The New Republic's shame
I've written before (here, here, and here) about the scandal regarding The New Republic's publication of articles by a US soldier in Iraq, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, describing barbaric behavior on the part of our soldiers.
They were also complete lies.
In a fascinating follow up, independent journalist Michael Yon has recently traveled with Beauchamp's unit and talked with his commander: Second Chances.
It can be pretty tough over here. The soldiers in Beauchampâs unit have seen a lot of combat. Often times soldiers are working in long stretches of urban guerrilla combat dogged by fatigue and sleep deprivation. This is likely one of the most stressful jobs in the world, especially when millions of people are screaming at you for failures that happened three years or more ago, and for decisions to invade Iraq that were made when you were still a teenager. Just as bad is the silence from the untold millions who have already written off your effort as hopeless. Add that to the fact that buddies are getting killed in front of you. (More than 70 killed in Beauchampâs brigade.) I see what these young men and women go through, and the extraordinary professionalism they nearly always manage to exude awes me on a daily basis.
Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but thatâs not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.
Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.
(Be sure to read the whole thing.)
In other words, Beauchamp admitted he did something stupid and is trying to make amends. His commander, who could have sent him home in shame, instead is giving him a chance to redeem himself, a chance Beauchamp has grasped.
But not the editors of The New Republic. They are still stonewalling, sticking to a discredited line about "investigating." Editor Franklin Foer even had the brass to peddle his evasions at The Washington Post -- yet they say nothing on their own magazine's site.
Americans as a rule are ready to forgive people who honestly own up to a mistake and try to make up for it. Mr. Beauchamp has done that, and he deserves as much praise for developing some integrity and honor as he did criticism for his slanderous tall tales.
Not so the editors of The New Republic. With the story collapsing around their heads, they've admitted nothing, apologized for nothing. They're hiding under their desks, hoping it will all go away.
Until they do, their magazine is dead. It has zero credibility. A once great magazine of reasonable liberal opinion is now just another rag.
And that's a shame.
LINKS: Roger L. Simon thinks the editors are cowards. I agree. Captain Ed can't believe the amount of spin Foer tried to put on his WaPo interview. More at Hot Air, Blue Crab Boulevard, Flopping Aces, Power Line, Confederate Yankee, Little Green Footballs, and Pajamas Media.
UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson, writing at NRO's The Corner, points to a large irony in this whole affair:
The final irony is that Mr. Beauchamp is serving in one of the most critical sectors in Iraq, no doubt often at great risk to his person, where American forces have faced the nearly the impossible task of separating both Shiite and Sunni factions, while going after al Qaeda and Shiite terrorists—and are succeeding brilliantly. The brigade commander Col. Rick Gibbs is doing an amazing job (and is sober and judicious, and NOT prone to overstatement or exaggeration), so there were some real human stories, especially when tribes began to turn, this past spring and summer, that Mr. Beauchamp might have written about, (and TNR published) as a rare front-line witness to this quite stunning phenomenon. (hat tip: A Second Hand Conjecture)
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