August 22, 2008

New Republic's Winter Soldier Scott Beauchamp Is Back...

and He Swears It's All True

ScottBeauchamp_ilo-1.jpg
Scott Beauchamp's and his wife, Elspeth Reeve (formerly an intern at The New Republic)

Web addicts will recall the Foer Wars of 2007 when the New Republic published the war "stories" of "Scott Thomas" to rising acclaim and then plummeting disdain. Well, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the soldier who spun the stories is back and talking to New York lad rag, Radar (From The Magazine : Radar Online : A soldier in Iraq decided to write about his experiences. He never suspected he'd start a war). He's still, as far as he knows, innocent as charged....

And like the New Republic before it, Radar has strapped on its snorkel and gotten into the tank for the self-serving soldier.

"Shock Troops" is a grim first-person account of the dehumanizing aspects of war. In a tone vacillating between shame and detachment, Beauchamp, under the byline "Scott Thomas," recounts with squirm-inducing detail how he and his buddies were becoming so callous they openly mocked a gruesomely disfigured woman—the apparent victim of a roadside bomb—when she sat down for a meal in a military mess hall.

Among neoconservative war apologists and self-anointed superpatriots, discrediting the story became a crusade: Beauchamp must be proven a liar, and TNR must be humiliated"I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses...," Beauchamp quotes himself as saying, loud enough so the woman could hear.

"Neoconservative war apologists and self-anointed superpatriots" -- that's Spencer Ackerman writing as bad as he can and he's only getting warmed up.

I read through the fawning article and thought, "Sure to be firmly fisked by finer folks than I." If you remember this shameful episode in the blemished history of the recent New Republic you might want to get up to speed on Radar's fresh effort to bronze the Beauchamp. I suspect that many members of the military in and around the sphere will be melting it down and casting it into statues of New Republic's editor Franklin Foer in "What Me Worry?" pose.

As for Beauchamp? Well, at the end of the day he was the "victim" of the New Republic and the "neoconservative war apologists and self-anointed superpatriots." His stories from Iraq were all true (except for that bit about Kuwait). Honest.



UPDATE: Let the wild fisking begin! Bob Owens at Pajamas takes out the filleting knife and begins to carve Radar scribe and disgruntled New Republic slacker several new ones in undisclosed locations:
"Spencer Ackerman does a great job of parroting what Beauchamp has been saying all along, and manages to get a few digs in at the man who fired him as well. What he doesn't do is prove his case." - Pajamas Media -- Infamous "Shock Troops" Author Back in the News

BLACKFIVE Beauchamp is dead to Laughing Wolf: "Ignore him. The real story lies elsewhere."

Last year my comments on this mess were:
Cindy Beauchamp Foer's Folly -- or -- "Oh Yeah? You and What Army?"

and

Li[f]e Imitates Shattered Glass

Posted by Vanderleun at August 22, 2008 10:01 AM | TrackBack
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Comments:

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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Hey, if Mapes is considered "brilliant" by her peers, where does that leave Foer?

Posted by: Fen at August 22, 2008 12:16 PM

Should be "knife" not "knew", as in filleting knife.

Posted by: Paul A'Barge at August 22, 2008 4:12 PM

Has Obama announced his VP yet?

Posted by: Uncle Ralph at August 23, 2008 9:14 AM