TNR Diarist Scott Beauchamp's Army Unit Back in the News
The four soldiers being charged with of conspiring to murder Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad last spring are in the same company as The New Republic's former man in Iraq, Scott Beauchamp, Media Mob has learned.
Mr. Beauchamp wrote several pieces for TNR under the name Scott Thomas last summer in which he described in harrowing detail what it was like to be a soldier in Baghdad. His pieces included several gruesome scenes—one in which soldiers in his company deliberately ran over dogs in their Humvees, another in which they mock an Iraqi woman who had been wounded by an IED—that drew suspicions from skeptical readers. TNR editor Franklin Foer initially defended Mr. Beauchamp's articles from critics, but decided after a four-and-a-half-month-long investigation proved inconclusive that he could not stand behind them.
Mr. Beauchamp's company, which is part of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, is made up of approximately 120 men, and is currently based in Germany.
It looks like the right-wing blogosphere who called Beauchamp a liar for saying people might be willing to kill dogs are the real idiots and liars.
But killing dogs and killing humans ISNT the same thing! Its a stretch to think that the same soldiers who executed Iraqis would be so barbaric as to run over cute little puppies.
This seems to suggest that Scott Beauchamp may not have been off the mark in what he was describing since the soldiers in this squad have a propensity for the things that he described in his article. In fact, these allegations are even more serious than those contained in Beauchamp's writings.
But the right-wing blogosphere made its claims so loudly and incessantly as to drown out all other discussion of the subject -- how could they not be telling the truth?