The effort to prove or disprove the New Republic's "Shock Troops" story (see here, here, and here for background, or just scroll down) got a bit of a boost today as the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz examined the growing doubts surrounding the "Scott Thomas" piece under the headline "Bloggers Raise Red Flags Over New Republic's 'Baghdad Diarist'."
Here's what New Republic editor Franklin Foer had to say about the questions raised by the WWS and so many others:
"A lot of the questions raised by the conservative blogosphere boil down to, would American soldiers be capable of doing things like the things described in the diarist. The practical jokes are exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented by the U.S. military. Conservative bloggers make a bit of a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq."
Are the events described by "Thomas" mere "practical jokes"? I'd say they are a little more serious than that. Foer accuses conservatives of routinely denying "any bad news" out of Iraq, but the point here is that the "Scott Thomas" piece isn't news...it's a slander of U.S. troops. Here's what Dean Barnett had to say in response:
This little quote shows just how much we differ. Foer apparently thinks the cruel mocking of an IED victim, the defiling of an Iraqi corpse, and the misuse of a Bradley fighting vehicle to run over dogs all qualify as "practical jokes." I don't.
But that's not all Foer says. He even insists that the "practical jokes" are mild. Scratch that. He says they're "exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented." This wonderful "defense" proves my point that the heart of Foer's agenda has always been slandering the entire United States military and the 160,000 men and women who are serving in Iraq.
The important thing to remember here is that this isn't a story about shoddy fact-checking or a regrettable lapse of journalistic ethics over at TNR, rather this is indicative of how the left views the American warfighter. To them, he's capable of such savagery that the far-fetched stories related by "Scott Thomas" are not only credible on their face, but "exceptionally mild."
Obviously American troops are every bit as capable of criminal behavior as their civilian peers, and perhaps more so owing to the stress and violence of daily life in Iraq, but misconduct by U.S. servicemen in Iraq has been the exception, not the rule. If the New Republic and its political kin weren't predisposed to view American soldiers as barbaric, than the "Scott Thomas" story would have struck them, as it did everyone else who has since commented on it, as implausible at best. (I think it's worth noting that while the Internet will present two sides to almost any issue, no matter how absurd the opposing view may be--i.e., the charge that it was Bush that brought down the Twin Towers--best I can tell, not a single person has stood up to defend this piece other than Foer, not a singly lefty blog, not a single reader.)
For our part, we are inclined to view our volunteer Army as admirable, and innocent until proven guilty. On the other hand, the charges levelled by "Thomas" are serious, and by allowing him to publish the piece psuedonymously, the New Republic, for its part, must be willing and able to prove them true. I have no idea who this "Scott Thomas" is, and I have no intention of giving him and his would-be accomplices the benefit of the doubt.
Update: Poweline's Scott Johnson weighs in on the Kurtz piece as well:
Foer's last point does not come close to doing justice to the questions rasised about the article. And one might respond that the left makes a bit of a living promoting calumnies and hyperbolic condemnations of our armed forces. I trust that the New Republic will at some point supply facts sufficient to verify the anecdotes related in the article or retract it, though the magazine has yet to do either and the hour is getting late.
