May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
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Milblogger Matt Sanchez is currently at FOB Falcon and has been asking questions at the base about Scotty Beauchamp, whose stories for the New Republic are being investigated by both the Army and the editors at TNR. Sanchez reports:
Despite a full day of dealing with securing a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood, even Lt. Colonel Crider was aware of the recent Beauchamp scandal and could only shake his head at how absurd the initial details of the accounts seemed....
[With calls from the] New York Times, O'Reilly Factor, ABC, CNN, Hot Air, in the past two weeks, Major Luedeke has dealt with more media inquiries over the Beauchamp controversy than any other subject in his entire career.
After several terse conversations, it was obvious soldiers at FOB Falcon took the events described in The New Republic very seriously.
We emailed Sanchez to see if we could get anything more definitive. Sanchez reports that the New Republic has sent "one or two emails" to the PAO at FOB Falcon to ask what were called "lukewarm" questions as part of their effort to "re-report" the stories.
Sanchez added that,
No one has seen or heard of the melting lady. No soldier would confuse an officer with a contractor. It just wouldn't happen. It's a small base and most people have seen each other. I just got back today and all these people I haven't seen in a month are welcoming me back. They don't know me, but they've seen me before.
Today I had the opportunity to listen to Robert 'Prince of Darkness' Novak talk about his new book, and his assorted observations on Washington culled from 50 years of reporting. Novak is entertaining and informative, and he ditched his reputation for negativity long enough to report that his book will be number eight on the New York Times best seller list next week.
Novak devoted some time to his disappointment at modern news coverage--observing that few reporters develop good contacts with members of Congress, and that no one covers the day-to-day happenings on the floor of the House and Senate. While few journalists had college degrees when he started (Joliet Herald, 1948), Novak says all the education that today's reporters have has not made them better newsmen.
When asked about the 2008 Presidential race, Novak compared the GOP to a Rotary Club--which doesn't like uncertainty or contested elections. By tradition, John McCain was to be the next president of the Rotary. But a combination of the war, McCain-Feingold, and immigration brought him down. Now that Giuliani, Romney, and Thompson form the Republican top tier, Novak was reluctant to make a prediction--but he did say that if he was forced to bet, he'd bet on Thompson.
I asked Novak how he would grade the performance of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid at this point. He said that Pelosi was holding her caucus together pretty well and listening to the range of views within her caucus. But of Reid, Novak said "he's the worst Majority Leader since Frist." He later clarified that Reid was worse, saying "he's erratic, he's unpleasant, and he doesn't get anything done."
When I asked whom Novak admired and respected most among those he'd covered, he said that he had admired Ronald Reagan before it became fashionable to do so. He said that Reagan's strength was that he realized that the presidency is not a management position, but a leadership position. He worried about a few big things--reviving the economy, restoring the military, and defeating Communism--and delegated the rest to his team. He said that Reagan was mocked by the press corps and others, but that he understood what mattered better than those who covered him.
Novak donned his 'Prince of Darkness' costume again when asked about the 2008 race. He's not optimistic about the GOP regaining control of Congress because he doesn't see what issues they can run on. He said there must be a message--beyond process complaints. At the same time, he said that while some Republicans seem convinced that the party needs another electoral beating to come back stronger after 2008, "things don't always work that way." He expressed tremendous concern about the possible expansion of government under a second President Clinton, working with Democratic majorities in Congress.
And who would he like to see as president? He expressed a fondness for Ron Paul.
"Can you imagine what he'd do about the UN?"
Also see Michael Barone's review of Novak's book in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
The Danger Room posts today on the cost of the surge:
The "surge" of increased troops in Iraq could cost as much as $40 billion to maintain, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
In testimony today to the House Budget Committee, CBO assistant director Robert Sunshine says keeping the 30,000 - 40,000 extra soldiers and marines in Iraq for two years would take $40 billion; a one-year "surge," $22 billion.
$40 billion, it's a lot of money, I know. But the figure had some greater resonance for me--I couldn't place it...but then I remembered, this week's issue of Business Week.
Apples and Oranges? Yes. But if Americans are willing to spend $41 billion on their pets each year, maybe $40 billion for two years of surging against al Qaeda isn't such a bad a deal. Or maybe Scotty Beauchamp and his buddies could kill all the dogs over here and free up some extra coin for the war...
Leafing through the new issue of the New Republic, eyes peeled for word on the progress of the magazine's investigation into Scotty Beauchamp (there's no mention), we came across a riveting series of photographs by Ashley Gilbertson--"An Iraq Album" as the magazine titled it. The magazine further explains:
Gilbertson, a freelance photographer for The New York Times, has been traveling to Iraq since 2002. A compilation of his war photography will be published as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer’s Chronicle of the Iraq War in October.
The pictures all appear to date from 2004, and many feature scenes from the most violent battle of the war--the battle for Fallujah--in other words, as grim as possible. But, unlike Scotty Beauchamp, pictures don't lie, and some of the shots are extremely disturbing.
Still, there was one caption that caused a bit of head-scratching here. The series leads with this picture of an Iraqi who "tried to extinguish a burning van on Baghdad’s Sadoun Street," and clearly failed. The next line: "The
incident appeared to be unrelated to the war..."
Late last year, Eric Egland wrote a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD titled "Six Steps to Victory". The plan was based on Egland's service in both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as his prior experience in counterterrorism. Egland's strategy focused on increasing the effectiveness of American troops in Iraq and harnessing the vast untapped resource of the American public to support the troops in their efforts. The steps...
1. Encourage innovation by emphasizing small-scale technological solutions and rejecting peacetime bureaucracy.
2. Improve pre-deployment training realism and abandon Cold War-era checklists.
3. Allow local commanders to buy what they need and nationalize the war effort by connecting the American public with the troops and their mission.
4. Strengthen intelligence sharing between tactical and national levels, and develop a national insurgent database.
5. Take the offensive by reducing predictable patterns on the ground while conducting operations that hunt, rather than chase, the enemy.
6. Accept the realities of warfare in the media age by decentralizing the sharing of information with both the Iraqi and the American public.
Egland expanded this plan into a book, The Troops Need You, America!, and he has been working to put his plan into action with public support at his website, troopsneedyou.com.
But yesterday, Egland took the next step--let's call it the Seventh Step. He announced that he's running for Congress from California's Fourth Congressional District. He will be challenging Republican Rep. John Doolittle, who is currently under federal investigation in relation to dealings with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Egland's set up a campaign website, and he's already been the subject of some favorable press in his home district.
Egland may know more about the war in Iraq, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism than the rest of Congress combined, but the best part is...he's running on a platform of fiscal discipline and "ethical leadership based on deeply-held conservative values." The WWS wishes one of our own the best of luck, and we will be keeping a close eye on his campaign.
The Washington Post reports this morning on an interview with House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn. While Clyburn covered a lot of ground, the item that has attracted the most attention is Clyburn's acknowledgment that a positive report from General Petraeus on Operation Phantom Thunder could be "a real big problem" for Democrats:
Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.
"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."
It's unfortunate that it requires political calculation for Clyburn to arrive at the correct position--t should be obvious that the right thing to do is to wait for the assessment of the commander on the ground.
That said, Clyburn's remarks are another indication that the debate on Iraq may be shifting. Some of the Blue Dogs have been consistently reluctant to second-guess the generals on the ground. For example, ten Democrats voted against a resolution calling for withdrawal from Iraq by April. It would take just 16 Democrats--in combination with the entire Republican caucus--to defeat a timetable for withdrawal. And given that even people like Keith Ellison and Jerry McNerney are seeing signs of progress, it might not be difficult for disciplined House Republicans to win a majority.
Ellison said that local leaders in Ramadi told him of how they partnered with U.S. and Iraqi military officials to virtually rid al-Qaeda from the city. Although the lawmakers had to travel in flak vests and helmets, "we did see people walking around the streets of Ramadi, going back and forth to the market..."
Ellison said he was particularly impressed watching Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, U.S. commander in the Anbar province, greeting people with "as-salama aleikum," meaning peace be upon you.
"And they would respond back with smiles and waves," Ellison said. "I don't want to overplay it. There were no flowers. There was no clapping. There was no parade. But there was a general level of respect and calm that I thought was good."
McNerney, the California congressman, also said he saw signs of progress in Ramadi and was impressed by Petraeus, who argued in favor of giving President Bush's troop surge strategy time to work.
And how are Clyburn's comments being greeted on the Left? So far, there's a lot of silence. But one liberal site is ignoring Clyburn's plain words in favor of something that fits the paradigm--where good news from Iraq is impossible, and people like Keith Ellison and David Petraeus can only be liars or dupes:
He's not saying that actual success in Iraq would be "a real big problem" for Democrats. He's saying that a deeply politicized piece of GOP propaganda from Petraeus disguised as an honest report would be a problem, because Petraeus is so well regarded.
Watch the interview and see if you agree.
From National Review: Turning Point?, by John McCain, Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Yon, and others.
From the Washington Post: Clyburn: House Democrats Could Split on War, by Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza.
From the New York Sun: Brown Disappoints Critics of Iraq War, by Nicholas Wapshott.
From Michael Yon: Bread and a Circus.
From HughHewitt.com: An Interview with John Burns, by Hugh Hewitt.
The Iraqi soccer team gave the nation a reason to celebrate on Sunday with a victory over Saudi Arabia in the Asia Cup final. There were no major attacks reported during Sunday celebrations, and Iraqi Security Forces killed a suicide bomber and defused another car bomb in Baghdad. Last week's victory in the semifinals was followed by two brutal attacks by al Qaeda in Iraq against civilians celebrating in the streets; over fifty were killed and 130 wounded in twin suicide car bomb attacks. The Iraqi security forces in Baghdad learned the lessons from last week's attacks, and a traffic ban was instituted on Sunday prior to the game's conclusion.
 The marketplace in Adhamiya, July 30, 2007. As Operation Phantom Thunder and the Baghdad Security Plan progress in Baghdad and the Belts, much anecdotal evidence indicates that the surge is having the desired effect--at least in the security sphere. The civilian death rate has been reduced by 36 percent since May, and U.S. combat deaths have dropped to an eight month low. While U.S. combat casualties are not a good indicator of success, they are significant in this instance as there are more troops in Iraq than there have been for the past two years, and U.S. forces are now operating outside their bases and are conducting major combat operations in al Qaeda, Mahdi Army, and insurgent strongholds.
Anbar, Diyala, and Babil
While Multinational Forces West launched a major operation in the Thar Thar and Karma regions in eastern Anbar province, another major operation was launched in the far west. Operation Mawtini was launched on July 26 in the town of Kubaysah near Hit. U.S. and Iraqi forces bermed the city and are now conducting clearing operations. To date, the operation has resulted in the capture of 124 suspected insurgents and the discovery of 38 weapons caches.
In the city of Husaybah in the Al Qaim region on the Syrian border, Iraqi police captured two al Qaeda operatives. One was a cell leader who "runs al Qaeda in Iraq activities in Husaybuh [and] is purportedly involved in the planning of future large scale attacks against Coalition Forces in the western Euphrates River valley." The other was a teacher who incited his students attack the Iraqi security forces. Further east in Habbaniyah, the Iraqi Army captured two insurgents responsible for a series of IED and small arms attacks and kidnappings. The two were also financing and providing intelligence for other insurgents in the area.
In Diyala province, Coalition and Iraqi operations continue to expand outward from the provincial capital of Baqubah, which has been the main focus of Operation Arrowhead Ripper. A two day operation in Miqdadiyah on July 25 and 26 resulted in seven insurgents killed and one captured. Another operation on July 26 to secure the Turki village resulted in eleven insurgents killed and 13 more captured. Al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents struck back in Baqubah, where car bombs killed three civilians and wounded 25 as they lined up to collect food rations. Insurgents also destroyed the tomb of the Prophet Daniel in the village of Wajihiya near Miqdadiyah.
In Northern Babil, the bulk of the recent operations have occurred in the Iskandariyah region under Operation Marne Avalanche. Since the operation began on July 16, seven insurgents have been killed and 60 captured, including six cell leaders.
Al Qaeda
The unrelenting daily raids against al Qaeda’s network continue. During a raid on the Jihad neighborhood in Baghdad on July 26, Iraqi security forces captured two members of an IED cell also thought responsible for numerous extra judicial killings. Sixteen al Qaeda suspects were captured during raids in Samarra and Tarmiyah on July 28. Coalition forces believe they captured an al Qaeda in Iraq sharia judge and his advisor during one of the Tarmiyah raids. Also on July 28, Iraqi security forces conducted a raid in Taji and captured two al Qaeda cell members responsible for attacks in Anbar province.
The July 29 and 30 operations against al Qaeda's command network in Anbar and Salahadin provinces resulted in eight al Qaeda operatives killed and 40 captured. Coalition forces struck in Tarmiyah, Karmah, Samarra and Baji during raids over the past two days. Additional raids on July 29 resulted in eight al Qaeda operatives killed and 22 captured during operations in Yusifiyah, Tikrit, Samarra, and south of Baghdad in northern Babil province.
One of the more important post-9/11 reforms was the creation of passenger watch lists and the effort to ensure that the names of all passengers flying to this country were disclosed before arrival. But while important to U.S. security, it has been a significant challenge to induce our partners to compile and transmit passenger lists before each flight arrives in the United States. Some nations threatened to balk, questioning whether the U.S. would really turn back planes whose passengers were not disclosed. And when the European Union signed an agreement to provide the data, it got tossed out by a judge in May.
Now the United States and EU have come to a 7-year agreement that will ensure that Passenger Name Records are transmitted to the Department of Homeland Security as early as 72 hours before scheduled flights:
“I am pleased to have signed an important agreement with the European Union today that will allow the Department of Homeland Security to continue using passenger name record data as an essential screening tool for detecting dangerous transatlantic travelers,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a press release. “Two separate agreements over the past three years have enabled our frontline personnel to rely on PNR data to disrupt terrorist travel, deny admission to individuals presenting security concerns, and dismantle human trafficking and narcotics smuggling networks.”
DHS will collect 19 PNR items from airlines generally 72 hours prior to a flight’s takeoff, with periodic updates coming in as they occur. The PNR items include: All provided contact information; payment and billing details; other names attached to the reservation; date of reservation; travel itinerary; names of travel agents; baggage information; and seat numbers.
According to DHS, this data is collected on about 87 million passengers annually. Information is analyzed to identify high-risk travelers, so that appropriate action can be taken. The agreement with the EU should ensure that this information sharing continues, and is immune to legal challenge.
Most of us remember the joke from the famous Robin Williams film Good Morning, Vietnam.
"Here’s Airman Adrian Cronauer with a little riddle for you. What's the difference between the army and the cub scouts? Ahhhnnn. Cub scouts don't have heavy artillery."
 Su-27s fly in formation above the Nashi campgrounds at Lake Seliger. The latest incarnation of the scouts in Russia does not have its own artillery--not yet, anyway--but they did have several Russian Air Force (VVS) jets at their disposal this past week. A flight of six Sukhoi Su-27 fighters--part of the VVS’s demonstration team--performed Tuesday for thousands of members of the youth group Nashi. The occasion was the group’s annual summer outdoor camp at Lake Seliger, a site some 350 kilometers from Moscow.
The Nashi summer camp has now been turned into campaign stop and political pulpit for major figures in the Russian government--hence the willingness of the powers-that-be in the Kremlin to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost to put on the Su-27 aerial display for the event.
The six aircraft had to fly a full three hours to reach the site of the Nashi camp, put on a one-hour show and then return to their base at Lipetsk. VVS officials would not provide any cost figures for the show they put on, but one of Russia’s most well-known test pilots, Magomed Tolboyev, told Obshaya Gazeta in Moscow that it would cost at least $216,000. This is based on a figure of $12,000 per flight hour to operate the Su-27, which consumes 5 to 6 tons of aviation fuel per hour. Aviation fuel costs about 20,000 roubles ($790) per ton, and this does not include the additional expense of airport landing and takeoff fees and air traffic control charges.
Nashi has been equated by some Russian political spokesmen with this country's Boy Scouts, but the history of the organization suggests that it is every bit the captive youth brigade of the regime in power, just as youth movements were vehicles for political indoctrination during the Soviet period.
Russia is one of the few nations where the scouting movement has never been allowed to establish a branch, having been banished in the early 1900s. During the Soviet era, the equivalent of the Boy and Girl Scouts was the Komsomol. Komsomol was the acronym for the Vsesoyuzny Leninskiy Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodyozhi or VLKSM, which was known in the west as the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, or "YCL" for short.
The YCL was a propaganda organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and was the boot camp on the path to success for those wanting to climb to the top of the political pyramid in the old USSR. Those wanting to become members of the Party had to generally spend a good portion of their youth in the Komsomol--spending hours performing official, unpaid "patriotic activities," such as putting up banners and posters before major holidays, in order to demonstrate their worthiness to become card-carrying Communist party officials.
Since the fall of the USSR and the end of the need for the pervasive indoctrination that goes along with a communist-style dictatorship, the Komsomol has faded into obscurity. It has, however, been somewhat replaced by the Nashi.
Nashi takes its name from the full title of the organisation, Molodezhnoye Dvizheniye, which translates as Youth Movement "Ours!" It was officially created in reaction to the spontaneous and widespread youth movement that took root in Ukraine during the 2004-2006 Orange Revolution, and which brought a pro-western president, Viktor Yushchenko, to power in Kiev at the expense of the candidate backed by Putin, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
KGB officers like Vladimir Putin, even when they become presidents, are about controlling events and making sure that political currents do not spin off and develop a momentum of their own. Unpredictability is bad, and solid, reliable support by the public is good. Nashi was created in order to make sure that there would be no repeat of the Ukrainian experience in Russia, and if there was any large-scale youth movement in Russia, that it would be slavishly pro-Putin.
Nashi is more than steadfast in its support of President Putin, but at the same time the group denies that it receives any Kremlin funding. However its finances are opaque at best, and the organization was originally put together by Vladislav Surkov, the deputy head of the presidential administration, and a man with more slush funds at his disposal than a U.S. labor union boss.
As testimony to these suspicions that there are more links to the Kremlin than the group would like to admit, Nashi spokeswoman Anastasia Suslova refused to answer questions about who would cover the costs of this special air display and further denied that the aircraft had been placed at the organization's disposal.
"We did not order them but reached an agreement with the Defense Ministry," she said by telephone from the Nashi encampment. She then suggested that this event was actually to the benefit of the VVS rather than Nashi in that the show would help promote the armed forces among young people--particularly the Nashi Russian Top Gun wanna-bes. "It is important that our young people can see this. It is really a spectacular show."
Surkov has been accused of creating Nashi not as a movement for young people, but as a group of shock troops--brownshirts without the shirts and the arm bands--that can be called upon to break up anti-Putin demonstrations. Some critics of Kremlin policy have even referred to the Nashi movement as the "Putin Jugend," a pejorative reference to the Hitler Jugend movement of the Third Reich. Others call them "nashisty," which rhymes with the Russian word for fascist, "fashisty."
Whatever the links and financial umbilical to the Kremlin, Russia’s main political leaders made it a point to visit the Nashi camp--all of whom received wide coverage on Russia’s state-controlled TV networks.
Russian President Putin used the coverage of the Nashi jamboree as a platform to lambast the United Kingdom for its demand to extradite former KGB office Andrei Lugovoi. Lugovoi has been charged with the radiation poisoning death in London of another former KGB office, Aleksander Litvinenko, who was living in exile and had been granted UK citizenship. Putin’s government has argued that the Russian constitution prevents extradition of its citizens, which has brought calls from London for the document to be amended.
"They are making proposals to change our Constitution, which are insulting for our nation and our people," Putin said in remarks that were broadcast from his countryside residence at Zavidovo on Channel One ORT, the largest and most widely-watched of the Russian TV networks. "It's their brains, not our Constitution, which need to be changed. What they are offering to us is a clear remnant of colonial thinking."
Presidential hopefuls Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev visited the camp two days earlier. Both men are first deputy prime ministers and are in a race with one another to see which will be Putin’s hand-picked successor. Both arrived casually dressed in blue jeans and came with the message that Nashi members should have as many children of their own as possible. Having their own children to care for them would relieve the ever-growing demands that Russia’s pension system puts on the state budget, they explained.
"When you are young, it's high time to think about old age by creating a full-fledged family that could take care of the aged," said Medvedev. "A pension is not a substitute for love and good relations inside the family." Ivanov then suggested that "if you raise regular children, they will help you when you grow old so you won't need a pension." In Russia the idea is "no elderly left behind"--that is as long as it comes out of the pockets of private families and not the government.
It is hard to imagine a U.S. presidential candidate committing the political suicide of advocating higher birth rates in order to find a means to help bail out Social Security, but very little about Russian presidential politics resembles the real world of democracy. What’s more, no one in the Nashi organization suggested that the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the Su-27 air show might have been better spent aiding some of the poor and elderly--many of whom cannot even afford to spend the pennies that most regular medications cost in Russia.
But, the function of Nashi is not to question policy proposals that make no sense. It is to provide unquestioning loyalty to the Kremlin and to harass--with brute force if necessary--the "evil" forces that threaten Russia. And what are those evils? Just ask Sergei Markov, a political analyst with friendly ties to the Kremlin.
"The threat of lawless revolutions such as those in Georgia and Ukraine hangs over Russia," he said. "People have to be on the side of good, not evil." Ukraine and Georgia are "evil" regimes, then--and a government that murders its critics, political opponents, and investigative journalists, while tolerating the worst possible brutalities within the lower ranks of its military service, is "good."
Perhaps the people that call Nashi the "Putin Jugend" have a point.
When the Columbia Journalism Review solicits donations, it explains its mission like this:
We are dedicated to defending quality journalism, which has many enemies and challenges these days. Our best weapons are deep analysis and investigation, and these tools can be expensive. We rely on people like you to help us produce the kind of magazine and website that can make a difference.
This description is hard to square with CJR's own coverage of the Scotty Beauchamp story, which ran under the headline "Why do conservatives hate the troops?"
CJR does not examine the complexities and challenges of pseudonymous writing, or the fact that the New Republic has failed to produce any corroboration for Beauchamp's account, or the delicacy of fact-checking spouses of your own employee. Instead, CJR writer Paul McCleary attacks milbloggers for being chickenhawks.
How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.) While there are some very legitimate questions about what Beauchamp wrote, nothing, it's worthy of note, has been proved false yet. But that hasn't stopped the sharp knives of a slew of bloggers from coming out.
McCleary clearly has a lot to learn, starting with an understanding of what a milblog is and the experiences of those who write them. (Hint: mil is short for military.) CJR's donors may want to ask for a refund.
Update: McCleary has come in for some well deserved ridicule at Little Green Footballs, Blackfive, baldilocks, and Riehl World View.
Update II: Paul McCleary has responded to the WWS and others with this note:
I really walked into this one.
I actually spend a lot of time on milblogs. I was careless in my choice of wording when I wrote the piece. What I meant was the whole community of blogs that have sprung up in the same universe as milblogs -- Hugh Hewitt, etc., who act tough about the war, but have never served, and have never left the comforts of their air-conditioned offices to see what might be going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. I was reacting to the constant drumbeat of personal information they have been posting about Beauchamp, including what he did in college, etc., that don't really have anything to do with the story. That said, my point was pretty sloppy.
I've written a lot about milblogs, actually: Interviewed Matthew Currier Burden for CJR, as well as a couple soldiers who were blogging for the New York Times. I've also spoken to, and exchanged emails with guys like Yon and Roggio and such, and I blogged when I was an embedded reporter in Iraq back in '06, which doesn't make me a milblogger, but hey, it's something, I guess.
Like I said, I really stepped in it because I didn't take the time to clearly define what I was talking about.
Color me unimpressed, but I'll let Mudville Gazette's CDR Salamander respond:
Mr. McLeary is too focused on discrediting the messenger (the old 'Chickenhawk' tactic) than the message. If one served or not makes little difference on the validity of one's argument or story - it is the substance of the product.
Blackfive's Laughing Wolf and baldilocks echo the same sentiment. I'm just enjoying the sweet irony of milbloggers giving the Columbia Journalism Review a badly needed lecture on how one sets about making an argument.
In an attempt to discredit the O'Hanlon/Pollack piece on the success of the surge (commented on here earlier today by my colleague Mike Goldfarb), bloggers on the left are trying to depict the two as long-time supporters of the war. Glenn Greenwald, in particular, assembles an array of quotes (amidst 4 updates and some 4,000 words) from O'Hanlon showing his optimism about the mission in Iraq as late as May, 2004. To give a sense as to just how long ago that was, it was before the rise of Moqtada al Sadr, before the withdrawal of Spanish troops, and before the transfer of authority to the new Iraqi government. In other words, it's been a long time since O'Hanlon could be classed as the sort of supporter that Greenwald seeks to make him out as.
Be sure to read Tom Maguire on this topic. He does a better job than Greenwald in showing how O'Hanlon and Pollack got to where they are today. Maguire notes that with the ever so slight improvement in polls on Iraq, and the good news on the ground, "the Dems need to pin down Bush's defeat before it slips away from them."
In related news, the House will again vote this week on one or more proposals designed to embarrass Republicans with regard to Iraq--without actually withdrawing funds or ending the mission:
The raft of Iraq votes is the latest installment of the Democrats’ political strategy, which calls for using floor votes to demonstrate their commitment to bringing U.S. troops home while forcing Republicans to either support them or risk voters’ anger by voting against the measures. With Democrats’ core supporters restless over the party’s role in ending the war and Congress’ standing with the public at historic lows, the political pressure on Democrats is greater than ever. The pre-recess Iraq votes are an opportunity to relieve it, if only temporarily...
Party unity is under a strain over the Democrats’ latest troop-withdrawal proposal, by John P. Murtha, D-Pa., the outspoken anti-war chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. His measure would require a pullout to begin 60 days after the measure’s enactment but would not set a deadline for completing it.
A number of liberal Democrats are not happy with Murtha’s amendment because it does not establish a firm deadline for the pullout of U.S. troops.
The Congressional leadership could move to rescind the funds they provided for the war earlier this year. Such a measure has as much a chance of being enacted as any other proposal currently put forward, but it would actually accomplish what they claim to favor. The only downside: it would remind the Democratic base that it was this Democratic Congress that funded the war, and thus would expose them to a more obvious charge of hypocrisy.
But ending the war is more or less a moral imperative for the Democratic leadership, right? Surely they won't be scared by the prospect of being labeled hypocrites--or by fact that this is "a war we just might win"?
From the New York Times: A War We Just Might Win, by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack.
From the American Spectator: The Peculiar Private, by John Tabin.
From the Wall Street Journal: General Petraeus Needs Time, by Peter Wehner.
From Contentions: Anti-Anti-Anti-Missile Defense, by Gabriel Schoenfeld.
From Middle East Journal: Baghdad Raid Night, by Michael Totten.
 Iraqis celebrate their national team's victory in the Asia Cup. Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse
Lefty blog responds: "the celebration images serve the Administration strategy of justifying an occupation and a war."
 Bulgarian medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with
HIV arrive at Sofia airport on Tuesday. (Nikolay Doychinovn/Reuters TV) During his recent presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy promised to be the candidate of change, someone who was committed to breaking up France’s sclerotic political system and over-regulated economy. In foreign policy, too, Sarkozy vowed to make France "a shining city upon a hill," a beacon of hope and a staunch defender of freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world. In this context, it seemed to be both smart politics and good morals when the media savvy Sarkozy (who never seems to miss an opportunity to make a splash) appointed Socialist politician Bernard Kouchner, the internationally respected co-founder of French humanitarian NGO "Doctors Without Borders," as his new foreign minister in May. However, barely two months into his five-year term, it appears that President Sarkozy is personally committed to a foreign policy agenda primarily driven by narrowly-defined French national interests, thus leaving his more idealistic foreign minister in the dust.
On Wednesday last week, Sarkozy visited with Libyan homme fort (even the French employ this euphemistic code-word for dictator) Col. Moammar Gadhafi and signed various, wide-ranging bilateral cooperation agreements in critical areas such as defense, health, the fight against terrorism, and civilian nuclear power. In fact, Sarkozy’s plane landed in Tripoli less than 24 hours after his wife Cecilia had left the Libyan capital together with six Bulgarian medical workers who were released from a Libyan prison in what turned out to be major photo-op for France’s telegenic first lady.
Under the terms of the Franco-Libyan nuclear deal, Sarkozy has agreed to provide Col. Gadhafi with an atomic reactor to be used for powering a desalination plant. In return, Libya will provide France’s nuclear power giant Areva with much-needed uranium. It comes very handy that Col. Gadhafi has about 1,600 tons of uranium left over from his country’s clandestine nuclear weapons program abandoned in 2004. Sarkozy’s nuclear deal with Col. Gadhafi--for many years a key sponsor of international terrorism--was criticized both in France and abroad. France’s anti-nuclear coalition, "Sortir du Nucleaire," accused Sarkozy of handing over nuclear technology to Libya in exchange for the nurses. "Civilian and military nuclear are inseparable," the French NGO said in a statement. "Delivering ‘civilian’ nuclear energy to Libya would amount to helping the country, sooner or later, to acquire nuclear weapons."
In Germany, leaders from all political stripes have also strongly condemned Sarkozy’s unilateral nuclear dealings with Col. Gadhafi. Reinhard Bütikofer, the usually cool-headed chairman of Germany’s Green Party, accused Sarkozy of pursuing a foreign policy based on "reckless, nationalistic actionism" that could facilitate Libya’s "attempt to get its hands on nuclear weapons." Ulrich Kelber, deputy Parliamentary Leader of Germany’s ruling left-wing SPD party (which supports the "Grand Coalition" with the conservative CDU/CSU parties headed by Chancelor Merkel), charged that "Sarkozy is primarily concerned about political grandstanding and the primitive pursuit of his own interests." According to Kelber, France’s decision to deliver nuclear technology to Libya "is certainly the wrong step," as one cannot predict who will come to power in Tripoli after the aging Col. Gadhafi. Conservative CSU foreign policy MP Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg declared that it would have been desirable that France coordinate the planned nuclear deal with its EU partners. According to zu Guttenberg, Paris "completely failed to take into account existing European concerns and reservations about the stability in Libya as well as in the neighboring region."
Finally, SPD German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler described the Franco-Libyan nuclear deal as "politically problematic," as it directly touches on Germany’s national security and economic interests. In fact, the French nuclear reactor is to be delivered by an Areva subsidiary in which German industrial giant Siemens has a 34 percent stake. Therefore, Deputy Minister Erler demanded that the planned nuclear reactor sale be the subject of high-level Franco-German political consultations. In this context, German politicians and energy experts are convinced that the best way to power the Libyan desalination plant would be to generate energy from solar thermal plants rather than from a nuclear reactor. Like in most other forms of renewable energy, German companies enjoy a leadership position in solar thermal technology. According to Deputy Foreign Minister Erler, Berlin had contacted Tripoli on several occasions to propose renewable energy solutions "Made in Germany"; however, the Libyan government never responded to these offers.
Official Chinese media have been conspicuously silent about a July 9th clash between the Chinese navy and Vietnamese fishing boats near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The Singapore newspaper the Straits Times reported on July 19th.
A group of Vietnamese boats fishing in waters near the Spratlys, 350km east of Ho Chi Minh City, came under fire from Chinese naval vessels on July 9. Military sources reported that one of the Vietnamese boats sank after the attack. One fisherman was killed and several others hurt… Military sources say two of Vietnam’s Russian-designed BPS-500 fast-attack craft raced to the scene but kept their distance due to the superior firepower of the Chinese ships.
According to Pham Gia Khiem, the Vietnamese deputy prime minister and foreign minister, the details of the incident are being investigated.
Despite official silence, the news about the shooting has been circulating in Chinese cyberspace, where there have been lively discussions about the latest clash near the Spratlys, the site of a bloody 1988 naval battle between the two countries. Internet bulletin board comments have ranged from smugness over how China “fixed” Vietnam, to calls for stronger military action against “the little apprentice.”
Earlier this year, in April, 41 Vietnamese fishermen were captured by Chinese naval ships in the waters near the Spratlys. They were released after fines were paid to the Chinese government.
Tensions in the area have been running high since March, when Hanoi announced a $2 billion natural-gas project near the Spratlys involving British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, and Petrovietnam. Beijing stated at the time that Vietnam’s action “infringed on China’s sovereignty, sovereignty rights and administrative rights.”
Chinese media and China’s online community were in agreement that the proposed natural-gas project was a challenge to Chinese sovereignty--a conspiracy by Vietnam to steal energy from China.
An April 22nd article on the Chinese navy's website accused Vietnam of “trying to follow Ukraine’s example” as it “gains Western support and assistance by taking advantage of Western hostility towards China.”
Other Internet postings recalled old grievances over previous Vietnamese “provocations,” including the 2004 Spratly tours organized by Vietnamese tourism officials, the renovation by Vietnam of an old airport on the Spratlys, and the participation of soldiers stationed on islands in Vietnam's 2002 National Assembly elections.
The earlier wave of belligerence in Chinese cyberspace subsided--though did not dissipate completely--with the June announcement that British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, and Petrovietnam are to halt the US$2 billion project.
As the economies of China and Vietnam continue to grow at breakneck speed, their search for resources to meet escalating domestic energy needs has given unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea an added strategic complexity. The fact that official Chinese media have been mum about the July 9th shooting suggests that Beijing may wish to prevent the incident from deteriorating into a threat to regional stability. But with energy security a main objective of China’s current foreign policy, it’s anyone’s guess when the next flare-up will be.
That according to Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack writing in today's New York Times:
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.
In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.
In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.
This analysis--that the military is making significant progress in Iraq, and that the political situation remains the major hurdle to success in that country--conforms well with much of the reporting that has come out of Iraq recently. But as Powerline's John Hinderaker points out this morning, the real fear is "that the leadership of the Democratic Party sees progress on the ground in Iraq as bad news, not good. I think many Congressional Democrats are committed to defeat, for political and ideological reasons."
Illustrating that point, one freshman Democrat, Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) literally walked out of a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday because she couldn't stand listening to the good news being delivered to that committee by General Keane (Ret.). Here's the transcript of her explaining her tantrum:
And I just will make some statements more for the record based on what I heard from -- mainly from General Keane. As many of us -- there was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while. So I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things -- after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.
But let me first just say that the description of Iraq as in some way or another that it's a place that I might take the family for a vacation -- things are going so well -- those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, here's the reality of the problem. And people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue.
Dealing with the reality of this issue means acknowledging the significant progress made by American forces under the command of General Petraeus. The only way the Democrats can now avoid that, it seems, is to cover their eyes and ears--or walk out of the room.
The main talking point for Democrats this week was that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales needs to go. After admitting he doesn’t care what David Petraeus has to say about Iraq this September ,Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold had this to say on Fox News Sunday about Gonzales:
“If the attorney general has committed perjury, or has made false statements to Congress, or has obstructed justice, certainly there should be a special counsel to determine if charges should be brought. Why wouldn’t you do this on such an important matter?”
On This Week, Utah’s Orrin Hatch countered that the Democrats should take a deep breadth and get back to the business of passing legislation.
“Look, to have a crime of perjury under the federal code … you’ve got to have a person who makes statements that he really does not believe are true, and frankly, nobody can say that about the testimony of Judge Gonzales.”
And Face the Nation featured two more Senators going on and on about the AG, but Bob Schieffer also helmed a segment on an issue that, if I had to guess, far more Americans actually care about: sports. Talking about the recent spate of scandals in the world of sports (Michael Vick’s indictment on drug fighting charges; Barry Bonds’s steroid-fueled assault on Hank Aaron’s home run record nearing its end; and the NBA official who may have gambled on games he himself was officiating), the Kansas City Star’s Jason Whitlock said that athletes are entertainers nowadays, and we shouldn’t put them on the pedestal that athletes once rested upon:
“I think that perhaps our expectations as fans, as citizens here in America, we have to change our expectations for athletes. They are entertainers and celebrities like the movie stars, and we need to treat them as such and not hold them to pretend like they have some integrity that other celebrities have. It's just not going to happen. I look at Kobe Bryant and the problems he experienced. He's basically a child TV star, and that's why he's been so immature. He got taken off to LA as a 17-, 18-year-old kid, given a bunch of money. What do you expect? This happens in TV, and we see these kids implode, and that's what's happened with Kobe Bryant. So I just think we need to recognize that the days of athletes holding such a high place in our society, those days are over. They've been hijacked by money and fame, and they're not coming back.”
Meet the Press featured a relatively boring all-panel episode, but there was one pretty handy insight offered by the Los Angeles Times’s Ron Brownstein. Speaking of the Democratic primary, Brownstein said,
“I disagree with both Dan [Balz, of the Washington Post] and John [Harwood, of the Wall Street Journal] that John Edwards winning Iowa would fundamentally change the race. It would change the race if he can--if he's able to follow it up in New Hampshire or thereafter, which is a challenge for him in particular, and for Southern candidates historically, in general, have not done well in New Hampshire. The Clinton campaign, I think, would rather have John Edwards do well in Iowa because of the belief that he is less likely to translate that into future success. Now, if Edwards crumbles in Iowa because of the difficulty of sustaining local support when he's not run--polling well nationally, the risk to Hillary Clinton is that Obama could win Iowa, and with the momentum from Iowa, going into New Hampshire, a state where he already leads among independent voters, though he trails among Democrats, that, it would seem to me, is a much greater risk to her than having John Edwards win and, in effect, potentially--unless he can translate it elsewhere--taking Iowa off the table, the way a Tom Harkin did. It--Iowa becomes much more of an all-or-nothing event for Hillary Clinton if John Edwards loses ground.”
When the WWS and others first raised questions about the New Republic's Baghdad Diarist, the lefty blogs were mostly silent. Only one even mentioned the controversy, and that was to say the Beauchamp's story "has a faint whiff of bullshit about it." But the left has since closed ranks--the revelation that Thomas is indeed a soldier seems to be proof enough for them that his stories are true. And they've arrived at this conclusion for two reasons.
First, there was the argument that "by the numbers...it would be shocking if there weren't random acts of cruelty happening in Iraq." In addition, lefty bloggers claimed that "so far, there has been nothing substantial brought forward to doubt his story."
Neither argument is very persuasive given that the question was never 'do bad things happen in Iraq', but rather 'did these bad things happen in Iraq'. And the New Republic, which seemed to do no fact-checking beyond making sure the story "smelled good," has failed to corroborate a single aspect of the piece. Further, the fact that no one has come forward to say they recall a badly disfigured woman at FOB Falcon as described by Beauchamp is substantial reason to doubt the private's account--we've heard from a lot of soldiers who served and are serving at FOB Falcon while Beauchamp's been there.
But now the DailyKos has put forward what is surely the most disturbing defense of the Baghdad Diarist--that those who are questioning Beauchamp's credibility do so as part of a larger effort of "intimidating whistleblowers." But Beauchamp is no whistleblower...he claims to have been a participant in every grotesque tale he recounts. If Lynndie England had penned an anonymous account of her crimes at Abu Ghraib, would the left have defended her as a whistleblower? Of course, not. They'd have demanded that she reveal herself and face the consequences of her actions.
If Beauchamp's story is true--and at this point we have no reason to believe the stories he's told are any different from the vivid fictional accounts of life in Baghdad that he was writing before he was deployed--then he is not a whistleblower, he's a disgrace to the uniform. A whistleblower is an employee who reports the misconduct of his employer--but the Army didn't order Thomas to ridicule an IED victim or to desecrate corpses. If Beauchamp did those things at all, he did them of his own volition.
So one wonders, why is it that the left not only wants the stories to be true, but wants to afford Beauchamp the same status as Joe Darby, the man who blew the whistle on the goings on at Abu Ghraib. The first question is fairly easy to answer--lefty bloggers believe the soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of the violence in Iraq, and Beauchamp's tales perfectly conform to that narrative. But I've failed to come up with an answer to the second question. Whether the stories are true or not, Beauchamp is no kind of hero.
Also read Bryan's column at Hot Air on the importance of this story.
Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus report on progress in Iraq:
He said the troop buildup has clearly established "tactical momentum," meaning its more aggressive efforts to secure volatile neighborhoods in Baghdad and areas around the capital are succeeding. The bigger issue is whether those gains will lead to a stability that can be sustained over time.
"The surge enables us to turn the tide just a bit in key places," the four-star general said in an hour-long interview.
Asked what more the U.S. military needs to accomplish to put Iraq on a steadier track, Petraeus ticked of a list that included furthering the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, which are intended to gradually take over for U.S. forces, beginning in areas where security and political conditions allow.
"We want to make much more progress against al-Qaida. We would like to build on the early momentum from local groups rejecting al-Qaida and militias," Petraeus said. We want to certainly not just sit on the violence in Baghdad neighborhoods and stabilize it but to create a way ahead that can be sustained by the Iraqis over time. We want to, where possible, frankly, to continue the process of handing off to Iraqis."
Crocker spoke more directly of his conviction that the current strategy should be maintained - and about his concern that if the United States were to withdraw now Iraq would be plunged into a humanitarian disaster.
Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi dismissed the possibility that she would hear news from Iraq that changes her mind about withdrawal:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said "the Democratic Congress will go on record--every day if necessary--to register a judgment in opposition to the course of action that the President is taking in Iraq" and to "fight for a redeployment of our forces as the central element of a new-direction strategy for Iraq."
From the Washington Post: Army Private Discloses He is New Republic's Baghdad Diarist, by Howard Kurtz.
From RealClearPolitics: Pvt. Beauchamp: In Big Trouble Either Way, by Jack Kelly.
From TCS Daily: Three Inconvenient Truths About Iraq Right Now, by Peter J. Wallison.
From Middle East Journal: In the Wake of the Surge, by Michael J. Totten.
From the Danger Room: Stealth Jets for Evil Robot Duty: $25,000/hour, by David Axe.
Bonus Audio File: From NPR, New Beijing Exhibit Promotes China's Army.
 An Iraqi boy gives a thumbs-up to Coalition and Iraqi Army Soldiers who provided the children in his town with toys and school supplies. (U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Bowen, 3-4 Cav.)
When the mainstream press first picked up the story of "Scott Thomas", aka Pvt Scotty Beauchamp, New Republic editor Frank Foer told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that
"The Standard raises some important questions about the piece, and we're investigating them.'
'Who is "Scott Thomas"?' was not one of those questions we asked 10 days ago. Instead, they were as follows:
Does anyone who has served at FOB Falcon remember hearing about or seeing the humiliation of this woman? Do they know her name and how we might get in contact with her to confirm the author's account of the events that day?
Is anyone familiar with a combat outpost a few miles south of the Baghdad airport where a mass grave of Iraqi children was discovered? What about the other parts of the story? And does anyone else know of Bradleys careening wildly through the streets of Baghdad?
Those questions remain unanswered by either the New Republic or the now revealed author of the Baghdad Diarist, Beauchamp. Still, Foer tells Kurtz in today's Washington Post that
"It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."
The only agenda we have as regards Beauchamp is the truth of his allegations. Foer stated a week ago that his magazine had launched an investigation and already had "nothing to undermine--and much to corroborate--the author's descriptions." But the magazine has yet to produce anything to corroborate Beauchamp's descriptions.
Meanwhile, bloggers and readers have cast further doubt on every element of Beauchamp's narrative, and the military has launched its own investigation. The only question left to be answered is whose rigorous fact-checking will get to the bottom of the story first, the New Republic's or the U.S. Army's?
Recommended reading on Scotty Beauchamp:
Dean Barnett
John Podhoretz
Outside the Wire
Ace of Spades
Hot Air
Little Green Footballs
Charles Krauthammer offers a strong column today on Barack Obama's national security naivety:
For Barack Obama, it was strike two. And this one was a right-down-the-middle question from a YouTuber in Monday night's South Carolina debate: "Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?"
"I would," responded Obama...
Obama enthusiasts might want to write this off as a solitary slip. Except that this was the second time. The first occurred in another unscripted moment. During the April 26 South Carolina debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaeda strike on two American cities.
Obama's answer: "Well, the first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response -- something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans."
This was a serious mistake. As I pointed out over here though, there's a bigger problem. It's bad if Obama does not understand the significance of having diplomatic relations with the U.S., and engaging in summitry. It is a grave error to believe that our adversaries on the world stage want the same thing the United States wants.
Stepping up our talks with Iran will not boost the cause of stability and democracy in Iraq--at least by itself. Iran does not seek that. Iran likely seeks the establishment of a pro-Iranian Shia-led regime, or it may just seek the status quo: instability. Even if President Obama were to welcome Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Camp David, Iran would still oppose the establishment of a secular, pluralist regime in Baghdad.
And Hugo Chavez seeks to establish himself as leader of an anti-Washington bloc of Latin American countries. This ambition goes beyond George Bush; he disagrees with the U.S. goal of encouraging the continued development of free-market democracies in Latin America. If Obama thinks that Chavez is going to turn over a new leaf merely because leadership in Washington has changed hands, he's in for a disappointment.
And it's mistakes such as these that give the GOP candidates hope for 2008. Each of the leading Democrats has one or more flaws that might prove fatal. For Obama, it's inexperience and a lack of understanding of national security. Expect the Hillary machine--on the strength of articles such as Krauthammer's--to argue that Obama can't win the general election, and to build her advantage over her nearest rival.
Be sure to check out Ed Morrissey as well, who shows why Barack Obama is like Tom Hagen. It could be worse for him of course; at least he's not Fredo.
As usual, Confederate Yankee provides the best wrap-up of the days events. Ace has broken his own major story today, and finds himself in a beef with the Corner's John Podhoretz for his troubles. Hot Air and Michelle Malkin are also digging into Beauchamp's relationship with TNR.
Elsewhere, Riehl World View is putting together a nice collection of Beauchamp's previous clips, which as we pointed out below, do little to support his claim that he now finds himself in "an ideological battle that I never wanted to join." And a veteran of the 1-18th Infantry defends the honor of his former unit from Beauchamp's charges.
Dean Barnett finds something to pity in this "not-particularly-reliable narrator":
The war-bound artiste had a decided predisposition to what kind of stories he was going to tell. Following in Swofford’s and Stone’s footsteps, he was going to document the absurdity and barbarism of war. It’s a measure of Beauchamp’s immaturity that he decided what his autobiographical story would be before he actually lived it. This is one seriously pitiable individual.
And Reason magazine's Hit and Run blog wants to court martial Beauchamp "for pretentious writing unbecoming an enlisted man."
Still, as much information has been brought to light today about the Baghdad Diarist, the most important questions remain unanswered. Did Beauchamp report accurately what he had seen and done in Iraq, or is his work embellished or outright fiction?
We do know that Beauchamp worked on Howard Dean's presidential campaign, that he edited a liberal student magazine in college, and that he marched with pro-choice demonstrators in 2004. Further, we know that he enlisted in the military "just to write a book" about his experience--not the noblest of reasons, but neither does it discredit his work. Writing under a pseudonym, though, did prevent readers from understanding that his perspective was not merely that of a soldier on the ground, but of a political activist.
Still, while Beauchamp is entitled to his opinions, he isn't entitled to his own facts. This cliche is a favorite on the left, and they ought to hold one of their own to the same standard. There remains a shortage of corroborating witnesses or evidence, and his putting his name to the story does nothing to fill that void--if anything, his penchant for creative writing as revealed on his blog only casts further doubt. Beauchamp was, after all, writing vivid accounts of the hardship and suffering on the mean streets of Baghdad before he even arrived in the country...
On the street below the mans brown face dissolves into a thick red mist. The lights in the cities houses shut off in unison. Elecricity rationing. Water rationing too. You ever tried to survive for more than a few hours in hundred and twenty degree weather without water? In the streets the kids bodies start convulsing in semi-orgasmic rhythms. Their pants fill up with shit and piss and the smart ones sneak out to the fields to hidden caches of water jugs and trinkets of candy from the american soldiers.
"See that sarge, kids digging or something?"
"Well, better safe then sorry. Cap his ass Leclaire."
"You sure sarge?"
"Well, im either right or wrong. And if I'm wrong im still right because i could have been right even though i was wrong."
They watch the sliver of red sun fall slower and slower, silhouetting the little barbarians falling bodies. The Chaplain turns and walks back towards the FOB in contemplation. Gotta rack out early tonight. Handing out bibles in the marketplace tomorrow, early. Unintelligible rap blares out of the open doors of the HUMVEE.
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