Isn't it sort of disappointing that one has to spend this much time telling journalists, and journalist's most ardent supporters, why it is important that journalists don't lie? Isn't that a pretty good sign that something has gone completely, hysterically wrong in that field, and that, maybe, it is far past salvaging??

We always used to say if a soldier isn't bitching, then he isn't a soldier. Having spent time in combat zones myself protecting an ungrateful populace, I can identify with the sentiment of those quoted. I also know that this kind of feeling comes and gos depending on that days morale, and can quickly flip either way at the drop of a hat. A good mission will drive morale up, a bad one will drive it down. Its a very fickle response, and this is something the media doesn't understand or cover really. Only those of us who have spent time in the suck will understand.

I really wish the military publications did a better job. Stars and Stripes, Navy/Marine/Army/Air Force Times all have done their services a major dis-service by refusing to really cover the military in a fashion that helps to educate the public, and inform its members. I guess a lot of that has to do with who owns those publications now. If you want to get really good information, you have to tap into the military news productions, but those never see the light of day in the public news sector, perhaps it would be a good idea for the government to have its own cable channel that had all of the various military news organizations do their daily productions for the public.

Many people are fully unaware that Journalist is a MO in the military. In the Navy you can actually specialize as a journalist, its a rate you can put in for, and they do a wonderful job doing PR work, as well as daily reporting. Too bad their reports are not picked up by the wire services, etc. It would do a great deal of good for the public.

Corvan: Isn't it sort of disappointing that one has to spend this much time telling journalists, and journalist's most ardent supporters, why it is important that journalists don't lie?

Your question pretty much answers itself.

Sometimes wars have to be fought...and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they are misadvantures. And the current occupation of Iraq is pretty far from war fighting. Where's the front? How much ordnance goes on target? This is nationbuilding bullshit from the Clinton years.

We need truth to see our way through this, and truth is ambiguous, morally complex, and fits no one's set agendas.
For 4 years, the truth for many news organizations, and right wing blogs, was how well everything as going in Iraq. Including this very site, you could get information on how small reconstruction efforts were going on while dozens(hundreds at peak?) of people were dying every week, and massive hits to the infrastructure and civilian populace were going on. And the left blogs ignored the successes, and challenges, and improvements.

And yet, every week went by declaring that things were ok, and under control. That Al-Qaeda was the major disruptive force (yet under control), and there was no major civil resistance. Or now, that the escalation is a success because violence is down(disregarding the fact that the escalation was to provide cover for political reconciliation). And this truth was propagated both by journalists who couldn't or wouldn't challenge information, and the leaders of our country.

The truth has meant so very little over the past 4 years (5, if you want to include the run-up). And now, it is important?
The truth is nothing more than something to be used if it meets what you believe, and to be ignored if it doesn't.

Beauchamp is important because he's our only example of on-the-ground disinformation that hurts the war effort by damaging public morale.

We have lots and lots of examples of miltary BS that hurts the war effort. As an early example, consider the bombing and ground attack on Makr al-deeb in early 2004. A wedding party, over a dozen children and nearly a dozen women killed out of 3.5 dozen killed. We announced that there was no evidence of a wedding, no cake, no decorations, no musical instruments, few women, etc. Hardly any women and no children killed. They were insurgents, dammit, they had some syrian money! Etc etc. When our reports obviously conflicted with what the media saw, we announced there would be an investigation. What do you think the investigation concluded? Did it say there was nothing wrong and the troops followed the ROE, so there was no problem? You know it.

We get false reports from iraq daily that purport to say how well things are going. Beauchamp wrote like he was disaffected, for publication, and he was the only one. That's why he's important. If we're going to complain about false reports from iraq that hurt the war effort, we need him. He's just about all we've got. Assuming he was lying, for which we have no evidence. Assuming the things he supposedly was lying about were in any way worse than the usual run of experience, which is mostly not claimed. Blase about dead bodies? Killing dogs? Routine. Callous about a disfigured woman, that one sounds like it's uncommon.

So, we're averaging 70 urban airstrikes a day, when COIN strategy says you don't do that. Let's not talk about that, though. Let's talk about Beauchamp saying he insulted a woman and nobody objected. Sure, he hurt the war effort worse than 70 airstrikes a day.

heh.

The Beauchamp story is important because we have a media that allows, intentionally or accidentally, false stories through that fit into its biases. From fabricated or exaggerated stories by "Jamil Hussein" of AP, to photoshopped "photographs" of Reuters, and to false "diaries" of soldiers, this is happening enough to not be random.

The story is also important because it illustrates a far too common hypocrisy of the media wherein they simply have no interest in transparency of their own conduct.

JT, - no, that's why it matters - a lot - whether Beauchamp's stories were true.

A.L.

Apparently it's time for The L.A. Times to step in and explain the Beauchamp business to everybody - in a tattered synopsis that's replete with errors - and to accuse the "pro-war blogosphere" of stonewalling the story that nobody cares about(!)

There are questions to be asked, though you won't see them in the pro-war blogosphere:

• Who leaked the documents to Drudge and why, among all the documents the Army must have collected in this case, was one of them a transcript that could be used to put Foer and Scoblic in a bad light?

• Why did Drudge take the documents down and why hasn't he explained his reasons for doing so?

• Why no original link to the Memorandum, the only document that would have contained evidence?

• Why has the Army kept Beauchamp in Iraq where it can control access to him and he's beyond the reach of any other jurisdiction?

• Why hasn't the Army complied with the New Republic's FOI request?

Oh, and that's not all. Those who have suggested Beauchamp might grow into a good soldier are trying to dodge the issue!

Thursday, bloggers sympathetic to the war began circulating the idea that Beauchamp has suffered enough, that he now has demonstrated a willingness to be "a good soldier" and should be given "a second chance." Michael Yon, the ex-Green Beret who blogs as a "citizen journalist" from inside Iraq, even happened to encounter Beauchamp's commanding officer, who said the private should be left alone and allowed to honorably complete his service. Who knew the Army was awash in such compassion? [Readers must supply their own sarcastic sneer - G.]

Why the attempt to shift attention off the alleged fabulist, Beauchamp, and onto the editors of the magazine, who after initially supporting the invasion, have turned decisively against the war?

Somebody is playing politics with Scott Thomas Beauchamp, but it isn't the editors of the New Republic.

JT, that's the "Don't Worry About the Man Behind the Curtain" defense. Its unconvincing for you to wave your arms about previous stories to distract from this one.

Odd, my #10 was written after JT's #11.

Ah, JT's "1:48 AM" actually predates my comments.

Haditha is important, because we learned (one hopes) not to trust Tim McGirk's reports on that of his supposed impartial Iraq witnesses; just like his Taliban witnesses over in the NorthWestfrontier. His preference for the Waziri over the Kharotis in a seemingly balanced National Geographic piece in Nov. 2004, was a small sign of this tendency. Abu Ghraib is important
to show the difference between its management in the Saddam era, where it was a slaughterhouse out of "Saw" and the misconduct of a few stressed out soldiers. It wasn't worth a Moebius loop lasting for a month; which ended up
on Al Jazeera and AQ incitement sites 24/7. Fallujah is important because in our absence it became a tiny Salafi city state; an effort that cost much blood and treasure to rectify. They're important, but not in the way you think they are.

Which brings me to the insight I received from Trofimov's Grand Siege of Mecca book referred earlier. Details I didn't know the prophets Juhayman Uteibi and Mohammed Abdallah Quahtani had recruited their small army from across the Middle East, and even some quarters in America. He was encouraged to act by the specter of the abandonment of the Shah by the US govt; in the previous year.This would also draw in the Soviets into Afghanistan. He had
been freed from prison due to the intercession of Prince Nayef; interior minister who would later deny his own countrymen were involved in 9/11. He did this at the behest of Sheik Bin Baz, mentor to Mr. Uteibi, and the one who would craft the fatwa to allow US troops on Saudi soil. Saudi press
management was such; that many outsiders didn't know their own people were besieging the mosque. This lead to allegations of US, and Israeli involvement which provoked disturbances as far a field as Pakistan & Libya. Not for the first time were the security services of Saudi Arabia proven inadequate to the task. Elements of the French GIGN proved to be crucial in ending the standoff. In the interim a small revolt among the Shia in the oil rich region of Dhahran, AbQuaiq and Ras Tanura also broke out; provoked by a Iraqi Shia; Sheik Maqdeissi who would a generation later, prove to be the mentor to the very Salafi Musab al Zarquawi. The upshot of the confrontation was the Saud's aquiescing to the more militant activist, which would give us the likes of Osama bin Laden, and the more militant Wahhabi domestic network, who gained experience in Afghanistan, Chechnya & Iraq, whose handiwork was seen in 2003 and 2004; and was all to chillinglyrecreated in the film "The Kingdom" Almost none of this has permeated the wider media; meaning it will seem shockingly new when, not if it happens again
Zarquawi

AL, Beauchamp's stories were trivial.

The Haditha story, where we decided it was proper and correct to kill civilians on weak suspicion of insurgent activity, that one mattered.

The Makr-al-Deeb story where we decided that it was fine to lie to the media even when they could check independently, that one was important.

Abu Ghraib was important. We mistreated civilian prisoners -- suspected of insurgent activity -- both sexually and in religious terms, and then we dumped the blame on MPs who were peripheral to the effort but who took some of the pictures.

Fallujah was important. Najaf was important. Big lies.

Beauchamp is important only because he gives us a scarecrow we can use to ignore the important stories.

Alphabet City has two other stories on the same neighborhood in Baghdad which illustrate Gabriel's point about the ebb and flow of morale.

Arguing ever more loudly that it is okay for journalists to lie so long as they lie about the right things in the right way is not more convincing. As a matter of fact the tin eared defenses I've read here and else where on this sort of out right fabrication convinces me that lying might be an accepted practice in news rooms all over the country, and that there is a large audience for those lies...mostly, though not entirely, on the left.
Perhaps the media's current plight ( Haditha, Koran in the toilet, willie pete, TANG memos, staged car crash tests, Jayson Blair, Baathist and Hamas stringers, feauxtography, TNR-Steven Glass, TNR-Beachamp, Media Matters repeatedly, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, the bogus NBC story on the dragon skin armor, the out right worship of Arafat, the kissy face inteviews with Saddam, with Assad, with the President of Iran, CNN's sniper video, etc, etc.) Are simply a method of appealing to their market share. (i.e. People who can't tolerate reality and who demand that it go away.)

JT, that's the "Don't Worry About the Man Behind the Curtain" defense. Its unconvincing for you to wave your arms about previous stories to distract from this one.

Robin, we've had months of people waving their arms about this insignificant story to distract us from the others.

The main reason this story is important is that a bunch of right-wingers want it to be. They are using a handful of stories about media failure that tends to oppose the war, to help them ignore the massive media failure that ignores the reality that this war is lost.

AL, so I see that your primary concern over this Beauchamp silliness is that it is a potentially untrue set of images that is - in your opinion - typical of negative media stories harmful to the war effort.

You want more balanced reporting. This preseumably would contain stories that point out the positives as well as the negatives (afterall, I think we both agree that media should not be the propaganda arm of the government). You currently perceive that the negative reporting is overwhelming a paucity of positive reporting.

Some thoughts and questions come to mind:

1. what if the reality in Iraq really is overwhelming negative? Shouldn't the media's reporting reflect that?

2.How would you (or do you) know what the objective reality in Iraq is? It seems to me that you are premising on the belief that things in Iraq are actually much better than reported. Where does that belief come from if not certain media outlets (since you haven't been there and even if you had been you still wouldn't absorb the complete reality at all levels). If your belief is from media outlets then do we really have an imbalance in the media.

3. Do you have actual statistics to support your contention that most media stories are negative re; Iraq? Because I don't see it. I think it would important to this conversation to be able to cite stats saying (for example) 500 outlets writing stories about Iraq examined, avg 20 stories per outlet, 89.5% contained negative aspects, 63% half negative/half positive, 21% totally negative, etc because, otherwise we have all sorts of explanations for your perceptions that are only subjective (e.g. you have a son in the service and you strongly support the war. Therefore negative stories are just more salient to you; you tend to notice them more because they cause a strong emotional response). I am not saying this is the case, but it could be.

4. The soldier quoted in the WaPo; his could be a typical and persistent sentiment among the troops. Or his sentiment could be temporary and/or fairly unique. We don't know. Why isn't there something more scientific? Maybe better sampling? Maybe a poll of combat troops who have been discharged from the service. This is a failure of media for sure, but the failure cuts both ways. I can just as easily find an anecdote in a "right leaning" outlet where a soldier is quoted saying that every death - even his own - would be worth it if we'd stay the course and bring freedom, peace and hapiness to Iraq. Is that really any better? Again, the media is not meant to be the propaganda arm of the government.

Haditha is important, because we learned (one hopes) not to trust Tim McGirk's reports [....] Abu Ghraib is important to show the difference between its management in the Saddam era, where it was a slaughterhouse out of "Saw" and the misconduct of a few stressed out soldiers. [....] Fallujah is important because in our absence it became a tiny Salafi city state; an effort that cost much blood and treasure to rectify.

You are fantasticly missing the point.

It's COIN. We win by getting iraqis to support the iraqi government we support. Until we manage that we're going to have as many soldiers wearing body armor in iraqi temperatures as we can.

Makt-al-Deeb was important because it showed iraqis that we were ready to lie to the

Beauchamp is important only because he gives us a scarecrow we can use to ignore the important stories.
All of what you listed is the government creating lies and lying to it's people. This should be expected - not embraced, but expected. Yes, Beauchamp is trivial compared to Abu Ghraib.

This is about the media, even limited form journal media like TNR. You expect the government to lie, you expect the media to do a good job pursuing the truth. They did a passing job on this(from what they said), but not nearly good enough.

Are simply a method of appealing to their market share. (i.e. People who can't tolerate reality and who demand that it go away.)

Strange, since we're talking about the media's current plight.. I don't see anything in there about Fox News, or about the lie that was propagated about Al Gore claiming to invent the internet, Armstrong Williams, Monica Crowley, Gannon, Domenech.. Ah well, you must have run out of space.

Nice way to lump in Media Matters - nothing like just throwing in everyone you don't like.

Sorry, the cat jumped on my keyboard and posted for me.

Haditha is important, because we learned (one hopes) not to trust Tim McGirk's reports [....] Abu Ghraib is important to show the difference between its management in the Saddam era, where it was a slaughterhouse out of "Saw" and the misconduct of a few stressed out soldiers. [....] Fallujah is important because in our absence it became a tiny Salafi city state; an effort that cost much blood and treasure to rectify.

You are fantasticly missing the point.

It's COIN. We win by getting iraqis to support the iraqi government we support. Until we manage that we're going to have as many soldiers wearing body armor in iraqi temperatures as we can.

Makt-al-Deeb was important because it showed iraqis that we were ready to lie to them about bombing them, even when they could see the evidence with their own eyes. They figured out that we didn't care what they believed.

Abu Ghraib was important because it showed them that we were utter hypocrites and perverts who'd go right on committing perversions on iraqi prisoners, with no due process, even after the US public knew we were doing it. Note that most of the photographs weren't released, and none of the videos. The video of a US contractor raping an iraqi boy -- censored. That was a US contractor doing an interrogation, it wasn't the MPs after hours. The video of the US soldier having sex with a female iraqi prisoner -- presumed rape, not one of the soldiers charged. The trial was entirely about what US soldiers did, MPs who had the night shift, and not at all about what nonmilitary interrogators did during their shifts. The military didn't have authority over them. And it wasn't about what military interrogators did elsewhere. We said we weren't doing it even while we changed the rules slightly to do it a little bit different.

Fallujah was important because it showed iraqis that their sovereign government couldn't stop us from destroying an iraqi city. They said stop, we went right ahead. That set back iraqi trust in their government by at least 10 years.

Haditha was important because it demonstrated to iraqis that we had no interest in keeping them alive. We killed a bunch of innocent civilians -- women and children -- and first we lied about it and then we decided that we did it right. They knew all along we had that attitude, but we made it official.

You might want to argue about what the facts were in each case. Don't bother. Find an iraqi who wants to argue your positions and ask him how many iraqis take his side. Essentially everybody in iraq believes that we bombed an innocent wedding party and then our soldiers on the ground shot the survivors and we lied about it. They believe that we did and still do torture any detainees we consider "high value". They believe that we took very few prisoners while destroying an iraqi city and their sovereign government couldn't stop us. They believe that we routinely kill any iraqis we see after we have been attacked. When americans hear a story out of iraq we automaticly discount reports by iraqis, since we figure they're likely to be insurgents lying about stuff. But when iraqis hear the same story they automaticly discount what our military says. They think we lie a lot.

These beliefs on their part make our COIN activities very difficult. We have had some recent successes by helping iraqis go after AQI, the only group in iraq that's hated more than we are.

We utterly lost the media battle in iraq by 2005. Now we're fighting a rear-guard media battle in the USA, and not doing very well despite almost complete cooperation by the US media. I attribute most of that to US soldiers who come home and tell their friends what they've seen. Entirely unofficial and private. It stays out of the media but it trumps the media.

The market share the press seeks to preserve at all costs is apparent in the three previous posts. Why do I sense that the frenzied and silly nature of the left's defenses of the TNR is dictated more by their great distress that America might be winning this war (and that it is a war that needs to be fought) more than any partcular fondness for fact over fiction?
Should we see this as a tacit admission that the left, oh I'm sorry, the "moderate left", prefers to look to the politcal result of any particular report as oppsed to its accuracy, much as Pravda did in the past? I fear we should.
Gentlemen the postion you take here frankly says little about the TNR. (It is apparent to rational people able to tell themselves the truth that Foer has been lying for some time now.) And less about the war. Indeed it may take years to ascertain Iraq's effect on Iran Syria and all the rest. It does, however say a good deal about the ethics you embrace and bring to this conversation. None of it is good.

JT

"You might want to argue about what the facts were in each case. Don't bother. Find an iraqi who wants to argue your positions and ask him how many iraqis take his side."

That's exactly why controlling the story matters so damn much. When our press cycles endless images of those five events (and if I grant - which I don't - your take on them, that's an infinitesimally low rate of evildoing in the context of any war that's ever been fought. So the story becomes one that shapes the Iraqis perceptions of who we are and what we're doing. It becomes a weapon.

A.L.

avedis - good response, but...

You want more balanced reporting. This preseumably would contain stories that point out the positives as well as the negatives (afterall, I think we both agree that media should not be the propaganda arm of the government). You currently perceive that the negative reporting is overwhelming a paucity of positive reporting.

And, more important, because if it isn't factual, it can't hold up over time - see Union, Soviet.

Some thoughts and questions come to mind:

1. what if the reality in Iraq really is overwhelming negative? Shouldn't the media's reporting reflect that?

Well, one reason I've obsessed about numbers in a bunch of posts has been that if it were that bad, a lot more people would be dying. They don't seem to be. If it were that bad, the slices of normalcy that the Iraqi bloggers talk about (even Riverbend) wouldn't be there. So the irreducable facts don't support the overwhelmingly negative impressions that the media has given.

2.How would you (or do you) know what the objective reality in Iraq is? It seems to me that you are premising on the belief that things in Iraq are actually much better than reported. Where does that belief come from if not certain media outlets (since you haven't been there and even if you had been you still wouldn't absorb the complete reality at all levels). If your belief is from media outlets then do we really have an imbalance in the media.

No, it's from certain basic data like the fact that oil is being pumped - at some level - the rate of deaths is relatively low, some reconstruction is going on. At some level, all that data (from US government and other sources) could all be being falsified - but then we move into Giant Lizard territory.

3. Do you have actual statistics to support your contention that most media stories are negative re; Iraq? Because I don't see it. I think it would important to this conversation to be able to cite stats saying (for example) 500 outlets writing stories about Iraq examined, avg 20 stories per outlet, 89.5% contained negative aspects, 63% half negative/half positive, 21% totally negative, etc because, otherwise we have all sorts of explanations for your perceptions that are only subjective (e.g. you have a son in the service and you strongly support the war. Therefore negative stories are just more salient to you; you tend to notice them more because they cause a strong emotional response). I am not saying this is the case, but it could be.

Yeah, that'd be a fun project. I'll look around and see, but as it's something that smart people have been writing about for four years, I'm hard-pressed to think that it's a total myth.

4. The soldier quoted in the WaPo; his could be a typical and persistent sentiment among the troops. Or his sentiment could be temporary and/or fairly unique. We don't know. Why isn't there something more scientific? Maybe better sampling? Maybe a poll of combat troops who have been discharged from the service. This is a failure of media for sure, but the failure cuts both ways. I can just as easily find an anecdote in a "right leaning" outlet where a soldier is quoted saying that every death - even his own - would be worth it if we'd stay the course and bring freedom, peace and hapiness to Iraq. Is that really any better? Again, the media is not meant to be the propaganda arm of the government.

Well, I talked to a decent number of military folks for over a year doing charity stuff over there, and still talk to some of them. And thew picture is relatively consistent. There are a number of thoughtful, smart people in the Phil Carter camp - which I tsake very seriosuly, BTW, but they are outweightd by a larger number of equally smart, thoughtful people who see a path through this by just pushing forward (the far largest group takes neiuther position and just believes that fighting Bad People is an inherently good thing).

I've read enough military history and biography to know that line troops are seldom fanataically positive about what they are doing - nor should they be; the fanatical ones are murderers, not warriors.

And the role of the press in a free society in wartime is a damn complex thing - which I've written about a ton.

Mr. Thomas I find your allegation (totally false btw) about Haditha that it was "deemed proper to kill civilians on weak suspicion of insurgent activity" to be both deeply offensive and one that should require you to apologize to the brave Marines who's boots you are not fit to shine or carry.

Until YOU have been in combat facing men determined to kill you, you are not fit to judge what better men have done to survive. NO MARINE is required to die for YOUR political correctness nor concern for civilians over Marines. NO MARINE is required to die so you may feel morally superior.

Big surprise -- men being shot at by AQ will respond AS TRAINED and return fire, unlike Superman they don't have X-Ray vision and can't determine when AQ hides behind civilians. At any rate they are not required to die to save civilians. Nor should we ask this of them.

Peggy Noonan has your type pegged -- living your life through movies about Vietnam, sheltered in safe Suburbia, never facing a mortal threat to your life by men determined to kill you. You are in no position to judge NOR CAN YOU EVER JUDGE what men do in combat to survive. Those who can have determined the Marines face nothing more than a propaganda campaign by AQ. Thus dismissal of nearly all charges (and I expect the remainder will be dropped, except for the reporting up the chain of command).

Abu Graib was trivial (far worse as a matter of record was done in Pelican Bay where prisoners were subjected to disfiguring and crippling third-degree burns over 90% of their bodies). Fraternity Level hazing by poorly disciplined soldiers overseen by a pathetic, weak, fearful female Affirmative Action appointee (Karpinski is Exhibit A as to why Women have zilch place in the military and how Affirmative Action promotes incompetents).

What Beauchamp shows is the concerted and allied media effort by AQ and those who back them: TNR, Liberals, the Left. Outright lies and nonsense repeated and accepted as "truth" or "truthiness" by a pampered, socially isolated, clueless elite. Who expect Comic Book Superhero levels of perfectability in the US forces and scream "Nazis" when people are human and do what they have to in order to survive. Meanwhile I note yourself, Avedis, and Dave have been SILENT on AQ's abuses (as has TNR). OUR people are disemboweled, have their genitals cut off, drills into their arms and legs, and are beheaded when captured and you worry about panties on the head. From the usual suspects I hear nothing.

I don't have to ask who's side they are on -- I already know. It does not surprise me. The Left HATES America, not the least of which is us ordinary people "don't know our place" and don't kowtow to our "morally superior betters."

The main reason this story is important is that a bunch of right-wingers want it to be. They are using a handful of stories about media failure that tends to oppose the war, to help them ignore the massive media failure that ignores the reality that this war is lost.

A few years ago, when Saddam's regime collapsed (Thank Allah) rather more quickly than the left had hoped, leaving them caught awkwardly in mid-quagmire pose, I well recall how the "warbloggers" were sternly lectured against engaging in something called triumphalism, which leads to hubris and the pride that goeth before the fall, etc., and is furthermore insensitive to the feelings of people who are embarrassed when their country accomplishes something.

Then Strumpet Fortune rolled over on her belly, and we sank into an unpopular struggle with insurgent forces, the status and progress of which was difficult to gauge from any perspective, in or out of the country. But the left read the goat's guts loud and clear: THE WAR WAS LOST, which meant that they - beyond all hope - had won a glorious victory. At this point, they quite forgot the advice they had given about triumphalism.

We are now into the third or fourth year of leftist triumphalism, and the crowing has been going on around the clock. Every corpse of the sixties has been resurrected to crow, too. All kinds of masks have come off.

And now it's all coming apart. There was supposed to be a huge political payoff, but instead they got Pelosi and more Bush. The left and liberal media has utterly humiliated themselves over this war, and their blog rivals have thrived. There was supposed to be an international tidal wave against the United States, but apart from the Spanish and some repellent dictators, our traditional allies have held up. The French are closer to our views than theirs.

And they have utterly failed to make a dent in the war. Their "leaders", if one may call them such, have tried everything they can think of, and they have failed every time.

They are now in the denial phase that they have accused everyone else of being in. It will be the loudest denial phase in history. It's not fair that we're winning something that they had in the bag as lost. It's not fair that they can't cash in their big stack of chips.

Granted, the bulk of the public is still on their side, even if the facts no longer are. But when they turn their hostility against the soldiers, who have refused to be the dehumanized losers they want them to be, the public is not with them. The polls may turn many times before this is over, but that fact will not change.

J Thomas, why is it that you seem to have a different view of history than what happened? Is it because of the media stories that you incorrectly believe are objective? An example:

Fallujah was important because it showed iraqis that their sovereign government couldn't stop us from destroying an iraqi city. They said stop, we went right ahead. That set back iraqi trust in their government by at least 10 years.

This is a quite puzzling assertion on your part because in fact, the initial assault on Fallujah was halted in part because of the urgings of the Iraqi government - together with media driven myths about the casualties in Fallujah. It was later, after it became clear that leaving Fallujah in the hands of islamist extremists did not stop the violence inflicted upon its inhabitants was the attack on Fallujah resumed.

This is about the media, even limited form journal media like TNR. You expect the government to lie, you expect the media to do a good job pursuing the truth.

How old are you? It used to be, AP would send out a story and different newspapers would cut different parts according to their bias. If you looked at 3 or 4 of them you could usually get most of the original report.

I've never been involved in anything the media reported where they did a good job of pursuing the truth. Usually they just ran with a story that would make easy sense to their audience, and ignored everything that didn't fit.

_The market share the press seeks to preserve at all costs is apparent in the three previous posts. _
Do you mean TNR or all journalists? TNR doesn't care (which should be evident by now) - they had 30k subscribers last year, they'll have 30k subscribers next year.
Maybe you should also consider it to be the fact that some journalists succumb to both their own ego and laziness, and the old-school editors aren't prepared to deal with this in a world of instant challenge.

Why do I sense that the frenzied and silly nature of the left's defenses of the TNR is dictated more by their great distress that America might be winning this war (and that it is a war that needs to be fought) more than any partcular fondness for fact over fiction?
There is no frenzied defense of TNR - only frenzied attacks. This is how both sides work - ignore what is going on with passing defenses if it appears negative to what they believe, and attack what they believe is opposite.

Gentlemen the postion you take here frankly says little about the TNR. (It is apparent to rational people able to tell themselves the truth that Foer has been lying for some time now.) And less about the war. Indeed it may take years to ascertain Iraq's effect on Iran Syria and all the rest. It does, however say a good deal about the ethics you embrace and bring to this conversation. None of it is good.
I think you're talking to yourself here - I've come the closest to defending TNR, with the (paraphrasing) "they apparently checked up on background and failed," and they completely suck if that wasn't apparent. I think your preconceived notions are getting in the way of having a rational(for the internet) discussion.
You've gotten past the days of 30 posts in talking to yourself, but still seek to diminish the opposing viewpoints with half-information and hyperbole.

How old are you?
Too old to be doing this.

It used to be, AP would send out a story and different newspapers would cut different parts according to their bias. If you looked at 3 or 4 of them you could usually get most of the original report.
This is still done - in fact, there have been quite a few injections by papers where they completely change the meaning of the story. But this is something else entirely from pure journalism - this is typesetting.
The editor at a newspaper can alter the story, but the service (AP, Reuters) has the reasonable responsibility to fact check and verify the story.

I've never been involved in anything the media reported where they did a good job of pursuing the truth. Usually they just ran with a story that would make easy sense to their audience, and ignored everything that didn't fit.
Somewhat agreed, for the day to day reporting - too much information in too little time. For the expo's, where it involves multi-week involvement, it can get better.

Quoth J Thomas:

Beauchamp is important because he's our only example of on-the-ground disinformation that hurts the war effort by damaging public morale.

You're sure he's the only example? Because I seem to recall a certain "incredible shrinking 'n' destroyed mosques" story.

It's hard to prove that one -- maybe the American correspondent(s) who report that the mosques are still intact were misdirected by their guides; still, I will bet you a pint of Guinness or a really good sandwich there are more examples of disinformation than just the Beauchamp one.

I think a false claim of 5 mosques being destroyed damages public morale. We just don't have a single point of contact to name. It still constitutes an example. Depends, I guess on what the meaning of "example" is.

BTW, I am planning on putting up your guest post as soon as I get some administrivia straightened out.

There is no frenzied defense of TNR - only frenzied attacks. This is how both sides work - ignore what is going on with passing defenses if it appears negative to what they believe, and attack what they believe is opposite.

Dave, you're wrong, and I'm going to assume that it's because you're not up to speed on this story.

I invite you to review the extensive work that bloggers like Confederate Yankee and Ace of Spades have done on this story, above and beyond the original articles by Michael Goldfarb in The Weekly Standard, before you dismiss all of it as frenzy.

In response to this, they have been accused of conspiracy and collusion, and of manufacturing a story that nobody cares about.

I assure you that TNR is not so blithe about all of this. They've been engaging in nasty counterattacks of their own, while desperately trying to get out of this thing with a whole skin. Unlike the happy campers who comment on their little blog, and their apologists on the lefthead blogs, they know full well that questions of journalistic integrity and credibility are very, very important - even to journalists.

They are crapping rubber bricks. They can't afford another Stephen Glass (whose stories, BTW, were of little or no political import) and they've created something worse.

Beauchamp is important because he's our only example of on-the-ground disinformation that hurts the war effort by damaging public morale.

Who says Beauchamp has damaged public morale? I don't think Beauchamp rises to that prominence, unless you have him mixed up with Britney Spears.

I notice you have a tendency to do sudden 180 degree turns in debate. How do you reconcile this alleged damage with your subsequent comments in which you claim that Beauchamp is trivial and of interest only to right-wingers?

I think we all know that America is not hanging on our every word as we debate this. America doesn't read The New Republic, and may not even know what it is until Bill O'Reilly sticks his big nose into this. That doesn't mean that it has no influence - it does - or that questions about journalistic integrity are not important.

Also, knock it off with the "This is just distracting from ending the war" business. We're not all as stupid as Hillary Clinton thinks we are. We can entertain many thoughts and debate many, many things at the same time.

You guys aren't ending the war anyway. I'm not sure you're even trying. You're less organized than the Republican Guard looting a Kuwaiti appliance store for hair dryers. So we're not stopping you from doing anything.

I invite you to review the extensive work that bloggers like Confederate Yankee and Ace of Spades have done on this story, above and beyond the original articles by Michael Goldfarb in The Weekly Standard, before you dismiss all of it as frenzy.
You are right Glen - I used this as a negative response to the original comment, not as a dismissal of the work done. I'm betting I could not find a vocal defense on the top 20 left blogs. I do believe I could find a negative attack on the top 20 right blogs. While I used frenzied as a rebuttal(as it was used in the original), I do not believe I would use this as a description.
I would in a relative term - both from a volume+depth perspective, relative to defense of TNR's article. I would not seek to originate it(frenzied) myself, I was using it to balance the statement presented.

I assure you that TNR is not so blithe about all of this. They've been engaging in nasty counterattacks of their own, while desperately trying to get out of this thing with a whole skin.
Yup - the idea of the Army oppressing their story, or being played as fools, or any other argument you could find to agree with them more fits their worldview.
Being fooled by someone again does diminish their credibility - and by hiding their thoughts and actions they diminish it further.

Where's the front?

Where was "the front" in the American Revolution? Where is "the front" in Darfur?

Your notion of conflicts is quaint.

So, we're averaging 70 urban airstrikes a day

I see 6 incidents which might remotely be considered an "airstrike" in this recent summary which I pulled at random. Several are clearly rural and one was to blow up a road, so I'm being pretty generous in allowing them.

Source your claim.

"Beauchamp is important because he's our only example of on-the-ground disinformation that hurts the war effort by damaging public morale."

Who says Beauchamp has damaged public morale? I don't think Beauchamp rises to that prominence, unless you have him mixed up with Britney Spears.

OK, I agree. He just isn't that important.

I notice you have a tendency to do sudden 180 degree turns in debate. How do you reconcile this alleged damage with your subsequent comments in which you claim that Beauchamp is trivial and of interest only to right-wingers?

I try out different points of view. This time I asked 'What makes Beauchamp important?'. It can't be that a minor right-wing journal that's recently come out against the war made some minor mistakes and refused to own up to them. Look at my examples -- Makr al-Deeb, Abu Ghraib, Haditha -- every time the western media does minimal fact-checking. They tend not to pay much attention to atrocity stories unless the iraqis provide videos. (Or with Abu Ghraib, when US forces provided videos.)

Makr Al-Deeb was an exception -- they actually went there and talked to people and took their own pictures, after the iraqis showed them videos. I think that's because it was back in 2004 and the place was close to the syrian border which made it relatively safe to visit.

They do essentially no fact-checking in iraq, but mostly report what american and iraqi government sources tell them. It can't just be bad journalism that's the issue.

I figured it must be that this looks like bad journalism that's slanted the wrong direction. But as you say, he really isn't significant that way.

"So, we're averaging 70 urban airstrikes a day"

Source your claim.

When I looked for it I didn't find it right away, and I did find something that claims the number is far smaller.

airstrikes

This looks like, averaged over all of 2007, it was only about 110 airstrikes a month. Your 3 a day would be about right.

I don't think I just made that up out of nothing, I must have accepted someone else's claim without checking it, and I may have misunderstood it. 70 sorties a day might be on the low side, but maybe only a few of them involve dropping bombs.

On the other hand, that's 996 airstrikes by air force pilots. It's got to be easier to do strikes with army helicopters or UAVs than wait for the air force to show up. But I haven't found the numbers.

Aside from the number which looks wrong, COIN strategy says to minimise airstrikes which we are not doing. Unless what we're doing is minimising airstrikes, and we need a whole lot more now than before because the situation is so desperate.

Coincidentally, the battalion written about in the WaPo story AL quotes is Beauchamp's battalion. Unless there are two LTC George Glazes' in Baghdad. Michael Yon gave the COs name in his story on Beauchamp the other day and he show's up again in Partlow's story. Go figure. How did the WaPo miss fitting Beauchamp into the article?

Also, Thursday on Fox, they covered the sheiks victory parade in Ramadi. About a year after AQIs victory parade in the same city. Lots of dignitaries in the reviewing stand, something that would have been suicidal 6 months ago. Even better, the female reporter was walking the parade route in shirtsleeves. No body armor. THAT was the MSM catching up with Totten but they failed to call attention to it.

Some battalions are still having a hard fight, but we are winning. God willing, the American people have the guts to hang on.

Regards

"Aside from the number which looks wrong, COIN strategy says to minimise airstrikes which we are not doing."

Source your claim...

Ironic in this thread, your facts dont stand up but your conclusion is too important to ignore?

Glen Wishard points out quite correctly that Dave is wrong ( and I suspect intentionally wrong). Dave remains gleefully oblivious. J Thomas repeatedly sites a statistic that is wrong twenty fold as a basis for his conclusion then when he is forced to admit his statitic is in error repeats his conclusion as if facts haven't just ruined it....
Could it be that the press is willfully inaccurate becuase a large swath of its audience (its amen chorus as a matter of fact) demands inaccuracy to make it feel better about itself and its positions? I hope this isn't the case. This thread makes me wonder.

"Could it be that the press is willfully inaccurate becuase a large swath of its audience (its amen chorus as a matter of fact) demands inaccuracy to make it feel better about itself and its positions? I hope this isn't the case. This thread makes me wonder.

It looks like that.

I think Scott Thomas Beauchamp, as a witness rather than as a soldier doing physical things, is as important as Lucy Ramirez.

In both cases, what mattered was their credibility, and their credibility derived from how well they conformed to what was wanted. Fools, fictional characters, house-plants and pet rocks can be given the same sort of credibility. And it can and will be taken away from them and given to the next "truth-teller".

There's a market for this stuff. It's obviously not fussy as long as it hears what it wants to hear.

Franklin Foer doesn't seem to care whether Scott Thomas Beauchamp refrains from recanting because of the truth or because of his wife. For that matter, the only thing his wife apparently cares about is that he not recant.

(Nice marriage, squire. Shame if something should happen to it.)

That's what the market wants, and so future Franklin Foers can make and unmake Scott Thomas Beauchamps the same way, or even more egregiously.

... the only thing his wife apparently cares about is that he not recant.

Remember, that's according to Franklin Foer, a guy who could discredit the First Law of Thermodynamics by throwing his weight behind it.

She might have said something like "The most important thing in the world to me is that you come home safe," and Franklin just misheard her slightly.

I'm sure TNR subscribers will agree, though, that even if she never said any such thing, it is nevertheless very important that Beauchamp not recant. Therefore, the quote was entirely accurate.

Glen, you're right.

Al # 26, "And, more important, because if it isn't factual, it can't hold up over time - see Union, Soviet."

Sure. Agreed. Relevance, however?

I can recall all sorts of "positive" pro-administration pro-war reporting from the pre-invasion phase. Very poorly to not at all fact checked leaks about Iraqi WMD, etc. Regurgitated stories about aluminium tubes proving nuclear development when serious knowledgeable experts said otherwise, unlikely rusty trailers fingered by the administration as evidence of - and it's really very ridiculous - mobile bio weapons labs, airplane skeletons reported as training centers for kamikaze hijackers, tenuous (at best) associations between Saddam and Al Qaeda trumpeted by the media as a clarion call for regime change, etc, etc, etc......stories repeating administration talking points about inspectors not being allowed in to inspect sites when the inspectors themselves clearly stated that they had ultimately gained access to all sites and had found nothing to suggest an Iraqi threat........

All of these stories put out there by an administration determined to invade Iraq no matter what, were picked up by major media outlets and repeated by them over and over again without serious fact checking, without giving fair coverage of alternative outlooks despite the fact that such existed and were being presented by individuals and groups that should have been taken seriously and who were, as things turned out, correct.

The media, at one time, bought into the war hook, line and sinker and displayed an irresponsibility far beyond anything exhibitied by TNR and the Beauchamp pitance.

But not a word from AL or WoC on any of that sort of media failing. Not now, not then. In fact, even then, they were shouting down opinions counter to the administration's.

I will reiterate to all here what I asked AL; how the hell do any of you know WTF is happening in Iraq?

You don't. You get snapshots. Some negative, some positive, but you don't have a clue. You want to believe that US troops never do anything disgusting by normal civil standards? Then you are bigger fools than I could have imagined. You do believe it, but want to demand that it not be reported? Then, "see Union, Soviet."

Either way it hard not to conclude that you have drunk the neocolonial Koolaid and now demand that all expressions of reality be of the same grape flavor. Other than that you have nothing. You are not basing your objections to TNR on anything having to do with accuracy in media - if you were you would be more concerned with the massive media failings that got us into Iraq as opposed to this puppy piddle TNR/Beauchamp nothing. Because the global US media breakdown in the run-up to invasion is the type that threatens our republic. The possible media breakdown that is associated with Beauchamp is only a threat to the viability of TNR as a respected and profitable outlet.

Cover the discussion in any cloak of reasonableness you want to, but what I sense is that, rather than accuracy in media, you are all demanding that media conform to the party line. And that is all.

One more thing; contrary to what many of you may want to believe, the Vietnam War was not lost because of the US media conspiring to end it via negative coverage. Coverage in the 1965-1967 phase was generally positive. Media coverage of that conflict seems to have become increasingly negative with increasingly negative realities in theater; BTW correlation, not causation and draw your own inferences. Yes, any time the commies came to fight in a traditional battle we killed them and killed them hard. But war is not just about that. To those to whom that reality is known it is possible to understand how wiser voices in the media saw the end long before the government was able to admit it. You would have had them silenced.

Upon further reflection I get it now.

So here's how this little game of yours is played: I don't like what your saying so I will target you.

I will find something in your past, some point you made that is factually debatable, cause some question mark to form over your character, work to make any micro into a macro, any molehill into a mountain, and then, thusly armed, will relentlessly assial you. I will furiously attempt to exploit these chinks in your armor.

Now, I know that your hard core won't waiver in their support and my hard core already hated you for going against our party's line. I will try to sway a few in the middle to my side.

But mostly I am interested in keeping my side's blood up, lest they lose interest and go home before the other side does.

avedis, are you talking about John Cole, Kos, or Shakespeare's Sister?

c'mon. Let's get back on point, OK?

A.L.

How does the Beauchamp story's accuracy compare to the Tillman and Lynch stories? And calling John Cole "neoleft" is ridiculous: he's a conservative who likes habeas corpus, finds torture abhorrent and isn't so keen on pumping up non-existent success in an endless war.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, our original goal of a secular, pro-American, pro-Israel(!) Iraq isn't even mentioned any more, at least by the pro-war faction. We're hoping to settle for Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis in a stasis of mutual hostility in a backwards, theocratic state (OK, not Kurdistan). For example, how's that oil-revenue sharing law coming along? Pretty good proxy for how our political reconciliation plan is a non-starter.

Ironic in this thread, your facts dont stand up but your conclusion is too important to ignore?

I don't have a lot of time to look for sources for a very few people who by my previous experience are almost certain to ignore them anyway. My conclusion that we need to avoid urban airstrikes for COIN is true, and General Petraeus said so in his COIN book.

I did a little more searching. We're getting a lot of reports like this:

Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics.

USA Today

But this is an official number of USAF airstrikes, not including army, marines, navy, or other coalition members, not including helicopters or UAVs. Even Juan Cole gets this wrong.

The number I gave is floating around:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2560.shtml
"70 per day":

but it isn't 70 airstrikes per day, it's 70 close air support missions per day, and not an average number but a "on many days" number. Some of the reports call it 50-70 missions per day. Of course it's possible to do CAS without actually bombing or strafing anybody, you can just fly around and intimidate people.

I found a fair number of sites that claim '70 close air support missions on many days since October 1' (not an exact quote but the consistent meaning) but most of them don't give a source.

"The U.S. Air Force posts daily accounts of its operations, listing between 50 and 70 “close-air-support missions” each day."

This iranian source at least says this much about where that comes from -- again, air force and not including anybody else.

Essentially every hit I found was from October 22, 2007 or later. Presumably there was an earlier source I didn't get which called attention to this statistic, and other repeat it.

-
Link fixed: David Blue.

Ouch, I got a link wrongly formatted, I hope somebody will fix it.

David Blue,

The more Andrew and Avedis struggle deseprately to change the subject the more I suspect you're right. It is the market for these fabrications that is driving their manufacture.
It is quite a puzzle. How exaclty does a country move forward when a large swath of it ( and most of its intellegentisa) is deep in the throes of a temper tantrum so vile they cannot be trusted to admit the most self evident truths before them.
I have asked often enough if the Foer case is a symptom of a deeper rot in journalism. The responses I have seen here ( transparent attempts to change the subject, quoting of obviously false statistics, general foot-stamping and name calling ) make me suspect that that a number of commenters here sense the nature of what journalism has become and are rather panicked at the thought that others might discover what they have deduced, and used to their partisan advantage politcally.

And of course, J Thomas shows up to explain he doesn't have time to source the claims he made regarding 70 air strikes a day thoroughly and to explain that the number is floating around out there some where and that should be good enough.
Thus lending further credence to the theory that the media, while factually irresponisble, is managing to say what its core audience wants to hear. Which leads me to wonder. Should that be the media's job?
And by the way seventy air strikes a day for nine months would total out just a tad higher than 1,140, I think.

corvan,

After being called on it, J Thomas has been forthright in trying to justify the 70-per-day airstrike figure. I've gotten things wrong too, and I respect his frankness on that point.

J Thomas, regardless even the usatoday story fails to seperate urban from nonurban environments.

More importantly, lets get down to brass tacks. Your point is correct that one should avoid airstrikes that risk collateral damage. Obviously that doesnt mean abandoning such strikes.

But lets look at the context. Last year American troops were largely confined to their bases under the benighted scheme of General Casey. Clearly allowing the insurgents to gain control of any neighborhoods it wants isn't part of COIN. So lets not compare an unsuccessful strategy with one that is proving extremely successful.

Now our troops are out in the neighborhoods, taking on the insurgents where they are found in an attempt to take and hold areas. Obviously this incurs a great deal more combat, which will require air strikes. It also forces the enemy to move around to avoid US forces, allowing us to potentially catch them out in the open (and hopefully away from civilians). Killing insurgents is important.

Finally all we really need to do is look at the massive decline in Iraqi civilian casualties of all types in the last few months and evaluate if are airstrikes are continuing to make up a large percentage of the remaining casualties. I dont beleive we have seen that information presented, and its ultimately the only ones that matter. Our techology cannot be forgotten. Nor our adapting tactics- our planes now carry cement bombs with no explosives that simply crush a structure with no collateral damage. The idea isnt that bombing itself is a bad idea, its that collateral damage is. IF we are limiting collateral damage, bombing isnt an issue. You have yet to show us any evidence of that in any way.

Btw Patraeus also wrote this: Why We Need FISTs—Never Send a Man When You Can Send a Bullet

AL #48, I have no problem agreeing with you that the tactics I mentioned in #46 and #47 are employed by all sides of the political affiliation in this country; whether or not frequently by those individuals you mention? I don't know.

I think it is on point to ask, "How do you know what you think you know?"

How do you "know" that, for example, Juan Cole is prediposed to be biased against the mission in Iraq. How do you that he is a "crank"?How do that he isn't absolutely correct?

Answer is that you don't. You lack the complete and quality information and the education and the time to thoroughly assess the situation (this is not a slight against you. I also lack in the same way as do 99.9% of all Americans).

Thus we are left with a reliance on the following:

1. Anecdotes (e.g. "well I talked to this guy who was just discharged and he said......."

2. Media outlets that have a myriad of reasons for misrepresenting the truth, ranging from sloth to idealism to pay offs.

3. Our own concious and subconcious predispositions (e.g. "I think all war is wrong" or "I think it is America's job to bring freedom to the world"or "My country right or wrong" or "never trust the government. It always lies..." Some of these are very fundemental to our personality make up.

#3 tends to decide how we filter and select #s 1 and 2; which we will pay attention to, which we will remember and which we will believe.

And this is just another way of saying we only hear what we want to hear becuase changing #3 is very difficult, stressful and confusing for most people. We must - to some degree - remove information that threatens our perspectives.

You say, "We need truth to see our way through this, and truth is ambiguous, morally complex, and fits no one's set agendas."

I couldn't agree more.

And previously you said, ".......I don't for an instant question the validity of what the Post reporter wrote, or the honesty of what the serving soldiers said."

Fair enough; recognizing anecdote for what it is.

You go on, "But I'm willing to bet that I could - in a day or two of research I dont have time to do - find similar cites from troops in World War II or any other war that you choose. No one hates war the way soldiers do; talking to the soldiers that I know has convinced me of that......"

Now I sense you swerving - albeit subtly - toward a predisposition; toward a #3 from my list.

Continuing on that new trajectory, ".....But sometimes they have to be fought."

Gaining momementum and force toward your predisposition.

"......And deciding to fight them - and to win, and most important, how to win, having decided so - is important (yes, that's a statement I'll need to take some time and defend in comments), and so it's important that we have a complete view of what's going on...."

And we have arrived.

What I hear - and I am admit I am doing just a little reading between the lines - is that you hold fast to the beliefs that Iraq was a necessary war. That even if not necessary in retrospect, now that we are there we must win. That we can win. That victory must be achieved at any cost ( I sort of assume from having read your opinons over time that this has to do as much with national pride as it does with national security). With a focussed will we can win.

You are, for some reason, very invested in these beliefs and I think you want to filter out anything that threatens them. I don't understand you because I don't hold any of these same beliefs and I am, therefore, not invested in them. I am able to absorb information that runs counter to them. I, of course, have other predispositions (though they are different than some here try to assign to me).

I think there are others like you. I think that this is what the whole TNR assualt is all about.

I still don't know how much of Beauchamp's tales were accurate and how much was fabricated. Nor do I care. But I am going to relate this because I think that the vilification Beauchamp received was much less because what he said might not be accurate and far more because what he said attacked a particular narrative near and dear to the hearts of many of those who support the war in Iraq.

I had to get back to my FOB the other night. I was away from my unit, so I hitched a ride. The guys in the HMMWV I rode in seemed like normal soldiers: a bit irreverent, sometimes frustrated, but decent guys. Until we passed through a town and spotted three dogs in the middle of the road. Without hesitation, indeed with genuine glee, the driver accelerated and apparently ran down one of the dogs (in the dark, from my position, all I know for sure is that there was a bump). He then got into a vigorous argument with the gunner over whether or not he had hit the dog; the gunner was attempting to deny him 'credit' for the kill. There was no objection from the vehicle commander over any of this...killing a stray dog didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. Granted, this didn't affect the mission one way or the other, and it was a dog and not a person. Still...I felt a bit ill at the thought the vehicle I'd been riding in probably ran over a dog, and the fact this seemed to bring joy to otherwise normal appearing people remains appalling to me.

Does this mean Beauchamp was telling the truth? Nope...I still can't prove that one way or the other. My point in bringing this up is only to note that, whether or not his story was true, soldiers are people, and sometimes people do some pretty unpleasant things. And attacking people who point out that soldiers are people, however cathartic it may be for some, does nothing to change that fact.

Eventually the narrative changed, mostly under the weight of the unsustainable notion of infinite progress with so little tangible result in terms of getting to come home. It may be that under these circumstances, Beauchamp's columns, which didn't seem that far outside what I imagine war looks like, failed to receive the vetting that they (or any other story) deserve. But whatever inaccuracies Beauchamp made (even if deliberate) aren't going to turn into a counternarrative of success as long as poster "G'Kar" of Obsidian Wings is retelling much the same thing. Or as long as John Cole, who's driven a tank, gets to heap ridicule on armchair warriors trying to figure out how to drive a tank over a dog, or not, from a Toys-R-Us model.

In other circumstances I could be more sympathetic. But let me tell you something from my days in the wilderness watching the MSM gearing up for the Shock and Awe fireworks show: if your view of the war is that it's a great success and only liberal sabotage is keeping it hidden, well, the truth is going to out. The fact you concentrate your fire on the liberals makes me wonder if at heart you realize Iraq is pretty much the mess we say it is, but you hope that if no one says the Emperor is naked there's some possibility General Petraeus can fix it.

I messed up the link to Obsidian Wings in the previous comment.

Good point Anrew. It's like someone telling a story in which they say, "Sept 23rd. It was another foggy morning in San Francisco".

No one is going to fact check to see if that morning really was foggy given the climate in Frisco.

If they said it was a snowy morning then that would be a flag to fact check.

Running down dogs? As I've said a dozen times, who cares? Why would any bother to fact check. This is normal behavior for troops at war.

Now, if Beauchamp told stories about stripping Iraqis naked and making them perform soddomy on each other with attack dogs snapping at them, that would be worth fact checking.

But running down dogs? Playing with bones? Insulting a burned woman? Hardly out of the normal.....just another foggy morning in Frisco.

#51 from J Thomas: "Ouch, I got a link wrongly formatted, I hope somebody will fix it."

Thanks for your OK, and always glad to help. :)

Well, if you're going to keep pursuing this piece of trivia, you might at least look at this interesting email exchange

between Glenn Greenwald at Salon and from Col. Steven A. Boylan, the Public Affairs Officer and personal spokesman for Gen. David G. Petraeus . Boylan's verbal games and clear partisan affiliations (he's obviously a major source for the material leaked to rightwing bloggers and linked here) seem more significant than those of a private writing a pseudonymous diary for a discredited rag.

But to repeat, in the context of a war that's killed hundreds of thousands, and wounded, bereaved or displaced millions, in pursuit of a mythical threat, the fact that some members of the US military are economical with the truth in regard to some mildly disturbing gossip is not really worth worrying about.

"he's obviously a major source for the material leaked to rightwing bloggers and linked here"

Walking a fine rope of libel there my friend. I hope you have some evidence of this.

"But to repeat, in the context of a war that's killed hundreds of thousands, and wounded, bereaved or displaced millions, in pursuit of a mythical threat, the fact that some members of the US military are economical with the truth in regard to some mildly disturbing gossip is not really worth worrying about."

Absolutely true. But the fact that major media outlets are equally conomical with the truth, considering the political component of this war, is very much worth worrying about.

John Quiggen:

If Glenn Greenwald is taking over as lead investigator for the left on this issue, what does that say about the rest of you?

In no time at all, we'll be hearing about how Karl Rove got Scott Beauchamp to set up The New Republic. And the rest of you guys are going to have to go around repeating that. Over and over and over and over.

But if you're not just repeating Greenwald - or if you are not Greenwald himself, because with him you never know - then you tell me: What information was leaked to a right-wing blog?

If a milblogger takes the time to contact the Army and ask some questions, and receives a statement in reply, that is not a "leak". BUT SO WHAT IF IT WAS? TNR, and TNR's defenders, want to know the whole truth, right?

BTW, Boylan's e-mail is shot through with elisions. The full email is here.

John, sometimes being busy and unresponsive is useful - I tend not to find Greenwald too interesting, both because of his credibility history (I don't cite John Lott a lot, either) and because he's basically a hysterical partisan.

But since your post, it looks like his credibility is once again under challenge...

I'll leave the analysis of that to others, and wait for an outcome.

Meanwhile, you can assert "...in pursuit of a mythical threat..." all day, but outside the core group of partisans (which you're a member of, as I'm a member of another set) that's an unproven and really unprovable assertion.

Is Iraq worth it?

That's a brutally wicked question, and a the debate about what to do from here is one worth having.

A.L.

Greenwald's original post with excerpts (marked with ellipses) from the Boylan email contained a prominent link to the full, unedited version.

Ah, what exactly is the point?

I'm not interested in standing up for a known sock-puppeteer's overall integrity, but this complaint against Greenwald is specious. And I, too, am suspicious of links between military PR staff and right-wing bloggers like Drudge—not that they are necessarily immoral or illegal, but that we ought to have some understanding of potential bias on all sides.

"There are some things you can't fake," he [Chris Mathews] explained breathlessly. "Either you can throw a strike from sixty feet or you can't. Either you can rise to the occasion on the mound at Yankee Stadium with 56,000 people watching or you can't. On Tuesday night, George W. Bush hit the strike zone in the House that Ruth Built.... This is about knowing what to do at the moment you have to do it--and then doing it. It's about that 'grace under pressure' that Hemingway gave as his very definition of courage." And remember that now-infamous Mission Accomplished moment? True, Matthews did not join his guest G. Gordon Liddy in admiring--still not kidding--the President's pretend penis, but he was no less focused on Bush's fashion statements. "He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West," he cooed.

AJL, apparently the source of the email is denying having sent it.

And re leaks, if they are so generically awful, how is that that the SWIFT program leaks (to talk about one that is universally considered kind of benign) weren't reviled on the left?

A.L.

"And I, too, am suspicious of links between military PR staff and right-wing bloggers like Drudge—not that they are necessarily immoral or illegal, but that we ought to have some understanding of potential bias on all sides."

Which is entirely reasonable. Suspicion is a good thing in journalism. Assumption and credulity are not, as this TNR debacle shows if nothing else. Thats why conservatives have been screaming about a biased media for 20 years- because groupthink is dangerous and most newsrooms and papers in this country dont have a conservative to speak of. Maybe the wacky sports guy.

Blogs are biased, intentionally, and they are a different beast. Blogs rely on their own credibility such as they can build. They dont ask (even demand) the assumption of truth and journalistic integrity as we have seen Foer and his people doing. If you expect to keep that mantel of independence and journalistic ethics, you have to live up to it every time.

I assure you, i am just as suspicious of the links being elements of the CIA and Pentagon cozing up with NYT reporters for god knows what agenda as you are.

Drudge is not a blogger of any kind. If he were, he never would have removed his post on Beauchamp.

But we've reached the low threshold of any sustained argument of this type, where all they have left is to accuse everybody of being in on a conspiracy - the Army, Drudge, bloggers, and now Greenwald has got Dick Cheney in there, too.

Bootless from here on out.

'Meanwhile, you can assert "...in pursuit of a mythical threat..." all day, but outside the core group of partisans (which you're a member of, as I'm a member of another set) that's an unproven and really unprovable assertion.'

Just to be clear, I was referring to Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as described by the Administration in the leadup to the invasion. Are you really claiming that they were real, or that it can't be proven that they weren't?

A.L., I don't believe I said leaks were generically awful. I said that they needed to be examined for bias and motivation, not to mention accuracy. (Any number of leaks from the White House pre-invasion were not true.) I'm not privy to the motives of the SWIFT leaker, although some remnant respect for the Rule of Law (as compared to the new The President is The Law system) would be my guess.

John - nope - but I will assert that most people who knew what they were talking about believed in them, and that Bush was very clear that the goal was to change the Iraqi regime before we were certain they had WMD.

I've talked endlessly about why I thought the war made sense, and about the fact that my justification (strategic shock to Iran and Saudi Arabia) hasn't proved out. I've also talked endlessly about the fact that it was going to be a long-term project that would be hard, have setbacks, and take persistence because it involves real moral actors, the Iraqi people - who aren't just counters in some domestic (for either of us) political game.

I'm happy to talk about what to do next; I'm wide open to ideas that make more sense than 'sit and grind it out'. But I'll also suggest that it made a lot of sense not to intervene in Cambodia, either. Are you glad we didn't?

A.L.

AJL - I know you didn't say leaks were generically awful. You seemed to say (and amplified in the latest comment) the notion that leaks that advantage your (righteous) positions are OK, while those that advantage contrary (un-righteous) positions are horrible and illicit. You'll forgive me if I arch an eyebrow, right?

A.L.

"But I'll also suggest that it made a lot of sense not to intervene in Cambodia, either. Are you glad we didn't?"

But we (that is the US) did intervene. To quote PBS

" On March 18, 1969, American B-52s began carpet-bombing eastern Cambodia. "Operation Breakfast" was the first course in a four-year bombing campaign that drew Cambodia headlong into the Vietnam War. The Nixon Administration kept the bombings secret from Congress for several months, insisting they were directed against legitimate Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge targets. However, the raids exacted an enormous cost from the Cambodian people: the US dropped 540,000 tons of bombs , killing anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 civilians."

It seems pretty clear that the US bombing made the position of the Cambodian government untenable, and led to the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge. And of course, after the Vietnamese overthrew Pol Pot, the US supported his insurgency, and voted for his regime to retain its seat in the UN.

So, on the whole, I don't think this is a good advertisement for intervention.

JQ - I was thinking of the period before the government fell; the one endcapped by the letter Kissinger got:

'Dear Excellency and Friend:

'I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

'You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

'Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.'

A.L.

[about Saddam's nukes] ...but I will assert that most people who knew what they were talking about believed in them

This is an oxymoron, a statement that has to be false even if it's true.

By definition, people who believed in Saddam's nukes didn't know what they were talking about.

Anybody who believed in Saddam's nukes got taken in by the false propaganda. This is like "most four-year-olds who knew what they were talking about believed in Santa Claus."

Sand, this Beauchamp thing is just throwing sand.

Or, to quote - "mote, meet beam".

See? I can do the faux Yoda non-sensical refutation too!

But, once more, for the bleacher seats:

a. Cherry-picked example
b. False conclusions from that example.
c. False judgments about importance of example.
d. False universalizing of example, to all media.

All to cover the lack of a philosophic, analytic, and pragmatic justification for an invasion and occupation, that, in the end, has been unnecessary, in lives lost, in the money spent, in reducing terrorism, or in promoting the cause of freedom and democracy.

There really are only three reasons why this invasion and occupation can be justified, and those justifications are completely at odds with the stated reasons (WMD, democracy, spreading freedom, protecting from terrorism, quench the rise of Islamic extremism) and they are the following:

a. Guarantee the stability of the oil flow.
b. "Drain the swamp". (Meaning destroy as much as is necessary, let God sort it out, and pick up the pieces - cry HAVOC! - and let loose the dogs of war)
c. Revenge and fear, or "don't f**k with us" - "if someone hits us (9-11), we (the U.S.) are so vengeful, we will destroy a country in the same region, but completely unrelated to 9-11! So other countries, don't get any ideas!!!"

THAT at least, is an honest argument. It ignores the concept of blowback, it's a huge, almost incalculable opportunity cost, in terms of birthing 1000 Bin Ladens, training the next generation of Al-Queda, ignores real solutions that require working with others in a constructive way. In terms of the three reasons above, actually, the Bush - um sorry - Cheney plan looks fairly successful, and is, somewhat, working.

But A.L., your arguments for staying in Iraq - purple thumbs and all, are, I'm sorry to say, complete bulls**t.

"Anybody who believed in Saddam's nukes got taken in by the false propaganda."

Yes. By SADDAM, who intentionally acted to give the appearance he possessed these weapons. Forgive us for taking him at his word.

And please stop rewriting history. The line of '4 year olds' that believed and voiced the belief that Saddam had nukes is long, begins and ends in the US Congress, and goes right through the Clintons. You may recall it was Bill Clinton who first went to war with Iraq to destroy these fantasy WMDs.

hypo - just 'cause you didn't know the reference doesn't make it nonsensical...*g*.

Well, we keep running into these outliers - you know, the exceptions in which the media spins things in one set direction. And every time I meet people in the media - their attitudes confirm the bias. So I'm kind of stuck here in exceptionland.

Nice list. I'll suggest that revenge (raising the perception of real threat we present) isn't always a bad thing. But that leaves us with...

...the problem of what to do now.

I'm kinda uncomfy washing our hands of the millions who are likely to die if we pull out based on Medea Benjamin's timetable. I'm, bluntly, not sure how to manage the process - except to note that by actually putting the pros in charge as opposed to the poltical hacks, we seem to be making progress, so maybe it makes sense to let them work for a while.

Of course, when casualties were bad, the fact that violence was so high meant things could never end well. Now that violence is down, political irrenditism means they will never end well. I'm trying to project forward for the next reason...

A.L.

Is Iraq worth it?

That's a brutally wicked question, and a the debate about what to do from here is one worth having.

Unfortunately, unless we choose on moral reasons, we have to base our choices on what looks possible or likely.

We could say that our moral obligations trump everything else. By that reasoning perhaps we owe the iraqis our best shot at killing all the insurgents so they can have a good democratic government, whether we can actually get a good result or not. Or we owe them a quick withdrawal and copious reparations for the damage we've done, regardless what kind of government they wind up with. When you don't care about results you can suggest doctrinaire choices.

But to make a results-based choice we have to know about things we don't know.

If I thought that with another 6 months of occupation we would turn things around, then I'd be all for another 6 months. If I thought there was no hope at all then I'd be for pulling out as fast as we reasonably can. (When the patient's heart isn't beating but the heart-lung machine is doing it for him, and his kidneys aren't working but the dialysis is doing it, and his liver isn't working, and his brain severely damaged and showing no activity, at some point it's time to stop the heroic measures and pull the plug.)

There is no reliable evidence about how well we're doing. The official iraqi death rates are clearly underestimates and have always been underestimates. They are utterly unreliable. The reports about hours of electricity available are at least as unreliable as old soviet economic figures. Reports made by the iraqi police and filtered through the iraqi government are -- unreliable.

Public reports by the US military are wartime propaganda and it would be stupid to believe them. Classified reports that get leaked might be disinformation, if they look good they might be propaganda leaked in hope that it's easier to believe that way, if they look bad they might be entirely bogus.

And the media isn't doing much independent research for fear of getting kidnapped or airstriked etc. The only reasonably-safe way to do news is to go with US military missions where you will see what they choose to show you.

To me the fact that there is no reliable information says that things are very very bad. Could we hope to wind up with iraq as a long-term ally? I don't see it. True, it worked in the philippines. From 1904 to today, an unarmed US Marine could go anywhere in the philippines in perfect safety and friendship. Apart from the japanese invasion there hasn't been a shot fired in anger at an american in the philippines for over a hundred years. A wonderful success story, if you believe it. But iraq is different. If we can't get a functioning friendly iraqi government, what's our goal? Occupy them for the next hundred years? Until the oil runs out?

But if we pull out we'll still have trouble in the middle east. We only have two allies in the whole middle east -- kurdistan and kuwait. Neither of which would exist without our military support. We ought to at least have one or two nations we can keep troops in, so we have a beach-head in case we need to invade somebody else. It's bad for us to withdraw completely and then later if we have to invade somebody we depend on the Marines to do amphibious assaults.

On the other hand, say we do pull out. The russians and chinese and indians will try to gain influence. They're all military powers that can begin to project power that far. And the various locals won't be getting along all that well. At some point, probably pretty soon, some of them will be negotiating with us to come back in and help them. So if we do withdraw our troops from everywhere but kuwait and Qatar, we can probably get them back into a third friendly country pretty quick.

If we pulled out of iraq it would hurt our prestige. The world would see that we weren't strong enough or ruthless enough to suppress iraq. That isn't good. But if we stay longer and still fail to suppress iraq that doesn't make us look better.

The only alternative to a bad outcome is to win. Winning means we wind up with iraqis happy with us, and their sovereign government friendly. I don't think that's in the cards whatever we do at this point. So our best choice is to pull out slowly enough that we don't abandon stuff we want to take with us, and we blame both the misjudgement to invade and the poor tactics on Bush. We promise that next time we'll only do it for very good reasons and we'll use our normally good strategy and tactics and we'll be much much more effective. That way we minimise the damage to our prestige etc, though it's still bad.

But that looks to me like the best we can do on the assumption we can't actually win. But if you believe on absolutely no reliable evidence that we are likely to win then you'll reach a different conclusion.

"Anybody who believed in Saddam's nukes got taken in by the false propaganda."

Yes. By SADDAM, who intentionally acted to give the appearance he possessed these weapons. Forgive us for taking him at his word.

I forgive you. Go, and sin no more.

What about Saddam's claim about how much oil he had? Any idea how much oil is really there?

Did Saddam say anything else we care about? Anything that might be a lie?

How about this iranian guy, do we want to believe him about anything?

And how about Bush? Nobody's taking his word for anything, I hope.

These guys are all habitual liars. Except for Saddam, who presumably has given up lying by now. He lies at peace.

Gotta love this thread.

AL asserts

We need truth to see our way through this, and truth is ambiguous, morally complex, and fits no one's set agendas.

And so I wonder how he would interpret the following report:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 20 decapited corpses were found and a suicide bomber killed 28 policemen northeast of Baghdad on Monday, as the US military transferred the security control of Karbala to Iraqi forces.

"Reality has a Liberal Bias", perhaps?

We certainly don't need Scott Beauchamp to tell us how awful this war is, do we?

30 seconds on the internets:

Thursday October 11, 2007 11:01 PM
bq. By STEVEN R. HURST
bq. Associated Press Writer
bq. BAGHDAD (AP) - A U.S. attack killed 19 insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, northwest of the capital Thursday - one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in an American operation in recent months. The military said it was targeting senior leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Alan -

Yes, it's seriously awful...more awful than WW II? More awful than the Hundred Years War? The War of Jenkins Ear?</