Scott Thomas: "Believe me, I'm a liar"

After returning and attempting to settle in (by the way, the live blog audio thingy didn't work - arrrgh), I see my last real post before I left was on the Scott Thomas affair over at The New Republic.

Background: Scott Thomas is allegedly a soldier in Iraq who wrote some pretty nasty tales about how we're doing over there. One story involved him and "the guys" making fun of a woman who had her face severely burned by a roadside bomb...another detailed a new "sport" of running over dogs with Bradley Fighting vehicles...and still another was about soldiers discovering a mass grave and wearing some of the remains as decoration.

Virtually all of the "stories" had some people questioning their believability...including me. The New Republic has completed their investigation and deduced that Scott Thomas WAS lying about only one of the events. The woman harassed by Scott Thomas and his friends was in Kuwait before they deployed fully to Iraq. Nothing much was said about the "fog of war" that Thomas alleges was the cause of his behavior.

So, The New Republic says everything else is true...and I accept their explanation last week.

But hold on there partner!

Beauchamp Recants

The Weekly Standard has a short story today saying that Scott Thomas has now recanted his entire articles...saying...

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,"

The US Military has conducted their own investigation as well and Major Steven F. Lamb (Public Affairs) has issued a statement:

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.

This is just really cool. Maybe it would be better for us all to just stop reading the "news" altogether because it's too much work to try and figure out who's screwing around with the truth to make a point...

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."

I look forward to the completion of the completion of the investigation of the investigation.

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