I guess that’s becoming the popular thing to do lately. They fill up 14 pages, but here’s the operative phrase:
…we cannot stand by these stories.
Big analysis at HotAir. Kudos to Bob Owens, who never let this go.
In another fun instance of progressive fabulism, a teacher’s union president sock-puppets some blog comments pretending to be a crazy conservative who talks about killing teachers, is reported to the police by other teachers, and is eventually arrested. More evidence of this? A cautionary tale for Glenn Greenwald? We report, you decide!
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“Remember kids–just say no to being Moby sockpuppets: it can lead to big policemen with rubber gloves touching you in places you’d rather not be touched.”
What’s interesting to me about the entire Beauchamp affair is how quickly it became a political football. On the one side, we had people vehemently denouncing the claims because they were absolutely certain that American soldiers in Iraq would never do anything naughty. On the other side, we have people staunchly defending the claims because they believe that American soldiers are monsters. Basically, both sides rushed in and evaluated the claims solely on the basis of their pre-existing prejudices.
The irony of all this is that it proves nothing in either direction. We have already established that American troops have committed despicable crimes. We have also established that these crimes have been few in number. Indeed, when we compare the proven crimes (rape, murder, torture) with Beauchamp’s claims (running over dogs, making fun of a scarred woman), the whole brouhaha seems weirdly overblown.
Citations, please.
Citations, please.
Martin, you’re here to argue, and I’m here to discuss, so we really don’t have anything to talk about.
It looks to me like you’re here to make accusations with no evidence to back them up.
Since Chris isn’t courteous enough to provide citations, can anyone else cite examples where anyone claimed that “American soldiers in Iraq would never do anything naughty” or “American soldiers are monsters”? I’ve never seen either claim.
Actually, what we had was a bunch of people in the military — or with a military background — pointing out the smelly bits of Beauchamp’s fables.
It’s just another distraction, Martin. TNR screwed up, big time, and have finally admitted it. So Chris then says, ‘hey some people claim US soldiers would never do anything naughty while others say they are monsters’ as if that has anything to do with the subject.
TNR got caught spinning a bunch of lies, they didn’t fact check before issuing the lies, and they have shown poor grace in that TNR had to be dragged kicking and screaming to issue a non-apology apology (‘we can’t stand by these stories’) rather than owning up that they got had.
Chris: you can’t boil everything down to black and white that way. Beachamp wrote, however, as if some of the things he described were merely *common* amongst those serving in a war. I don’t think that’s a political football where everyone has one side or the other. I know perfectly well members of the military will do bad things. They’re human after all. But I also know that when they’re caught their punished.
Dean, if you’re referring to my characterization of the Beauchamp controversy as “black and white”, well, yes, I did use a highly informal style. Yet surely you’ll agree that there was a big brouhaha, with lots of people screaming at each other. The essence of the fight, as I read the blogosphere, was people on one side taking umbrage at the suggestion that American soldiers would do bad things, and the other side treating Beauchamp’s reports as confirmation of widespread moral depravity among soldiers. Yes, there were lots of people who weren’t so extreme. Me, I took it as first-person reporting of a few incidents, no more reliable than any first-person report and certainly not representative of anything other than the experiences of one man.
On the one side, we had people vehemently denouncing the claims because they were absolutely certain that American soldiers in Iraq would never do anything naughty.
I spent eight years in the Marines – I know that men in barracks are not plaster saints.
My problem with Beauchamp’s articles is that the situations were so overblown and the details – where I had personal knowledge of the subject matter – so wrong there was no way they could be true.
Indeed, when we compare the proven crimes (rape, murder, torture) with Beauchamp’s claims (running over dogs, making fun of a scarred woman), the whole brouhaha seems weirdly overblown.
Welcome to the internet.
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