The blogosphere is still abuzz with talk of "Shock Troops." Over at Hot Air, Bryan writes that in response to questions about the story from Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, TNR editor Frank Foer "offers snark instead of substantive answers." Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit sees the response from FOB Falcon as confirmation that the story is a fraud.
Elsewhere, Matthew Yglesias admits he doesn't "really know what to say about the controversy." But that's never stopped him before, and it doesn't now. He concedes that "it's not beyond the realm of the conceivable that The New Republic would be taken in by a fabulist," but he claims that "the specific contentions being made against the piece...are pretty unconvincing." Ultimately he concludes that "it would be shocking if there weren't random acts of cruelty happening in Iraq." It doesn't seem to trouble Yglesias that the acts of cruelty described by "Thomas" remain wholly unsubstantiated and that the evidence against, which he describes as "pretty unconvincing," has been challenged by no one.
Further, new information continues to come in. Embedded reporter JD Johannes, who blogs at Outside the Wire, believes "Thomas" is a member of Alpha 1/18 attached to Combat 1-28 Infanty, which he describes as "the primary unit out of Falcon with Brads." "If my guess is correct, that narrows it down to about 100 guys and your organic C.O. is Captain Robby Johnson."
And the response from FOB Falcon identified the site of this alleged mass grave as Combat Outpost (COP) Ellis--the only COP that fits the description provided by "Thomas" to the New Republic. Riehl World View links to this story from Marine Corps News detailing the recent renovation of COP Ellis, complete with pictures of the Navy's Sea Bees building a new chow hall and storage facility. According to the article, the Marines and sailors of BLT 2/4 came to Ellis in November, when it was "a dusty bare piece of ground in the desert just outside of Barwanah, Iraq." As "Thomas" is described as a soldier, not a Marine, one wonders how he could have been involved in the initial construction of COP Ellis--let alone have discovered a mass grave there and frolicked amongst the remains.That is unless "Thomas" wasn't referring to Ellis, but, again, the PAO at Falcon says this is the only COP that matches "Thomas"'s description. More inconsistencies. But hey, "by the numbers" there have to be American troops somewhere in Iraq doing bad things...so why question the dubious and uncorroborated charges of an unidentified soldier.
More to follow...
