Beauchamp "Hates the Army"

Beauchamp's former fiancée:

“He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.”

Read the rest. What was that Novak was bitching about again? That bloggers don't fact check their work? Beauchamp is married to a friggin fact checker at TNR!

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Beauchamp: One Month After the Lies...

Bob Owens rounds up the Beauchamp affair a month after Beauchamp's 'literary liberties' were called to the carpet...

* Glock pistols do not fire a unique "square-backed" 9-millimeter pistol cartridge.
* Glocks, far from only being used by the Iraqi Police as the author claimed as he libeled the Iraqi Police for murder, are instead one of the more common handguns in Iraq.
* Thee was never a "burned woman" in the dining facility at Camp Falcon as the author alleged. Nor was there a burned woman at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, a fact attested to by both named military personnel and named civilian contractors.
* There is no evidence there was ever a garbage-stratified grave as the author alleged (though there was a cemetery that was relocated), and no support than anyone could or would wear a section of rotting human skull under the close-fitting helmets currently used by the U.S. Army.
* There is no evidence of a dog-murdering Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle driver, and literally dozens of Bradley crewmen, commanders, drivers, infantrymen, and even the spokesman for the company that builds the Bradley all consistently stating it is all but impossible for a Bradley to be used as the author described.

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Where is our Propaganda?

Ace makes the point I've been trying to make for years. In fact, it's the reason I started this blog. Ace:

Has anyone noticed how very, very little pictures or footage we see of American or coalition forces actually doing what Americans like to see them doing-- killing Taliban and Al Qaeda?

Why is that, do you think? ....

The net effect is a decrease in morale. We see every torn body of every child killed by Iraqi terror-bombs, meticulously and lovingly documented by the media, but barely a single terrorist coming to a bad end. We see US soldiers killed by terrorists -- the terrorists sometimes bring cameras -- and that's shown on CNN.

But showing terrorists blasted to hell would be, what, pandering? Jingoistic? In bad taste?

This is balance?

Read the rest. Since Ace and I no longer share the same phsycial server, it looks like his site is up and running smoothly.

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"Magic Bullets" Found in Baghdad

Tuesday August 14, 2007: An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.....(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)

The only problem, of course, is that the bullets are still in their casings. For Kos readers, this means that they have never been fired.

Confederate Yankee has found more photos from Wissam al-Okaili.

Quick, somebody call Oliver Stone!

Hat tip: Mrs. Abe Froman

UPDATE: Another pic of another woman holding another unfired round---same photographer. And Sulli is running a photo by the same guy as evidence of...er...whatever the hell Sullilvan thinks we're up to in Iraq.

Hot Air has more.

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The Army Isn't Stonewalling Beauchamp, TNR. Try Again.

Keep digging, TNR. Seriously.

China is just beyond that next seam of clay.

More from Confederate Yankee.

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L'affire d'Beauchamp Round-up

Old news to those paying close attention.

TNR is apparently still trying to pass off what they're doing as journalism. Rather than provide names and sources for their rigorous, extensive fact-checking crusade that can be cross-checked by other outlets like CJR, the NYT, the WaPo, etc. (not exactly spokes in the right wing noise machine, as it were), TNR has decided that people asking for verification of its "facts" have "ideological agendas" and that those questions don't deserve answers. That, and it's now the Army's fault.

Riiiight. It's everybody else's fault that TNR hired an aspiring anti-war writer who was hitched to one of its own researchers to get "the story" out, and when "the story" was held up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny, "the story" began to crumble like a sandcastle in the surf. Basic facts, like the differences between FOB's in Iraq and staging areas in Kuwait were lost in the fog of Beauchamp's overactive imagination, and TNR stood by it the whole time. When forced to admit their mistakes, TNR opted to double down and call everyone else a liar and an "ideologue."

Memo to TNR: The reporter at Forbes who started raising questions about Stephen Glass was, according to TNR's new standard, TNR's ideological opponent. A writer for a magazine who's audience was business leaders and "the rich" - the exactly kind of person that TNR and their leftwing socialist culture despise. That didn't make him wrong, did it? TNR, in its rush to believe what it wanted to be true, stopped fact-checking themselves, and it turned out that that "ideological opponent" was dead-on 100% right. TNR knew it then, and it isn't a stretch to assume that Franklin Foer and company know it now.

Bob Owens actually contacted one of TNR's own cited sooper seerkit "experts" who then refuted TNR's own statements, and yet TNR refuses to concede that it's over.

TNR arch-nemesis Michael Goldfarb augments Owen's catch. The ball goes back to TNR, and TNR simply throws it into the stands. Penalty.

Proverbial TNR bugaboo Ace puts it quite simple. "Stop lying."

Charles Krauthammer has a devastating piece that ran in the WaPo on the entire sordid charade going on at TNR.

Jules Crittenden puts the boot in the other mouth.

LGF, in light of TNR's latest dodge, yawns.

Powerline extrapolates the scandal out to the publishing industry in general. Oprah even gets a nod! The world is ending.

And no, this does not mean that Iraq has returned to the kite-flying human-rights-upholding, ultra-stable, stately pleasure dome paradise it was under Saddam Hussein. Nobody ever once asserted such a notion. It simply signals that ideologues who don't like the war are willing to lie about it and to attempt to spread those lies with little regard for facts or for larger truths. Unless they're the "correct" truths.

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The Massacre Meme That Just Won't Die

The Taliban claim that 200-300 civilians gathered at a market are killed in a NATO bombing. NATO investigated the claim and found that zero civilians were being treated at the nearest hospitals. I thought we had put this to rest, but the massacre narrative just keeps going.

Notice that this IWPR report (also reprinted here) is being written by a "trainee", which means a local. You'll also notice that every single person interviewed was a) male b) of fighting age.

The author attributes this to the Afghan tradition of keeping women home, especially in Taliban strongholds in the South. Give me a break. Who can forget these women at a local market under Taliban rule? Or a more recent photo?

The "massacre" as described by "eyewitnesses"

“The bombing by foreign forces started when all the villagers were gathered for the traditional mela, where they buy all their requirements for the week,” said Sultan Mohammad, a local man. “This mela is close to a holy shrine. At three in the afternoon, the planes came and dropped bombs on the people, killing more than 200 and injuring 150......

Gul Wali, 18, was also among the injured. “Bombs were falling from the sky into the trees, and I saw pieces of flesh and bone,” he said. “These were our villagers, they were innocent people. They had just come to the mela to buy food for their families. Instead, they ended up looking for their loved ones among piles of bodies.”.....

The injured were taken to various hospitals in the area. Some were transferred to Musa Qala, a Taleban stronghold about 100 kilometres from Bughni. Others were taken to Kandahar, about 150 kilometres away, and more still went to Lashkar Gah, over 200 kilometres from the scene of the bombing.”

The problem?

Over 100 kilometers away, they found a total of 19 adult males and one 8-year-old child wounded in Lashkar Gah hospital. Over night, three of the adult males died. And in Kandahar hospital, they found wounded 14 adult males and three 10-11 year old males. There were never any women admitted with injuries, and none are reported injured or killed at Lashkar Gah hospital or any other local hospitals in the area.

Remember, the Taliban claim is that this was a crowded market place. But, oddly, no women are there.

They also claim that the majority of the injured were taken to Lashkar Gah hospital, more so than any other hospital. But only 19 men and one child were there. All of whom could have easily been Taliban fighters or sympathizers.

Given what we know about the Taliban, it's not surprising to find young boys at the gathering. The Taliban are known to recruit children, and go so far as to use them in suicide bomb attacks. The now dead Mullah Dadullah, who's brother may have also been killed in the bombing, personally supervised a 12 year old Taliban boy beheading a "spy".

The same "civilians" who claim they were just hanging out at the market actually, later in the same article, admit that the Taliban were hanging "spies". They can't get there story straight as to how many spies were being hanged, though:

“Armed Taleban were hanging three people on charges of spying for foreign forces,” said one man, Khan Mohammad. “Then the planes came, so I ran away.” ....

Another man, who had come to Lashkar Gah with an injured relative, also told of the executions. Dressed in long traditional Afghan clothes, with eyes red from rage and grief, he was only too eager to open his heart to a reporter.

“We went to watch the execution at the mela place. The Taleban were hanging people. There were seven spies to be hanged, but after the first two, the bombing started.”

So, which is it: were they there innocently picking up some food for dinner or were they there to witness a Taliban execution? The "trainee" who wrote the article doesn't bother to ask.

The narrative cannot be said to be pro-Taliban, what it is is an equivalency piece. No one can be trusted in war. Here's the summation:

All parties – foreign forces, the Taleban, and civilians too - have an interest in advancing their point of view, leading to wildly conflicting claims of casualties.....

The dispute over basic facts is unlikely to be resolved, and all sides remain entrenched in their positions.

I thought resolving the basic dispute over facts was the journalist's job? Fact checking was what the media was supposed to be doing? But how is interviewing injured Taliban fact checking?

Americans or Taliban, they're all the same. 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. Or so I am told by the media. And that's just how they are training their new recruits.

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Rendezvous with Destiny: Reagan on Appeasement Redux

Ronald Reagan's speech updated for the war on terror. Thanks to Lao who has the text of the speech here. Video below. more...

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Pigs Fly: Paliwood Revealed

Two kids get blown up by a bomb. Palis claim it was an unexploded Israeli bomb, but reporters on the scene say otherwise:

Palestinian journalists, however, were pressured to report that the children were killed by an Israeli bombardment.

As Brian rightly notes, the amazing thing is that the Palestinian journalists reported that the explosion that killed the children was most likely caused by a Palestinian bomb--despite coercion to falsely report the incident.

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New From McDonalds - The Hajji Happy Meal

One U.S. Army sniper.
One .50 caliber rifle.
Fifteen hundred yards.

This is what happened to one would-be "suicide bomber".
At least he got the "suicide" part of his martyrdom right.

WARNING: Very graphic. Do not view the following image if you are squeamish.
Really.
more...

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TNR Denies Beauchamp Recanted, Cites Source Who Calls Him a Liar

My head, it hurts. I just was sent this link to TNR:

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 only problem with this is that even if Beauchamp didn't sign a recantment, Major Steven F. Lamb, who TNR uses as a source to deny the retraction story, said on a seperate occasion that:

An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false.

So, well, there you go. TNR' cites anonymous corroboration as evidence that Beauchamp is not lying, and then they cite a guy, as even more evidence, that is on the record as saying that Beauchamp is a liar?

They even go out of their way to mention that The Weekly Standard's source is anonymous--which seems to be an important point to them--but then fail to mention that the people who allegedly corroborated Beauchamp's story also are anonymous. And the corroboration is singular: one guy says Beauchamp stories are true.

That's either odd logic or TNR is just in such a state of denial that they completely miss it.

And, as Allah notes:

Lamb isn’t denying it [that Beauchamp has recanted], just saying that if it’s true, no one’s told him yet.

Anyway, I've never felt like this was such a large infraction that Beauchamp should be given harsh punishment for. I'm not sure the "attrocities" that are referred to in this Fox News report that AllahP has up. At most, Beauchamp is guilty of being a first class asshole and trying to make other troops look like first class assholes. So, I'm glad to hear that he'll only get 'administrative punishment", which I hear is a lot less severe than in Starship Troopers.

The worst punishment given to this guy will be from the men and women who have to put up with his presence. UPDATE: Via Michelle Malkin who has a great roundup, Blackfive agrees about the punishment.

Another update: AllahP responds with an interesting question: Has TNR mentioned yet in any of its reporting the results of the Army’s investigation?.

As my Lefty friends are wont to say: interesting question.....

Update again: Ace sums up my thoughts better than I can:

Scott Beauchamp's strongest character witness at this point is the guy who's calling him a God-damnable liar.

UDATE: Jeff G also has an interesting question:

One wonders if the DoD would have concluded its investigation without bringing charges against Beauchamp had he not, in fact, recanted

UPDATE: The Franklin Foer dead pool begins. There's no way this lead's to Foer resigning. Hell will freeze over first.

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Beauchamp Recants Stories, Signs Statement Verifying Their Falsity

The new TNR/MSM standard for running stories - "smidgens" of truth.

Via the Weekly Standard:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--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.

The flaming skull's up at Ace's (who's earned a promotion for rolling TNR on this story), and TNR's razor-thin hair of credibility has been torched.

Now that the military investigation has concluded, the great unanswered question in the affair is this: Did Scott Thomas Beauchamp lie under oath to U.S. Army investigators, or did he lie to his editors at the New Republic? Beauchamp has recanted under oath. Does the New Republic still stand by his stories?

We would ask them, but they're hiding out in a cabin or on a lonely beach somewhere trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Looks like TNR picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Stephen Glass redux...

UPDATE: Ace even got an advance, sooper seekret copy of Beauchamp's war memoirs. Friends in high places.

UPDATE 8/07 by Rusty: TNR now denying that Beauchamp has recanted, cite same guy who calls Beauchamp a liar.

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Video: al Qaeda Threatens Embassies

UPDATE: Full al Qaeda / as Sahab video of Adam Gadahn and Hafiz Usman in English here. more...

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New al Qaeda Video Shows Zawahiri, Adam Gadahn, Threatening U.S. Homeland

UPDATE 8/07/11:22: Full al Qaeda / as Sahab video of Adam Gadahn and Hafiz Usman in English here. more...

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Incoming! TNR Story About to Be Nuked by Army (UPDATE: KABOOM)

UPDATE: Investigation completed. Bob Owens: Beauchamp and TNR PWN3D. Your move, TNR.

An investigation of the allegations were conducted by the
command and found to be false. In fact, members of Thomas' platoon and
company were all interviewed and no one could substantiate his claims.

Hmm. AllahP:

Unless the Army comes up with compelling evidence disproving his story it’s going to end up as the military version of a he said/she said where each side simply believes whom they’d prefer ideologically to believe and leaves it at that. Let’s hope what they’ve got is as specific as Goldfarb’s quote implies.

Yes. Let's.
- - -
"efuted by members of his platoon and proven to be false." That's apparently what passes for rigorous investigation at The New Republic these days. The Weekly Standard has this:

We are still working on getting something official. And we just heard from a reliable source that we should "stand by for a statement about to come from the Army saying their review of Beauchamp's story shows it to be a combination of complete fabrication and wild exaggeration."

Sounds juicy. Can't wait.

All that huffing and puffing by our resident trolls, all that blind support for "their guy in the sh*t," all that sneering self-righteousness, about to be brought low by an actual investigation. Not a TNR investigation, which (apparently) includes a week-long vacation in the midst of not fact-checking its stories, but a real look at what Beauchamp said happened versus what actually happened.

The milbloggers and soldiers were wrong to question Beauchamp and his lies, though. Questioning anti-military hacks and liars is unpatriotic. And how do the leftists respond to this imminent blow to their little self-imposed kerfluffle? Do they retract their smears, rants, psychotic ravings and slanders against those who actually want the truth in this matter? Do they repent for jumping reflexively to defend this gifted fabricator of a Warrior Poet who never thought he'd get caught doing what he did?

Sadly, no! They question your credibility sexuality!

The New Republic is likely to add another name to its wall of shame (not willingly, of course), and we're about to get another club with which to beat them over the head with forever.

I WANT A MIADA, BABY!

Thanks to Ace, pointman extraordinaire.

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Moronic al Qaeda Propaganda of the Day

Behold, al Qaeda's glorious parade through Baquba! That's, what, like 4 old Nissan sedans, a kid on a bike, and a few dozen onlookers? Yeah, Allah and the ummah are on your side alright.......

And wouldn't you know it that the Weasel Zippers found the video on our old friend inshallahshaheed's Wordpress hosted website.

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TNR Finds 'Minor' Errors After Fact-Checking

Let the slithering walk-back begin.

Yeah - that woman whose face melted at a forward operating base in Iraq?

She wasn't in Iraq in a forward operating base, as Warrior Poet Beauchamp "reported."

She was a country away in Kuwait, as was Beauchamp. Sorry - Kuwaite (Beauchamp's spelling).

Iraq. Kuwait. What the hell's the difference? Actually, if George Bush 41 hadn't done something, there would be no difference because Saddam was such a peaceful advocate of regional stability. Damn that BOOSH! Undermining TNR like that!

And the brutality of the war Beauchamp whimsically reported? Well, he wrote it nine months before deployment. Its the same, though. He is the first soldier in history to know in his heart, dammit, that war is brutal and hard work. And his prophetic, clairvoyant vision came to pass simply because he's the greatest poet in wartime history. Ever. Ever.

Click on over to Ace's to see TNR confirming things that weren't strongly contested, while ignoring and not confirming other things that were. Apart from the 100% true, accurate mistake just highlighted above.

Looks like Beauchamp was more than an idiot. I was a liar as well.

Exit phrase: "One soldier confirmed..." "One soldier confirmed..."

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Q: Do 'Moderate' Muslims think it's okay to Make Fun of Radicals?

A: No

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Moronic Jihadi Propaganda of the Day: Islamic Army in Iraq

This video from the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI) purports to be of attacks on a U.S. bases in Iraq. Miraculously, the IAI not only manages to get video of the attack from the outside, but they also somehow got their hands on video of the attack from the inside of the base.

*ahem*

Apparently, the IAI producer who spliced together these completely unrelated clips couldn't detect the not-so-subtle differences between British and American accents. I'm guessing that his target audience, the Arab street, won't be able to figure that out either.

This isn't out of character for them. The IAI are the same jihadi douchebags that produced the Lee's Life for Lies in which a 'dead' U.S. soldier bemoams the war. It turned out to be a case of identity theft. Lee Kimball Tucker was alive, well, and not against the war. Apparently the jihadis found a memory stick belonging to him, and then just made the rest up.

For a good laugh, watch the video below. more...

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LA Times Wants Clemency for American Traitor

The LA Times pleads for a sentence reduction for American traitor, Jihad Johnny Walker Lindh. What they fail to mention is that Lindh should have been tried as a traitor, for which the sentence would have been death. All traitors claim that they really love their country, that they would never harm it. They always know better than the rest of the country and its policymakers.

And a note to the Times: when Jihad Johnny took up arms for the Taliban, he full well knew that the US was allied with the Northern Alliance. Hence, his actions were treason. I'd say he got off easy with 20 years. As for the other "comparable" criminals the Times mentions, none of them is an American citizen, and thus not traitors.

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From the Minds of Morons to Mouths of Morons

Ever wonder how moronic conspiracy theories are mainstreamed in the post-newspaper era of news?

Charles highlights the Arc of the Conspiracy - from the most leftarded nonsense at the Daily Kos to a Soros-funded propaganda mill called Think Progress, to the newsdesk of the mentally-deranged leftist mouthbreather Keith Olbermann.

Pretty neat, huh? And by neat, I mean idiotic.

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An Email from Beauchamp's Co. First Sergeant

The facade of the TNR stunt continues to crumble:

SFC McElroy,

I’m not in the habit of answering these email’s. It would be far too many. I appreciate all the support from home and I can assure you that not a single word of this was true. We’ve been fighting this fight for quite some time. Numerous soldiers within my unit have served on several deployments and this is my third year as a First Sergeant in this unit. My soldiers conduct is consistently honorable. This soldier has other underlining issues which I’m sure will come out in the course of the investigation. No one at any of the post we live at or frequent, remotely fit the descriptions of any of the persons depicted in this young man’s fairy tale. I can’t and won’t divulge any information regarding this soldier, but I do sincerely appreciate all the support from the people back home. Again, this young man has a vivid imagination and I promise you that this by no means reflects the truth of what is happening here. I’m currently serving with the best America has to offer. I have worked and fought closely with every soldier within my company and they are consummate professionals in an area most people can’t fathom. I’m proud of my soldiers and would gladly give my life for any one of them. Please continue to keep them with you in your prayers and thank God that we have these courageous men willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, Americans, and the people of this struggling nation.

Sincerely,

1SG Hatley

The email correspondence is listed in full at this particular 'chickenhawk's' site, The Foxhole. And by 'chickenhawk,' I mean Iraq war veteran.

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Is Everybody in al Qaeda This Stupid?

With the Taliban on the verge of murdering 22 more civilian hostages, even as it releases propaganda videos where they pretend they call off attacks because of too many civilians in the area, I thought I'd bring you up to date on a yet to be released as Sahab produced video from their al Qaeda allies, sent to me earlier today by Laura Mansfield.

The video is part of an ongoing series produced by al Qaeda of alleged attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The problem with the video? Well, it does show that someone was attacked. But it definitely isn't Americans. In fact, the destroyed vehicles are all distinctly civilian trucks. Oh, and all the people on the road are also distinctly Afghan civilians. Here's a rather poor vidcap

Seriously, are you all retarded or should I just blame Adam Gadahn for this?

UPDATE: Ahhh, it's all making sense...... more...

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Scott Thomas/TNR Caught in Plame-ish Operation?

Ace has been doing some behind-the-scenes digging with a few other bloggers, and finds what appears to be a Plame-ish operation involving spousal recommendations of TNR staffers / associates and the selection of Scott Thomas as an official TNR war 'correspondent.' Or something.

Some of the info isn't fully confirmed yet. TNR also apparently fired someone over this kerfluffle this morning...something doesn't smell right over there (when has it ever), so stay tuned for the fact checking of this TNR writer's claims, and of the fallout that may ensue at TNR.

UPDATE by Rusty: Confirmed Scott Thomas Beauchamp's wife fiance (hmmm, or maybe right the first time, already married?) is Elspeth Reeve, a TNR staffer.

Does she get fired? Nope, the conservative TNR staffer that outted her did.

UPDATE 2: A Special Ops "chickenhawk" offers to be the new TNR Baghdad Diarist. Ace snarks:

He won't get the job. For one thing, he's qualified. For another thing, he can't be guaranteed to deliver the anti-military fictions Beauchamp did.

For a third thing, he's not going steady with anyone at TNR.

Check Hot Air and Ace for some of today's developments - they've developed pretty quickly since the gates of TNR were stormed. TNR apparently spent last night hunting down and firing a conservative writing there for tipping bloggers off to the incestuous/conflict of interest (and literal) relationship between Scott Thomas and TNR staffer Elspeth Reeve (Beauchamp). Kind of a key fact to know, dontcha think? Conflicts of interest? Compromised objectivity? An insider-orchestrated smear job on the military from a radical leftwing publication?

Dirty, dirty, dirty. TNR has apparently been sniffing around LGF as well.

Maybe we should check our IP logs.

TEH FUNNY: The she-males at Sadly, No! are wetting their pants at the very notion that this little stunt by TNR is (gasp) being examined for veracity and factual accuracy! That, and (shock) things are being discovered that cast doubt on the (heh) honesty and integrity of their newfound favorite dog-killing, atrocity-aiding misogynist Warrior Poet.

STING/SET-UP?...Some have speculated that this might be an elaborate "get the wingnut bloggers" rope-a-dope. Ace doesn't think so. If so, that means TNR is putting a lot of false information (fabricated websites and assorted other lies) into the air. Whose honesty and integrity is at stake here again? TNR's. They can't get away from this, and they've already fired someone over this story.

FOR A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND INTERESTING TAKE...read Jeff Goldstein.

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So Should Scott Thomas Face Charges?

UPDATE: Welcome Lefty trolls. Looks like we were right. Turns out Scott Thomas Beauchamp got his job at TNR because he is engaged to a TNR staffer. Oh, and it looks like they fired someone for outting this relationship.
------------

Now that the TNR source has been revealed, the questions can now be asked of him and TNR - should he face charges for participating in alleged massacres and sociopathic behavior, for witnessing this kind of behavior without reporting it up the chain of command, or are the things he 'reported' merely exaggerations or at worst outright lies?

Probably more of A and B than C.

These questions have been raised at prominent milblogs by those who've served and who called out this TNR source.

And predictably (in typical leftist fashion), Scott Thomas is calling everyone questioning the veracity and factual accuracy of his highly suspect 'reporting' a "chickenhawk." That's right. The milbloggers, many of whom have served in Iraq and others that are career military men, are "chickenhawks."

Funny how the definition of chickenhawk, as defined by the left, morphs from "never served yet supports the fight against terrorism" to "is serving in Iraq/Afghanistan or has served and doesn't agree with the Democrat Party." Pathetic.

Not that it has bearing on this case, but it should also be noted that Scott Thomas was a lefty blogger and an antiwarbot before his stint in Iraq. By moonbat logic, that makes him a shill for the DemCong.

Let him flail - to me, the "chickenhawk" crap is a smokescreen and an indication that he wants the attention focused on him and not on what he 'reported' that caused the controversy in the first place.

TNR owes everyone an explanation as to why they appear to be complicit in this individual's behavior, up to and including multiple violations of the UCMJ. They only want readers, and this is a really disgraceful way to go about getting them.

Man up, TNR. Time to pay the piper.

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