TNR Second Source Versus Beauchamp

I've read around on the issue and haven't seen this below pointed out. It appears that what TNR claims to have confirmed has little to do with what Beauchamp claims was done in this regard. The second source describes an altogether different practice.

TNR: The last section of the Diarist described soldiers using Bradley Fighting Vehicles to kill dogs. On this topic, one soldier who witnessed the incident described by Beauchamp, wrote in an e-mail: "How you do this (I've seen it done more than once) is, when you approach the dog in question, suddenly lurch the Bradley on the opposite side of the road the dog is on. The rear-end of the vehicle will then swing TOWARD the animal, scaring it into running out into the road. If it works, the dog is running into the center of the road as the driver swings his yoke back around the other way, and the dog becomes a chalk outline." TNR contacted the manufacturer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System, where a spokesman confirmed that the vehicle is as maneuverable as Beauchamp described.

Shock Troops: He slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road. A roar of laughter broke out over the radio.

It appears TNR's witness witnessed an entirely different scene. How is that considered corroboration? And it certainly has nothing to do with fact checking as regards Beauchamp's narrative. It's a completely different version of events.

Plenty of posts to read via Memeorandum.

Comments

[Gary Maxwell]

Dan

Seriously

A magazine that can be bald faced enough to retail an incident supposed to have happened in Iraq that now supposedly happened in Kuwait, when the writer clearly said he saw the disfigured woman EVERY DAY in the chow hall in IRAQ to not be anything other than near completer refutation of their writer's credibility and now their own, is one that will not be bothered with small insignificant details like this.

We seem to be creeping towards "fake but accurate." Being compared to CBS would be humiliating to most, but this is the Stephen Glass publisher after all.

[IslamoLlama]

Am I the only one in the blogosphere that thinks repeated analysis of how one can turn dogs into street pizza has rendered the right wing a bit morbid?

Do you actually need to see one of Scott's friends run over a dog on camera? Or will this just result in another round of in-depth analysis where a half-dozen net jockies try to prove the video was edited together?

The horse is dead, guys. Really. Does the wing'o'sphere really have nothing better to do with its time? Dan, go out and get a girlfriend. Yesh.

[nowingker]

Only in Wingerworld would two separate accounts of dog killing be considered proof that it never happened rather than proof that it indeed happened more than once!

No doubt, if more witnesses admit to seeing dog killing for fun occuring in Iraq it will further convice the Wingers that it never happened.

How pathetic that you nutters are still trying to discredit this guy, go save some unborn babies or hassle some arabs whydoncha?

[templar knight]

Yeah, Dan, go out and get a girlfriend, as if he has one. As for the necesstity to debunk the lies and propaganda of the Left, small lies are bad as well, and should be debunked at every opportunity. To let the lies of the Left stand unhindered would be wrong.

And thank you, Dan, for doing your part. An important part, I might add, or why would nutroots like Ziffy/IslamoLlama be here all the time. Even insects like him need to swatted.

[nowingker]

I feel a change in the wind coming on.....'these incidents DID happen' but they were only isolated instances'...'and what a bad guy Scott is for not turning his buddies in'.....'and these isolated incidents are used to help the enemy'...blah, blah, blah.

What lies? OMG, yeah, the taunting of the woman occured in Kuwait and not Iraq, so, what does that prove? Nothing.

It proves that our soldiers taunted a burned woman and the rest of the corroboration proves that indeed, just as Scott said, solidiers wore human skulls and killed dogs for fun.

We should all be so proud that Bush has put so many young men in a prolonged war that they would engage in these barbarian acts.

By all means, though, continue to try to kill the messenger.

[templar knight]

You know what, nowingker, the messenger has turned out to be a liar so many times in this war that he must be fact-checked. You wouldn't take the word of someone on the other side as truth with checking, so why criticize us for doing the same thing you would do.

If you refuse to admit that baseless charges have been leveled against our troops in the past, then you are blind and a hack as well. But no one should be allowed to make charges against someone without that person or entity being able to respond, or someone respond for them if they are unable to do so themselves. Just saying.

[nowingker]

I wouldn't start my 'fact checking' with a frothing at the mouth cammpaign that begins with "he doesn't exist."

Everything the guy said has been corroborated by other soldiers, but you guys won't believe that either.

It is exactly the same with Jamil Hussein, AP said he was real, but Wingerland refused to believe it, some still refuse to believe it.

There is no doubt that journalism standards have fallen far and fast, but you only demand extra special proof when it is about things you don't want to hear, the same way you disbelieve 'unnamed sources' when they say things like 'Marines will be indicted over Haditha' or 'Iraq is descending into civil war'

It would be one thing, if you said 'where is the corroboration' and then waited to see if it existed or not. That isn't what happened.

The corroboration has been delivered and Wingerland is STILL trying to discredit the guy and what he wrote about his experiences because you do not want to admit that war turns good young men into fucking savages even though you will opine on your high horses all day long about how 'collateral damage' is part of war and that innocent people getting killed in war is part of war. Well yeah, duh, but you never stop to connect the dots, when young men who voluntarily enlisted shoot up a house they think is full of adult men with guns and they find out its full of women and children, you refuse to consider what effect that has on them, same way you refuse to consider that when an active insurgency exists it is going to absolutely lead to soldiers who hate and distrust all the civilians and it is going to lead to increased atrocities.

All you want to hear about are heroic acts John Wayne style. Where was Dan on the Pat Tillman cover up? Or the Jessica Lynch debacle? MIA as usual.

This is why war is the last resort, not the first resort that armchair winger warriers want it to be, it turns good young men into the kind of people who wear human skulls, rape little girls and kill indiscriminately.

[Gary Maxwell]

Wow nowinger is really flailing. I wonder if he is aware that the Army own investigation and no complete and it conclusion, unfounded and did not happen. HMMM who to believe the Army or guy already caught in a couple fairly obvious lies. HMMM

But dont stop there while you are digging yourself that hole. Apparently the Kuwait story already has major denials about the disfigured contractor even having been there.

Maybe that Ramirez girl gave the story to Beauchamp since her copies of the TANG memos all now seem to have been made with disappearing ink and have faded beyond recognition!

[nowingker]

Hmmm, is that the same army that lied about Pat Tillman, lied about Jessia Lynch, lied about Abu Grahib?

[Gmax]

Here this will make it easy on you the key paragraph from Michael Goldfarb's latest on this crock:

If the incident happened in Kuwait, it eliminates their editorial rationale for publishing the piece. It means Private Beauchamp had suffered "the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war" before ever going to war.

The only recklessness in this sorry story was the New Republic's decision to publish the piece, and Foer's decision to stand by it.

[Gmax]

See your liar lair taunt and raise you one, you are riding the horse of one Stephen Glass fame.

[templar knight]

...the kind of people who wear skulls, rape little girls, and kill indiscriminately."

Is that your latest evaluation of our soldiers, or do you refer to some other entity? If the former, you have now entered the realm of the nutroots community. I guess 9/11 was an inside job, and aliens have invaded, and the mother ship is soon to be here. Jesus, man, you're getting as goofy as chrissy...and that's saying something.

[nowingker]

Dude, it has been corroborated that soldiers were wearing human skulls, several soldiers have pled guilty to raping and killing a 14 year old Iraqi girl and her family, surely the number of Iraqi civilians killed as well as the several trials of soldiers for murder indicates that some level of indiscriminate killing is going on. Come on.

Does that mean all soldiers are doing it? Of course not. Most soldiers? Highly doubtful. Some soldiers? Absolutely, you would be a fool to think anything else.

War and atrocities go hand in hand, always have, always will. To believe that American soldiers are completely immune from the pressures of war, especially this kind of war where the people killing you are civilians is silly.

[Gmax]

One asshole says he taunted someone about their disfigurement weel before he ever got to any theatre of war. It happens to be a TNR writer, married to another TNR staffer. TNR = democrats. I conclude based on this that it is a story that tells us that All Democrats are assholes. Better jump to conclusion than the one that TNR wanted us to make.

[Gmax]

One asshole says he taunted someone about their disfigurement weel before he ever got to any theatre of war. It happens to be a TNR writer, married to another TNR staffer. TNR = democrats. I conclude based on this that it is a story that tells us that All Democrats are assholes. Better jump to conclusion than the one that TNR wanted us to make.

[Justin]

Nowingker sez: "Hmmm, is that the same army that lied about Pat Tillman, lied about Jessia Lynch, lied about Abu Grahib?"

HmmmMMMmmm. So suddenly credibility IS an issue...

[nowingker]

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq’s cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.

In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, “I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.” He said that despite the Sunni withdrawal, “my hope is that it can all be patched back together.”

----------------------------

How's that surge going again? Morons.

[Gmax]

Well if flailing does not work, you could always try hijacking the thread. Or if that does not work there is always the option of an ad hom attack. Now that is not usually very persuasive argument but if its all you got and your ship is going down as fast as Monica Lewinski, go for it.

OH WAIT, you just tried both in the last post. I wonder if this is some expected hybrid effect from trying both tactics at once? Or was it sheer desperation on having your head handed to you?

[nowingker]

Ah winger delusion at its best. Just like you freaks, what I read on some blog doesn't impress me, just because some nutty advocate for the war claims the army found nothing to substantiate Beauchamps story doesn't make it true. I mean, hey, how do we know HE EVEN EXISTS? Maybe he is a made up figment of the wingers? Where is the PROOFeeewewwwwerewrewrw????

[Gmax]

Finally if that does not work and you get called on the hijack and ther ad hom, pile on the ad hom extra thick and push forward fully oblivious that you even noticed being called on the hijack attempt. After all, its your reality and you can play in it anytime you want to.

[Gmax]

Finally if that does not work and you get called on the hijack and ther ad hom, pile on the ad hom extra thick and push forward fully oblivious that you even noticed being called on the hijack attempt. After all, its your reality and you can play in it anytime you want to.

[nowingker]

1. Where is the evidence the army found everything Beauchamp said was false?

2. Where is a link to a verified statement by the military that all the anecdotes in his story were FALSE?

I predict the army is going to say they could not 'verify' his allegations or that 'no reports' were made involving his allegations, which as those of us with brains know, is not the same as saying they are 'false'.

TNR says they have five corroborating witnesses....but I'm sure those are fakes too. Yeah, right. Keep it coming wingers.

[Gmax]

Oh sorry the folks the Army spoke to are being kept pseudonymous. You see some of them have to return to lives deep in moonbat country and it would not go well for them if we gave you that information. I am sure you will understand.

[nowingker]

Wingers would have more credibility if they didn't discount EVERY item that is in conflict with their idea that we are winning in Iraq and 100% of American soldiers are beyond reproach, if they didn't attempt to discredit through personal attacks EVERY SINGLE person--lay person, military expert, current military, former military, intelligence report, anecdote, criminal indictment, spokesperson--that says something they don't like hearing. Just sayin.

[bloodrage bob]

leftwing dipshits would have (slightly) more credibility if they didn't *always* line up lemminglike to stand with whoever it is poormouthing their country; or its armed forces.

whether it's "former army ranger" jessie mcbeath; or the moron who photoshopped the pictures of "incredible devastation"; or the amazingly-never-can-be-found iraqi 'stringers' who report never-to-be-corroborated "massacres" and the like ....

the leftoids stand with them unquestioningly.

just like little scott. it's already in the end game, losers: thomas is tossing out whoppers to obfuscate his earlier lies. just like in the past, they're all going to come crashing down on his - and you. "i saw this bitch in iraq - no wait, i mean kuwait!" "iraqi cops shoot square-backed bullets! - no wait, i mean no they don't!" "i killed a haji in 120-degree heat amidst electricity & h2o blackouts on 8 may 2006! no wait - it seems i was **still stationed in germany** on that day!"

DANCE, puppets! dance your frantic little 2-step of failure!!

[templar knight]

Winger...winger...winger...blah...blah...blah...you act like a child, nowingker. Take your babble elsewhere. To say there are some people in the military who are bad is like saying there are some cops who are bad. That's a given, we all know that. But you paint with a broad brush, my boy, and refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary on your boy, as if he would never lie, when lying is part and parcel of the Left, and always has been. You're dismissed.

[templar knight]

LOL, nice, bb!

[nowingker]

I think if we line up the lies from the left on Iraq and the lies from the right, we're going to see a really long list of lies that came from the wingersphere.

But, wait, I forgot, wingers don't lie, on occasion they are 'misinformed' or they 'mistate' things or they give 'confusing' answers that have the appearance of lies but are not or they make good faith judgements on what is legal and they didn't know they were breaking the law....

Blah, blah, blah is right.

[templar knight]

Uh, nowinker, bb just knocked you out of the water. If you want to continue to look like the fool you are, climb back in and keep on muddying the water, but know that we see you quite clearly.

[nowingker]

Bob is an idiot and a liar.

Pat Tillman? Jessica Lynch? Jamil Hussein? Haditha?

If that's what you call being 'knocked out of the water' no wonder you think we're winning in Iraq, can win, or are going to 'win' anything in Iraq.

[templar knight]

I see you didn't respond to bb. Telling.

[Gmax]

You haven't tried all capitals yet. But repeating a phrase over and over or trying to again hijack the thread does not appear to working very well for you so far.

[nowingker]

There is nothing to respond to, its a typical rant that has nothing to do with the issue at hand, which is whether or not Beauchamp's allegations have been corroborated by others in his outfit or not.

I've played bob's game before and I've refuted line by line every one of his rants and all he does is go and post how he 'proved' I was lying over and over again and chatters about his great intellectual victory. He's a delusional freak.

But, whatever, you guys never learn and you appear for whatever reason to be unwilling to face reality about Iraq.

As usual, this is pointless. A merrygoround of nothing.

Even when the facts come out and are verified by sources that you wingers claim to believe you still don't believe it, admit or you find a way to downplay it.

Feel free to go to your grave telling yourself that invading Iraq was a great idea and the only reason it turned into a total failure was too much media coverage.

[templar knight]

nowingker, I know you expended quite a lot of capital defending your boy, but his story is melting like ice cream under a July sun. He is turning out to be just another stinking leftist vying for his 15 minutes.

[nowingker]

Is he? Says who? I still haven't seen anything he said proven to be false other than he listed the deformed woman as in Iraq and in Kuwait.

Do I think the New Republic did a good job of fact checking? Nope. Should they have had the corroborating witnesses interviewed before he published his piece? Yep. Is asking people if this anecdote 'seems right' or 'could happen' fact checking? Nope. Should they have disclosed that he had a relationship with someone on staff initially? Yep.

Does that mean his anecdotes are false? Nope.

He's a soldier, so he must at some time not have been a lefty traitor or he would not have enlisted, correct?

I presume that you are familiar with soldiers, generals and warriers who become adament pacifists after having seen the real thing. History is full of them.

[templar knight]

Ok, nowingker, he said his experiences in Iraq turned him into the monster he became, yet this incident occurred in Kuwait PRIOR to him entering Iraq. He was an asshole and a liar long before he entered Iraq, and this incident proves him to be both. That you won't see it is an indication of your own delusions.

[templar knight]

"He's a soldier, so he must at some time not have been a lefty traitor..."

Wasn't Kos a soldier? And speaking of Kos, an American soldier was silenced and not allowed to ask a question at the Kos convention. How about that support of free speech by the Left? Again, telling!

[nowingker]

Who said I can't see it? I never said I believed he legitimately confused Kuwait with Iraq, I don't. If he's that freaking confused then he needs to be taken out of combat right now and put into a mental health ward.

But, isn't the real issue that wherever it happened its sick and twisted? It would be wrong in Kuwait and wrong in Iraq? Just like running down dogs is wrong.

I have less of an issue w/wearing skulls, even though its macabre, soldiers get all kinds of weird superstitions about what keeps them alive, it would depend on WHY they guy had a skull under his helmet, though he would pretty clearly also need a psych evaluation.

I predict that once the soldiers come back from Iraq, assuming Bush doesn't declare martial law or find a new way to read the Constitution that legally gives him the option of staying in office, you are going to hear a lot more tales like this, a lot more stories of how the soldiers came to hate all Iraqis and stopped trying to differentiate between innocent civilians and insurgents. In five or ten years time I think you will find, that just like Vietnam, the situation led to all kinds of crazy and criminal behavior. If I'm right, maybe you will remember our little dialogue, maybe not.

[nowingker]

How about that support of free speech by the Left?
---------------------------------------------

That's a straw man since you already know that I am absolutely opposed to many of the tenants of the far left including their desire to prohibit speech they deem to be offensive.

Being against the Iraq war and hating George Bush does not mean I have to love Hillary Clinton, universal health care, affirmative action or the Department of Education.

[templar knight]

Don't worry, I'll remember it. As for the strawman, fair enough, I'll give the devil his due, but that was more a reaction to your comment, which was also a strawman, so if you throw one out there, you should expect it to be thrown back at you.

And no one here has ever said all soldiers are perfect, far from it, but what we have said, and will continue to say, is that our armed forces are the best in the World, the vast majority of them are decent men trying to do a very difficult job in very difficult conditions, and for a national publication with a supposedly good reputation to smear the armed forces without even bothering to fact check information is troubling, to say the least. Wouldn't you agree?

[Gmax]

Should have said:

"melting like ice cream in the hot BAGHDAD sun, No wait! make that Kuwaiti sun."

[Gmax]

BTW if you have not seen it, Glenn Reynolds has a nice turn of phrase. He posts "TNR with egg on their face."

[Gmax]

BTW if you have not seen it, Glenn Reynolds has a nice turn of phrase. He posts "TNR with egg on their face."

[nowingker]

Well, I think my first post on this thread mentioned that journalism standard have fallen far and fast. I keep expecting the top tier publications to wake up, so after the WMD debacle at the Times, I figured they had totally revamped their procedures to tighten things up, then came Jayson Blair, I think that's his name, the kid was getting promoted while writing all his stories at home doing coke, and then I thought, well, okay, that has got to change things. But, it appears that it didn't. The Duke fiasco, and the case of the female soldier who, assuming what you guys say is true, wasnt' where she said she was. This is BASIC, BASIC stuff, not fack checking rocket science.

Same goes for TNR, you would have thought after the Stephen Glass FIASCO, they would have the toughest fact checking in the business. Looks like it wasn't the case. Now, given that the guy is telling an anedote, they may not have been able to find out that it was Kuwait and not Iraq, but it looks to me like they did the bulk of their real fact checking after the fact not before. Which is mind boggling, considering they had to know the winger blogs would automatically go balistic. Why not make sure your story is airtight? Why not be able to show how you corroborated it at the first sign of winger mouth frothing?

I'm kind of a crime buff so I follow a lot of high profile cases and I can tell you the exac same thing happens. Nobody checks the facts anymore, the old rule of having 2 separate sources for anything off the record not just relyingon a sole source if they won't let their name be used and they arent' a high ranking official has gone by the wayside. Nobody even bothers to correct the record, they go on to the next crazy, unsubstantiated rumor and keep on repeating the wrong information.

Yes, I agree our armed forces are the best in the world, but I have to admit I have grave doubts about whether or not the quality of recruits has declined in the last decade and whether or not people who are tempermentally and intellectually unfit to serve have been let in. If it was me, I would spend the defense budget on SOLDIERS and I would have kept all those bases OPEN since they benefit the soldiers and the communites they are located in alot more than Wal-mart and I would have forgone the billions for Star Wars II, that fails as spectacularly as it did the first time around. I don't know if you saw it but there was story about how all the wives of deployed soldiers are abusing and neglecting their children?? WTF??? What kind of people are we talking about here? Why would abuse and neglect reports go sky high because the father's are deployed? Maybe becuase these women are young and immature, just like the troops.... That isn't a slam, its reality.

[Gmax]

I have grave doubts about whether or not the quality of recruits has declined in the last decade and whether or not people who are tempermentally and intellectually unfit to serve have been let in. SEZ no wingker

Base on what facts do you base your doubts on? Or is it your own reality and you are going to play in it again?

Everything I have seen and read would lead me to the diametrically opposite conclusion, ie this is brightest and best trained armed forces we ( and the world ) has ever seen.

[bloodrage bob]

strawman hell. i noted that idiot, moronic, lying, peabrained liberals unthinkingly align themselves with anyone who might be bashing america. or its armed forces. just like noyyyinger has done here, in the s.t.beauchamp case.

while we're at it, let's consider ideological methodology. how does the left respond to people attacking them, or their party leaders? that's right: with the usual personal attacks. "gennifer flowers was a trailer-park floozy." "lewinsky was a dangerous stalker-girl". (they parroted that line right up to the second they found out she'd kept the dress. than - being liberals - they ran away screaming.) "bloodrage bob is a idiot and a liar". etc etc etc. conservatives - being, better, smarter, more moral people than liberals - respond solely to the facts in question. dan rather's memogate? was proved for the lie it was via **factual** typewriter analysis. jessie mcbeath's claims of US army atrocities? was proven for the lie it was via an analysis of mcbeath's past. fauxphotography? ditto. the "haditha massacre"? ditto. and on & on.

specifics, idiot noyyinger? you say you've responded to specifics? shheeeeeiiit. *leaving aside* the fact that beauchamp's already changed his a)'burned gal in the mess in iraq - no wait, i mean kuwait' story, and his b)'we dug up a childrens graveyard no wait i mean we found a skull' story - errors you'd *instantly* excoriate a republican as "profoundly stupid" for making - you have yet to comment on beauchamp's claims that "iraqi cops shoot square bullets". no such bullets exist. comment? no? ok: how about his blogdiary's entry for 8 may 2006, in which he writes of shooting "a brownface haji in 120-degree heat".

beauchamp was stationed in germany on 8 may 2006. comments? no?

so! it's been *proven* that beauchamp is a halfwit liar. (he's a democrat.) it's been *proven* that he has a personal relationship with a TNR staffer, meaning a motive for mendacity. so why - using **your** standards of accuracy demanded for liberal-attackers, why should we believe one single word he says, noyyyinger?

more to the point, idiot moron lying scumbucket noyyyinger, why do you believe him? hmmmm? why do you mindlessly race to defend each & every muslim of all things ever, when you hold america & it's troops to a MUCH higher standard? why is that, stupid liar?

[nowingker]

Base on what facts do you base your doubts on?
----------------------------------------------

Based on the testimony of military recruiters who say that pressure to produce their numbers led them to circumvent the rules, give potential recruits information on how to find fake diplomas, how to pass drug tests, hide criminal records and information that they turned a blind eye to obvious cases of recruits who were unfit yet were still signed up, from their own mouths.

Based on the military changing/lowering certain standards and increasing exemptions to allow recruits to sign up who would not have made the cut 10 years ago.

Yeah, I know, its all anecdotal and those military recruiters were disgruntled lefty plants anyway....I've heard it all before.

[Rob Crawford]

"I wouldn't start my 'fact checking' with a frothing at the mouth cammpaign that begins with "he doesn't exist.""

Actually, "does the source exist" is an extremely good place to start. It's not the sole criteria, but it's a good one.

[Rob Crawford]

"you are going to hear a lot more tales like this, a lot more stories of how the soldiers came to hate all Iraqis and stopped trying to differentiate between innocent civilians and insurgents. In five or ten years time I think you will find, that just like Vietnam, the situation led to all kinds of crazy and criminal behavior. If I'm right, maybe you will remember our little dialogue, maybe not."

Wow. You've really bought into the propaganda, haven't you. Here's a hint: "Full Metal Jacket" and "Apocalypse Now" were NOT documentaries.

[nowingker]

LOL, that's right, all our soldiers in Vietnam behaved impeccably, there was no drugging, raping, killing of women and children and we would have 'won' if it wasn't for the Democrats cutting off funding. All those Vietnam vets that came back and went crazy, ended up on drugs and homeless...why, they were losers from the start, nothing to do with their tour of duty. Agent Orange, why it was a great product and nobody ever had any health problems as a result, either.

Got it.