Punishing Scott Thomas Beauchamp

The conservative blogosphere was outraged earlier this month when an article appeared in The New Republic that made the shocking claim that war can make soldiers cruel. Has anyone ever heard such a mendacious slander on our military? Who could believe that our military is not killing and torturing only people who really deserve it and with the utmost civility and the best of intentions? And even if there are a few bad apples in the military, doesn't the media have a duty to hush up their deeds so that it doesn't reflect badly on the military as a whole and endanger the war effort?

In the New Republic piece, called "Shock Troops," pseudonymous author "Scott Thomas," who claims he is a soldier in Iraq, tells some outlandish tales. He says he made fun of a woman whose face was badly scarred by an IED to the delight of his comrades, which made him feel "horrified and ashamed" afterward. He also claimed that one soldier donned a child's skull after uncovering a children's gravesite while digging to construct a new outpost and that another soldier ran down dogs with his Bradley. "Did you run over dogs before the war, back in Indiana?" the author said he asked the soldier. "'No,' he replied, and looked at me curiously. Almost as if the question itself was in poor taste."

Of course, the idea that soldiers might become dehumanized by war and engage in macabre humor or cruelty to animals just didn't ring true to many bloggers. They suspected that not only was the story full of lies but that "Scott Thomas" didn't exist, just as AP source Jamil Hussein didn't exist, until it turned out that he did. And even if he did exist, it was unlikely that he was a soldier in Iraq. Author John Barnes even used very sophisticated "semiotic analysis" to prove that Scott Thomas was actually an MFA writing student.

But after some clever sleuthing by conservative bloggers, it turns out that Scott Thomas is Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who is, in fact, a soldier in Iraq. Although Beauchamp actually outted himself, it was no doubt because conservative bloggers were closing in on his identity, despite the clever way he threw off the keyboard detectives by actually using his real name as a pseudonym, which would have fooled anyone. But even if Beauchamp really does exist and really is a soldier that still doesn't mean he isn't lying. As Hugh Hewitt reveals after a thorough investigation of Beauchamp's blog, Beauchamp is a fan of On the Road, a book I have not actually read, but which, according to Hewitt, "is thinly fictionalized autobiography," a damning piece of evidence Hewitt puts in boldface type. People who read fiction, especially autobiographical fiction, certainly can't be trusted to tell the truth.

As soon as Beauchamp's article was published, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard thought it sounded fishy. "One simple fact renders this tale highly implausible," he said of the maimed shaggy dog story. "Such erratic driving is likely to greatly increase a vehicle's exposure to roadside bombs, which insurgents frequently hide in the corpses of animals, or beside trash-strewn curbs." Who could imagine soldiers driving so recklessly? He put out a call to milbloggers, who set out like ducks to peck the story to death. Betsy at Betsy's Page called the New Republic's claims that they fact-checked the piece "incredibly lame." Gateway Pundit produced a letter from a military spokesperson that said, "There has been no operational reporting of the misconduct of Soldiers as reported in the article," which certainly cast a great amount of doubt on the allegations as it is difficult to imagine that soldiers might commit atrocities that go unreported. Michael Yon, whose impeccably sourced account of al Qaeda serving children to their parents for dinner has given him a high reputation for crack reporting, said the article sounded to his well-trained ears "like complete garbage." Jawa Report raised some very pertinent questions about the piece: "Do they think military members who might read it are idiots? Who is 'Scott Thomas?' Is he a liar, a sadist or both?" Ace of Spades, who recently unmasked a conspiracy by Google to hide his blog in the search engine from people who don't know how to use search engines, found an eerie similarity between the article's claims that soldiers ran over dogs and John Kerry's Winter Soldier testimony in which he claimed soldiers shot dogs. Coincidence? Dadmanly summarized the milbloggers damning evidence with a list of "multiple areas with high probability of falsehood."

When it turned out that some of their doubts proved false, for example, that there was a children's graveyard that soldiers dug up, and even though no one has proven a single factual inaccuracy, this did not discourage our brave milbloggers. Nor did the fact that Scott Thomas does exist and is a soldier do anything to give his story more credence. In fact, knowing the author's real name makes it even easier to discredit him. "Now that the TNR source has been revealed, the questions can now be asked of him and TNR," says My Pet Jawa. "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?" So Beauchamp has put himself in a Catch-22 situation: Either he faces charges for making cruel jokes and witnessing others' misdeeds or he admits that they are all lies. By outting Jamil Hussein, bloggers succeeded in getting him arrested, which discouraged other sources from coming forward with information that might reflect badly on the war effort. So what can be done to make an example of Beauchamp and give the milbloggers another notch on their belts?

"Publicly punishing" Beauchamp, said Confederate Yankee, whose excellent reporting on Jamil Hussein's nonexistence was marred only by the fact that it turned out he did exist after all, "might be the first step to recovering from this debacle." Some bloggers such as Jonah Goldberg and Mark Steyn are attacking his character. "In English libel law, Private Beauchamp would be regarded as a man with no reputation to defame," says Steyn, so bloggers have free rein to say anything they want about him, whether it is true or not. John at Argghhh! is hoping he'll be demoted. Before Beauchamp's identity was revealed The Mudville Gazette called on The New Republic "to stop covering up for this little dirt bag and turn him in to proper authorities." Now that he has been identified, he writes ominously, "the persecution begins."

But is shredding Beauchamp's reputation or demoting him enough punishment for our angry digital vigilantes and can we really trust authorities do what is necessary? Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive has a better idea on how to mete out military-style justice and support the troops. "I'll be honest I would pay good money to knock that freakin' smirk off his face," says Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo but unfortunately he can't do that from his living room. So he wants all of his readers to write to members of Beauchamp's company to offer them support and remind them of how bad Beauchamp has made them look. "Every unit has a Private Beauchamp who is more or less universally disliked as a whiny loser," Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo writes in a post called "Requiem for a Dung Beetle." "Now you need to get busy watching your back, 'cuz if you think you were disliked and unloved before......Heh." Of course, everyone knows what can happen to someone in a unit who is universally disliked. When Pat Tillman disagreed with President Bush's policies a little too vociferously, a little "friendly fire" just happened to come his way. Uncle Jimbo and his readers certainly wouldn't be too upset if Beauchamp accidentally got fragged by one of his fellow soldiers. That would teach an important lesson to any other potential squealers out there. Not that Uncle Jimbo is suggesting that anyone murder Beauchamp. Of course not. But accidents do happen. Heh, indeed.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, New Republic, Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, Milbloggers, Blackfive, Iraq, Politics