than we can be sure TNR’s own follow-up was accurate.
But you can bet that the people who insisted that TNR provide receipts for every one of Beauchamp’s claims won’t be demanding that the military recount the exact circumstances leading to his recantation.
Meanwhile, the oddest claim about Beauchamp’s original admission of error is that, as Goldbarb puts it
The magazine’s editors admitted on August 2 that one of the anecdotes Beauchamp stood by in its entirety–meant to illustrate the “morally and emotionally distorting effects of war”–took place (if at all) in Kuwait, before his tour of duty in Iraq began, and not, as he had claimed, in his mess hall in Iraq. That event was the public humiliation by Beauchamp and a comrade of a woman whose face had been “melted” by an IED.
I’ve seen this argument elsewhere: If Beauchamp and his buddy hadn’t even gotten to Iraq, what does this incident have to do with “the dehumanizing effect of war?”
Gosh. What do pre-game locker-room rituals have to do with football? The game hasn’t even started yet. Of course small cruelties that happen on the way to the theater of battle, in full knowledge that you will soon be in combat, after lengthy training designed in part to reduce the ingrained inhibition against killing other people, illustrate the dehumanizing effect of war. If it happened. If Scott Beauchamp’s disavowal is worth David Hicks’ official statement that he was never abused in captivity. (No, I’m not saying Beauchamp was tortured. But he may have been threatened in other ways. Or, again, he may not have.) If it didn’t happen, needless to say, it illustrates nothing.
We can’t trust the government, including the military, to be honest or even competent. PAO in Baghdad were the people who confidently asserted that there was no such person as Captain Jamil Hussein working for the Baghdad police. They weren’t lying in that case. They just didn’t know what they were talking about. Tomorrow we may learn that Beauchamp actually signed an affidavit saying he hadn’t declared his TNR checks on his tax returns.What we haven’t learned from this whole business is anything new about the war in Iraq. As John Cole points out.
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:18 am
So Beauchamp mocking a disfigured woman was just a way of giving himself a pep talk before he went to Iraq. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because hey look over there!
Comment by Tom Scudder —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:24 am
But wait, wait, I thought he didn’t mock the disfigured woman. I thought that was all lies, all lies, none of it true, as can be told from the fact that he freely and under no coercion whatsoever, how could you possibly insinuate such a thing, signed a statement saying that it was lies, all lies, all damnable lies, told to lie lyingly about the war, which is proceeding directly on to victory precisely as foretold.
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:58 am
You actually think his confession wasn’t coerced? How naive! The evidence is in the lack of evidence.
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:04 am
Okay, how about “Beauchamp mocking a disfigured woman conceivably could have been just a way of giving himself a pep talk before he went to Iraq. If it’s true, which I still think it is because obviously they made him confess.” (Sounds like somebody’s never heard of Gitmo!)
Comment by Kevin Hayden —
August 7, 2007 @ 5:54 am
Onr does not have to be tortured to feel sufficient intimidation that results in recanting the truth.
One only needs to be reminded that the armed people they live among consider him a betrayer.
In A Few Good Men, the classic “You can’t handle the truth” is directed at those in pursuit of the truth. The Konservative Keyboard Kommandos provide a similar frame. They cry ‘Liar’ while cowering like elephants from the tiniest mouse of truth.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:15 am
Having discredited (maybe) the rather trivial TNR stories, the next step is to go after the imaginary Pentagon pollsters who produced this–
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050402151.html?hpid=topnews
Comment by Thoreau —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:24 am
Coerced confessions? What sort of country do you think this is?
Oh, wait. Never mind.
Comment by y81 —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:42 am
The problem is, you can’t trust either The New Republic or the Pentagon. One possible response (the Henley answer) is to believe whoever’s statements coincide with your preconceived ideological agenda. Another response would be a radical skepticism and epistemological humility, but that approach is inconsistent with self-righteousness, so it won’t be popular here.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:54 am
One possible response (the Henley answer) is to believe whoever’s statements coincide with your preconceived ideological agenda.
I guess I’d have to agree with this, assuming that by “the Henley answer” we mean the exact opposite of what Henley just wrote in the post.
Bravo, y81. That was breathtaking.
Comment by Patrick Nielsen Hayden —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:57 am
Yeah, because if there’s anything we’ve learned from reading UO for five years, it’s that Jim Henley is all about the “preconceived ideological agenda.”
Comment by daveinboca —
August 7, 2007 @ 8:03 am
Let’s remember that the new Managing Editor of TNR, Franklin Foer, is the degenerate spawn of one of the farthest left “historians†on the fake-history bash-the-USA academicide front. Papa Foer has won many historical prizes for consistently unmaksing the evils in America, especially during the Reconstruction, and still presides at Columbia U., where “left†means “centrist†and “centrists†don’t exist.
Evil Poppa begets evil son who enables evil chronicler. Just connect the dots. No fault on the left, as Mark Rudd told me decades ago when I was a deluded SDS volunteer. He smoked my dope & left me with the advice, “Dare to cheat, dare to win.” Could be Columbia U’s motto! At least when CSJ hands out Pulitzers!
Comment by Barry —
August 7, 2007 @ 8:18 am
D*mn, daveinboca – can I have a toke of that?
On second though, never mind – the rat poison might give a good high, but I’d bet that wine kills fewer brain cells.
Comment by Barry —
August 7, 2007 @ 8:24 am
Comment by Patrick Nielsen Hayden —
“Yeah, because if there’s anything we’ve learned from reading UO for five years, it’s that Jim Henley is all about the “preconceived ideological agenda.†”
He’s been a hard-core, highly recidivist freedom-lover.
Comment by Mona —
August 7, 2007 @ 8:27 am
And the rightwing blogswarm over Beauchamp’s alleged falsehoods would be funny in its irrelevancy, if not for the minor fact that we have unleashed carnage and mayhem in Iraq, and Goldfarb et al. would have us expand the insanity by attacking Iran. Nothing like the right-o-sphere’s ability to keep its eyes on the critical issues. Or perhaps that is the point, ya think?
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 8:58 am
From “fake but accurate” to “fake but irrelevant.”
Comment by BruceR —
August 7, 2007 @ 9:23 am
I dunno, Jim, if I had just signed on to a major league team, and my “pregame ritual” on the eve of my first game was to assault the waterboy with a bat, I think most people would be justified in saying the game pressure was insufficient excuse.
They’ve all seen a lot of things, but I haven’t seen a former or serving soldier who hasn’t said that verbal abuse of an IED victim in the mess by a green kid who hadn’t been under fire yet wasn’t shockingly inappropriate. So the choice is binary: either the guy’s a liar or he’s a incredible jerk. In either case I’m not particularly interested in his personal observations on war’s inhumanity, which would necessarily require both faith that the author has an impulse to honesty in his observations, and a humanity to lose.
I’m afraid the guy’s damaged goods, and anyone on the anti-war side who fervently defends him now would be doing their cause no favour. Until now, I’d have said no one deserved being Swift-boated, but in this case I think an exception could be made.
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 9:32 am
From “fake but accurate†to “fake but irrelevant.â€
it’s always been “irrelevant”. and that’s the best part of this: watching you guys try to puff this little nothing of a story into some kind of all-encompassing symbol of the war.
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 9:48 am
We can’t trust the government, including the military, to be honest or even competent.
I don’t see any evidence of government incompetence here.
The government wants its soldiers and contractors to behave like dicks. Not like Dave W. style just funning around style “dicks”, either. I mean hardcore, evil dicks. If some soldiers did indeed behave like dicks, then that is government competence.
Furthermore, the government does not want the American people to see the dickish behavior of its own soldiers. Rather, the government wants the vast majority of the American people to believe that the vast majority of soldiers are not dicks, and are actually better than the rest of us.
Now, with a war as big and long-lasting as Iraq, we are bound to get a glimpse of the truth once in a while, as with the Abu Gharib photos, or with Beauchamp, or Pat Tillman’s murderer. Even so, I would say the government is quite competent at not letting these things out in the first place, and then minimizing their impact when they do get out. We haven’t even seen all the Abu Gharib photos and videos and nobody even seems to care!!!! Now that is government competence — making even the vigilant peaceniks at the highclearing look the other way about this important informational omission.
Somehow a meme got out there that government coverups (to the extent they even exist) are all about hiding “incompetence.” That is not always, or even usually the case. Time to decouple “incompetence” and “coverup” as automatically connected concepts.
It is certainly not incompetence they are hiding in Tillman’s case. Those holes are just too darn close together.
Comment by Davebo —
August 7, 2007 @ 9:50 am
Well, if the Weekly Standard has gotten this one right (which we may never know not that it matters) does that mean we really were winning in Iraq in 2005? Or that we’re winning now?
Oh wait, whether we are winning or not is irrelevant to this story I suppose.
In the end we have a spat between two magazines. And neither of them has gotten much right concerning Iraq over the past 5 years.
Comment by NSC —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:02 am
I see the left is using the three expected excuses:
1. Fake but accurate.
2. Army cover-up.
3. “So I guess we are winning the war too, huh, wingnuts?”
You guys are so predictable and pathetic. But at least you aren’t trying to pretend you support the troops any longer – I will give you that.
Comment by BruceR —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:06 am
Re my #16, para 2, sentence 1, should be “…WAS…inappropriate.” (Double negative.)
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:08 am
again with the fact-free accusations of “hating the troops” ? wow, talk about predictable.
Comment by BruceR —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:17 am
I should add to the above that I do agree with John Cole that the matter as a whole has been overblown from the start, and never did offer to tell us anything new about Iraq’s fairly dismal realities.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:54 am
I’m kinda tempted to repeat my Pentagon link, but it’s still up there. It shows that a fair number of US troops don’t respect the rights of Iraqis.
I know I don’t have to preach to the regulars here about the fact that guerilla wars tend to get a little ugly, but I wonder why the rightwingers got so worked up over this case while paying no attention to the larger issues? It’s as though discrediting Beauchamp ( becomes a surrogate for discrediting serious criticism of American behavior in Iraq.
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 11:00 am
i think it’s all about collecting MSM scalps. the substance isn’t really the issue – only that they can prove (to their own satisfaction) that someone in the MSM was wrong about something in a way that doesn’t glorify, justify or prolong the war.
Comment by Aldo —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
The person making claims has a burden of proof. The discourse will get a little wild if every uncorroborated tale has to be accepted as fact until it is scientifically disproven, or if everyone chooses which reality to accept as factual based on their own politics, rather than the evidence.
The main problem, though, is not about logic, but journalism: TNR did not publish this as fiction, or as “Who knows? Could have happened!”, but as subjective, non-fiction, journalism.
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
The person making claims has a burden of proof. The discourse will get a little wild if every uncorroborated tale has to be accepted as fact until it is scientifically disproven
Does this apply to claims that the soldiers acted nobly, or only to claims that they acted ignobly?
Comment by Aldo —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
It applies to claims in general, so both.
Mona writes:
The blogs that are covering the TNR story heavily, like Q and O, devote lots and lots of space every day to covering the critical issues in Iraq. In fact, I would venture to say that Q and O and the various Milblogs devote more of their coverage to ongoing issues in Iraq every day than do the various Lefty bloggers that are rushing to TNR’s defense.
Comment by dualdiagnosis —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
The military coerced this out of him? It is surprising that this meme has not taken hold all over the left blogosphere. Give it some time I guess. Remember that it was evil Karl Rove that set up Mary Mapes and Dan Rather.
Comment by ss —
August 7, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
fact-free accusations of “hating the troopsâ€
Actually, it is a fact that the author of the post suggests a likelihood that the US military coerced a confession from a magazine “diarist” suspected of libeling fellow troops.
How that cynical, disdainful view is consistent with “support for the troops” is beyond me.
But silly me. The real point is that Iraq is a quagmire! Oh, the surge is working? Well, but, Bush lied about WMD!!! Oh, that was common intelligence shared by Congress? Yeah, but, Bush stole the 2000 election!!!!9/11 was an inside job!!won’t somebody please think about the children!!!!Bigots!!!!!!!
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
It applies to claims in general, so both.
Which means that we don’t assume that the soldiers refrain from making fun of those with melted faces. Riiiiight?
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
Actually, it is a fact that the author of the post suggests a likelihood that the US military coerced a confession from a magazine “diarist†suspected of libeling fellow troops.
it may be a fact that he said it, and it’s an obvious fact that there is a possibility (”likelihood” is your own word) there was coercion of some kind, but that’s nothing at all like saying “[i] hate the troops”.
that’s just something you invented out of thin air.
How that cynical, disdainful view is consistent with “support for the troops†is beyond me.
i suppose if your worldview is such that there can only be hate or blind support, many things will be beyond you.
Comment by ss —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
BTW, speaking for myself as to why a person on the Right would seem to be making a big deal of this scandal, it is out of the naiive hope that the uncovering of this example of a premeditated and unfounded smear on the military would cause the scales to fall from the eyes of honest Leftists on the issue of whether the US military is being unfairly hindered by fellow Americans in its ability to pursue its mission in Iraq. Hope that our media and political leaders would recognize the gap between narrative and reality, and instead resolve to demonstrate pride, optimism and support in our common cause against the enemies of Western Civ. It is hope against hope. Irrational faith in the ultimate good-faith of our American brothers and sisters on the left side of our imagined “left/right” divide.
And with hopes that grandiose, maybe a bit of frustration is understandable?
Comment by ss —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Jeez, cleek. Look through this thread. You are the only one using the words, “hate the troops.”
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
“You guys”? I hope you’ll be more specific. Speaking only for myself, I’ve mainly been curious whether his stories are true, and if not, why Foer has gone to such lengths to insist they are. I certainly don’t think it’s an all-encompassing symbol of the war, and I’m not sure what I’ve said to give you that impression.
Comment by Justin Slotman —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
Okay–ss is a spoof. Well played!
Comment by ss —
August 7, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
Justin, stay classy.
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
“You guys� I hope you’ll be more specific.
oh, don’t be coy. you know how the language works. you can figure it out.
Comment by cleek —
August 7, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
by the way, from TNR:
A STATEMENT ON SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP:
We’ve talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, “I have no knowledge of that.” He added, “If someone is speaking anonymously [to The Weekly Standard], they are on their own.” When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, “We don’t go into the details of how we conduct our investigations.”
–The Editors
OK, defenders of Truth, find these leakers and start sliming!
Comment by Jim Treacher —
August 7, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
Black people?
Comment by Aldo —
August 7, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
That is a double negative. By saying that we do not refrain from assuming you are saying that we should assume.
If someone makes any type of uncorroborated allegation or claim, we should wait for evidence, rather than assuming it is true until it is disproven.
Furthermore, if we are journalists we should not publish unsubstantiated rumours or tales under the guise that we are reporting true-but-subjective reporting.
Got it now?
Comment by Jeff in Texas —
August 7, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
I didn’t read the entire diary, but I have heard the most quoted antecdotes. He was rude to a disfigured woman, someone ran over dogs, etc. The portions of the diary that I have heard, even if true, are not the kind of thing to make you think “oh my, war IS hell, isn’t it?!?” if you were not inclined to think that already. Nor are the stories so far out of line with the things that we pretty much know for a fact have happened that you would think “that just cannot be true.” We know about torture and humiliation in prisons over there (whether a few bad apples or a vast conspiracy, it certainly happened); we know of mass killings, of men, women, and children, by Marines, and various one-off rapes and murders of Iraqi civilians here and there; we have seen the videos of the Humvees and Bradleys tear-assing down Iraqi highways, knocking cars out of the way, running civilians off the sidewalk; we’ve seen the video of the soldiers making Iraqi children chase a convoy by holding our bottles of water that they end up not giving them. I have heard nothing in this diary that would (a) seem so outrageous in the context of what we already know that you would doubt it, or (b) reveal such heretofore unknown depravity that you would come to have a different view of the military and our efforts in Iraq from whatever view you already had. It is a weird non-story that seems to not want to die.
Comment by Jeff in Texas —
August 7, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
As for the recantation– obviously if anything in the diary amounts to a violation of the Army’s code of conduct or the UCMJ, and that was pointed out to the author, the smart bet is to recant. He’s already been paid for the article, presumably.
“Are you sure you didn’t make up this story? Because if you didn’t make up this story, we will need to court martial you for violations X, Y, and Z. So think hard about that.”
“Oh, I SO made that shit up, Captain.”
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
If someone makes any type of uncorroborated allegation or claim, we should wait for evidence, rather than assuming it is true until it is disproven.
Alleging that a given soldier in Iraq refrains from acting like a dick is an uncorroborated allegation or claim.
Sometimes people, like you, forget that.
That is my point.
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
Furthermore, if we are journalists we should not publish unsubstantiated rumours or tales under the guise that we are reporting true-but-subjective reporting.
What journalists should not do is submit to things like embedded reporting rules. they should not exchange army oversight for access. Because then news of the military is subject to a systematic bias and ppl, like you, get a distorted picture of how nice the troops are.
better to get no info, and make no assumptions, about troop niceness, then to live on a media diet of pre-screened accounts and be mislead into thinking that the troops behave less evil than they really do.
Got it?
Comment by Dave W. —
August 7, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Correction:
What journalists should not do is not submit to things like embedded reporting rules.
Comment by Nell —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:17 pm
I’m enjoying daveinboca’s delusional take on the world, in which Frankline Foer becomes the son of Eric Foner. Because, hey, it’s only a letter different…
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 7, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
(Hektor Bim’s counterparts totter in. Charming.)
I have to agree with Bruce R., to the extent that the original stories don’t seem all that revealing. What’s happening isn’t kosher, though.
The situation isn’t so much a matter of rallying around this guy (unless we have cause to think he’s getting something more serious than “think real hard about your military career” pressure from higher-ups) as recognizing it as a data point. The administration is having the military not just restrict and censor soldiers’ communications (which can be justifiable), but demanding recantation of criticism of the military.
Comment by mds —
August 7, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
No matter how much it’s happened of late, it still makes me chuckle that Jim Henley and John Cole are “on the Left,” and that they both “hate the troops,” which must amount to a real heap of self-loathing on Cole’s part.
Comment by BruceR —
August 8, 2007 @ 9:20 am
Dave W., you seem in your #44 to be missing out on the whole “presumption of innocence” concept. Assuming that someone has done something bad in the absence of any actual evidence of their bad behaviour is not helpful in most circumstances, but that’s the argument you’re asserting here.
It also borders on the non-falsifiable. Hence the “have you stopped beating your wife” joke.
In any case, the original story never said other soldiers abused the woman in question, it said the writer himself did. It’s axiomatic that if someone confesses to bad behaviour, they are either a bad behaver or a liar. There was never a third option which leaves the author with unimpeached integrity in this instance.
But the argument of the skeptics in this case centred on whether it was plausible that bystanders would not have felt compelled to stop the author’s abuse, not participate in it themselves. The initial confession is in its construction also secondarily an accusation about those people’s honour and integrity.
If someone told me, “I beat up a guy in the street, while Dave W. just stood around and watched,” it would not be useful or appropriate of me to assume, not knowing you from Adam, “yeah, that sounds like something a guy like Dave W. would do; Jim’s blog commenters are probably all like that.” I’m surprised that you would feel otherwise.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 8, 2007 @ 11:48 am
MDS – oh, no lie.
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 8, 2007 @ 11:57 am
The Troops cut me off at a red light this morning. I was *pissed*.
Comment by BruceR —
August 8, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
Sorry about that. We were in a hurry.