About Scott Thomas

At first I began investigating this Scott Thomas at TNR straight up as most. I was surprised when I saw the title for the About page here on a cached seemingly anti-war blog that appeared and disappeared briefly just as the now infamous Scott Thomas started to write at TNR. Is it him? I don't know, I doubt it, now. But I also seriously doubt it is Clifton Hicks, as some suggest.

Hicks is a high school drop out, Scott Thomas talks of helping children in college and his writing style doesn't remotely match Hick's terse writing style.

Using cached links so you can read them, The first TNR item by Thomas appeared on January 29 - Dead of Night appeared on June 7 - and now there is Shock Troops. And in backing away a bit for perspective, always smart in this kind of pursuit, I wondered, why is the Right even protesting at all? We should be holding up TNR for what it is exposing, both about them and about Iraq.

If I queried a national publication and offered, I'd like to write a diary about the time I humiliated a fat or disfigured person to tears, would they publish it? I hope not. Yet, now so seemingly interested in posting anything to undermine the effort in Iraq, that's precisely what TNR has done. They're willing to excuse the perpetrator of said abuse as it suits their purpose. I am not. And had he reached out to his commander, chaplain, a friend, family by phone, anyone to discuss his allegedly troubling altered perceptions due to war I'd understand it. But, no, the newly minted misanthrope reached out to The New Republic to make it appear as though everyone who goes to war loses their humanity, somehow. Funny, I don't see absolution on their masthead, perhaps it's in their guidelines concerning freelancer renumeration. And what has this alleged Scott Thomas actually told us of Iraq, assuming it's true?

That as it stands a boy gets his tongue cut out for talking to the wrong people in Iraq, or saying the wrong thing? That was true under Saddam long before we got there. And the very people doing the alleged cutting now will only be doing more of it should we leave, unless or until those threatened take up the chant Death to America in the streets and start attending schools that would prepare them to strap on bombs and kill innocents there, or perhaps abroad. From that lesson we are supposed to learn that leaving Iraq is the solution? How absurd.

You can find far uglier tales of men at war from virtually every war man has ever fought. But I find nothing so ugly as elevating some few of those tales up contemporaneously in the cause to abandon hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocents to deprivation, persecution, torture and possibly death at the hands of religious fundamentalists. And that makes TNR's Franklin Foer easily the ugliest of all actors when it comes to Scott Thomas' some few ugly little tales.

Along with the links above, you can find the latest on this issue here via Memorandum.

Comments

[baldilocks]

And had he reached out to his commander, chaplain, a friend, family by phone, anyone to discuss his allegedly troubling altered perceptions due to war I'd understand it

"Thomas," if he's really a soldier, should not be "reaching out" to any of these people (including TNR). He is *duty* bound to report such incidents to his immediate superior and, if necessary, on up the chain (in turn).

[Purple Avenger]

100:1 this NR article is completely fake.

I'm offering a $1,000 cash reward for any soldier who will corroborate it and testify under oath against the offenders described within at court martial.

http://purpleavenger.blogspot.com/2007/07/1000-cash-reward-for-witnesses-who-will.html

I believe that grand will be staying in my pocket for a LONG LONG time.

[Fred Beloit]

Great post, Dan, and good luck in following up on this story. If this guy is trying to pull a John Kerry as a copycat, he ought to be exposed and, if he has committed any crimes, punished.

[Sean Gleeson]

Yo, Dan, the "Daniel Scott Thomas" blog you found has not disappeared, it's right there.
http://danielscottthomas.net/
Maybe his server was down or something when you checked. It is not liberal or anti-war, near as I can tell. That "War Casualties" headline may have pushed you into a snap judgment, but read the text, he ain't a pacifist. In fact he seems pretty militant and conservative (though he wrote more about religion than politics). Hell, just look at his blogroll! And more to the point, it doesn't seem to be the TNR's Scott Thomas from his biographical details.

[Dan Riehl]

Thanks, Sean. As I said, I didn't think it was linked. But it doesn't appear to have been updated since February and it only started in January, far as I can tell. But I didnt' claim it was that scott thomas.

[Sean Gleeson]

Oh, I know you didn't, buddy. I was mostly disagreeing with your summation of it as a "seemingly anti-war blog." I just don't see how it seems that way.

[Dan Riehl]

Yes, it's likely I misunderstood what he was saying about "Christian" warfare.