http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6566

Their article is full of the predictable liberal slams on the war and the Bush Administration - as we know, some deserved and some mythical. What’s important is the ways in which their tone has changed.

Some of the choice bits:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in 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. [ed: sorry, that IS victory].

…[troop] morale is high… Army and Marine units [are] 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… tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates [ed: largely exaggerated by liberals, but remember, these guys are liberals] are down…

…American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable…In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion…
[...]
In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans…
…Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

But according to the Scott Beauchamps, John Kerrys and keogh/gils, our troops are psycho killer-torturers.

Anyway, read the whole NYT article. There’s more.

He’s not just a traitor, he’s an emo fag.

And I do look at it in the sense that I have to go to Blackfive, or Townhall, or Captain’s Quarters to hear about the good, but I just have to turn on CNN/NBC/FOX/etc. to hear the bad. My niece and nephews will see this stuff on the news and end up asking ‘Daddy, did you know those bad men?’ but won’t see the story about the hero who died manning the main gun on the bradley to save his men.

And yes, I’m including Fox in this, not in a ‘all media is bad’ rant, rather in that the negative news is what leads, the positive, if it’s even shown, is on page a23, or the last 5 minutes of an hour broadcast.

The above mentioned little brother told me about the Marsh Arabs, and how theyt were starving. He told me how they gave them what supplies they could before they pushed on. I knew then, from the frustration and rage in his voice, that it was something that seperated us, that I could never share. I also know he’s still a good man, older than I now in many ways. I understand what he’s seen, but I can’t comprehend.

I’ve not read all of this Beauchamp BS, like I said, I hope it’s not true, nor ‘false but accurate’ I do think what he did, breaking military regs in wartime does fall -this- close to treason, and if he’s lied or embellished any of this then he deserves to be shot. Correction, if the DFAC story is remotely true, then he -still- deserves to be shot.

Why? Because if it’s true that military service is ignoble, that implicitly excuses their ignoble lives. Conversely, if it’s true that military service is noble, their ignoble lives stand implicitly condemned.

Beauchamp [did not write] about the dehumanizing reality of war[;] what he did was write about war in a dehumanizing way.

Indeed.

the right is now saying he is akin to a traitor

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Wrong answer.

A soldier who publishes his unit’s movements, violating OPSEC, and who intentionally helps the media portray comrades in a totally one-sided way - the worst light possible - is not “akin to” a traitor. He IS a traitor.

Just a fact, keogh/gil. Deal with it. Live in the world of facts, and learn to use words correctly (I know how hard that is for you).

The left side of the blogosphere, for the most part, have set up their talking points based on the following untruths:

1) Those who initially doubted the story only doubted that Beauchamp exists.
Those of us who have kept up with the story know that’s not the case. From the beginning there have been questions about the accuracy of what he’s reported. In fact, many of the rightwing and military blogs made a point early on not to focus on whether or not Beauchamp is really a soldier, anticipating the dishonest tactic that has indeed been used.

2) Doubters of the story simply don’t want to believe or be presented with evidence that people in the military are capable of shocking behavior.
Again, anybody who’s read any of the discussion from sources other than those gil and his fellow travelers visit know that in almost every case the bloggers prefaced their observations with the caveat that they don’t doubt that soldiers can do bad things, only that the particular things mentioned by Beauchamp strain credulity for various reasons.

My guess is that gil and torrentprime haven’t read the commentary on this case from the right side, but only have seen it presented on their favorite websites as hyperlinks (which they don’t click) surrounded by the misrepresentations.

You rightly point out that the military contains all sorts, good and bad, like any other group of people. In fact you almost sound reasonable when you say that.

So I wonder if what you’re seeing is the events in the stories and not the implied cultural context. Despite the sorts of idiots that need constant adult supervision (and anyone who’s served has worked with a couple of those) there are also those heavily invested in a self-image of… oh, noble warrior or something, the Sheepdog… and the obligatory evangelical who’s always trying to save everyone… and the I’m smarter and more introspective than everyone else sorts (like the Jarhead guy and probably Beauchamp)… the guys who know more about ancient Greek warfare then a PhD… the family men… the man-sluts… and a whole lot of people invested in professionalism… all those different sorts.

That’s real.

And the milbloggers, who were incredibly critical of Beauchamp never denied that the screw-ups exist.

But in those stories, gil, where are the others? Where’s the “Sheepdog” that busts his teeth for ridiculing a woman with a melted face? Or the NCO that puts him on latrine duty… again. Where’s the God-person in his unit who doesn’t think playing with dead child parts is funny? Where, when it comes down to it, is the brown-noser with his pathological compulsion to score a few points? Where is the middle aged family man with four teenagers back home and no sense of humor? Where are those with an understanding of the political need not to piss off the locals?

Somehow we’re supposed to believe that a couple of screw-ups (and yes, every unit has them) are typical of the Army.

You know that’s not true. You said so yourself.

Can you see why it might bother people that this… picture… of men divorced from sense or decency is presented as normal, as happening without consequences?

If you go read Beauchamp’s stuff, does it seem he’s saying, “I’m a wonder-jerk you should revile me?”

Or is he painting the Army at large as a place where those things are condoned?

I’ve said before… I’ve read first hand accounts. Harsh ones. And they make the people in them, dealing with the realities of war, more intimately human.

I hear people saying how Beauchamp wrote about the dehumanizing reality of war, but what he did was write about war in a dehumanizing way.

And that is an invested world-view for some people, that soldiers are less than human. That war makes them that way. The warrior becomes something different some “other” that isn’t even really a person anymore. Certainly no one that someone like you or I could relate to and understand.

So why *don’t* we feel this way about emergency workers, firefighters, or police? Why don’t we have stories about bad jokes from EMT’s in stories to show how cleaning up after car accidents dehumanizes them?

the right is now saying he is akin to a traitor.

A guy who would sell out his comrades in arms to the enemy (not to mention provide the enemy with propaganda) is a traitor by definition.

The real question is why do righties close their eyes to the bad?

I suspect it is because they are afraid a little introspection will open the floodgates of doubt.
Thus they slander and pass around lies as facts to keep themselves and their conscience clean. For a recent example look at comment #53 – the right is now saying he is akin to a traitor.
The right can now dismiss him and his stories because he is a traitor. Their conscience remains clean while soldiers remain the false stereotypes they want them to be.
This link clearly shows the nuttery of the right. Threats on his life and mining his articles for out of context treason etc. No righty can use the words wingbat ever again as you have clearly gone off the reservation (click here)

asically, in Beauchamp, you have a guy who joined the unit in order to betray it to the enemy…

Which is exactly why he is a hero to gil and his butties on the left.

For you slow kids - you know who you are; the ones who sickeningly misuse words like “torture” in order to provide cover for the world’s actual torturers and terrorist murderers - here’s a translation. OPSEC means “Operational Security”. Basically, in Beauchamp, you have a guy who joined the unit in order to betray it to the enemy… or, more plausibly, someone who acts so thoughtlessly, pretentiously and cluelessly that his actions can’t be distinguished from someone who hypothetically joined the unit in order to betray it to the enemy.