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Confederate Yankee

October 18, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:35 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:41 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:12 AM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 17, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:26 PM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

"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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:24 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:27 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 16, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:59 PM | Comments (114) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:25 AM | Comments (185) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 15, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:23 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 13, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:29 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 12, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:58 AM | Comments (107) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 11, 2007

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:

They are getting so many cancellations they just figured this was another one and dropped it in the hopper.
They have some new business strategy that calls for only having lefties as subscribers, so I've been purged.
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?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:37 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:17 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:14 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 10, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:07 PM | Comments (46) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 09, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:11 PM | Comments (61) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:40 AM | Comments (62) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

October 08, 2007

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:20 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:31 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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