Baghdad Fabulust

We learn now that a lefty anti-war writer, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, married to a New Republic staffer, enlisted so that he could go to Iraq and write with authority about what he already knew to be true before going over there: US soldiers are rampaging beasts, fighting to enrich a US empire by massacring innocent Iraqis and destroying their civilian infrastructure. Lefties have been championing his obviously (to them) accurate NR-published columns, "Baghdad Diarist", written under a nom de guerre. While war opponents lapped up such claims as a US soldier wearing a child's skull atop his helmet as a war-crime trophy, righties (both opponents and supporters of the war), as well as serving soldiers, applied skepticism to these sensational accounts, finding credibility similar to that of the physics-defying Gitmo toilets that could suck down Korans.

I assume that the various anti-US tyrant groups in Iraq -- comprised of real beasts -- have been using these NR dispatches to advance their retarded efforts. Imagine his success had he invented only plausible lies. My friend Vassar, who's lived and worked in Iraq at US military bases for the past three years, tells a very different story about US troops: they love the Iraqi people, except for those trying to kill them, and want to help build a democracy.

Question: Did critics "out" Beauchamp's wife, by revealing her identity, in exposing how he came to obtain his position as the New Republic's insider war critic? Did critics reveal her identity in order to "punish" her for her husband's courageous truth-telling?

Now comes word of a recant. He is either a good journalist who told the truth, and a criminal soldier, or he is a lyingly poor journalist who invented tales when he and his comrades actually observe US military codes of conduct. Or maybe he told the truth and is now lying to avoid prosecution.