Scott Thomas

You may have noticed that I've started a new feature on the sidebar, a "Hot Link(s) Of The Week".

This doesn't get updated as frequently as it should, just like almost everything in Geekistan for the past couple of weeks.

But recently I've been following the sad, sad tale of the Egregious Scott Thomas.

Scott Thomas is the pen name of a guy who is guilty of Sedition at best, and Treason at worst (in the sense of 'lending aid and comfort to the enemy') by virtue of the fact that he has posted a series of articles which depict American Soldiers as soul-less barbarians and murderers.

It started out here, in a July 13, 2007 article in The New Republic where he describes crude and cruel behavior toward another soldier, a driver deliberately running down dogs in the street, and the desecration of the corpses of slain Iraqi infants. (Subscription required to read the whole article.)

Ten days later Chris Muir parodied him in his 7/23 Day By Day cartoon .

On July 25, Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writer's Group fisked the article in The Orlando Sentinel column "Anonymous in Iraq: Plenty of Skepticism". There, Parker suggests:

It may be that The New Republic editors and others who believed Thomas' journal entries without skepticism are infected with Nifong Syndrome -- the mind virus that causes otherwise intelligent people to embrace likely falsehoods because they validate a preconceived belief.

Going back in time, on July 20 Michele Malkin wrote about Thomas as "The New Winter Soldier?" with this introduction:

Let me make one thing clear at the outset: To question the veracity of a soldier’s accounts of war atrocities in Iraq is not to question that such atrocities ever happen. They do. But when such accusations are made
pseudonymously, punctuated with red flags and adorned with incredible embellishment, the only responsible thing to do is to raise questions about his identity and agenda without fear or apology–and demand answers.

Now, here's The Rest Of The Story, as Paul Harvey might say:

On August 7, Fox News ran a blurb by Michael Goldfarb taken directly from The Weekly Standard which completely debunks all of the claims of Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp. (It's worth the effort to remember that name, as it should remain infamous for as long as his libelous accusations remain in American memory.)

The Weekly Standard has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp -- author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns -- signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods -- fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source.
...
"An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims."
According to the military source, Beauchamp's recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military's investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, "I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name."
...
The magazine's editors admitted on Aug. 2 that one of the anecdotes Beauchamp stood by in its entirety -- meant to illustrate the "morally and emotionally distorting effects of war" -- took place (if at all) in Kuwait, before his tour of duty in Iraq began, and not, as he had claimed, in his mess hall in Iraq. That event was the public humiliation by Beauchamp and a comrade of a womanwhose face had been "melted" by an IED.

Those of you who have been following this story deserve to know that Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a liar and a fraud. His depiction of American service people is entirely designed to cast his fellow soldiers in the worst possible light for his own personal agrandisement. After a two-week run of notoriety, he has been exposed for the foul canker on the body politic that he is.

We hope he receives the most onerous punishment available in the Uniform Code of Military Judgement for the terrible aspersions he has cast on the U.S. Army and on the morality of his fellow countrymen.


Beauchamp deserves the ignominity which he has earned. More, he should be required to apologize personally to every current and past serving member of the military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the entire Middle East.

He makes Lynddie England look good by comparison.