I heart Dana's fffhotos.
And Dana? If you HAVE been to Tahiti, please tell!
The lorikeet is an amazing shot. When I was young and foolish (as opposed to not-so-young and still-a-bit-foolish) I used to not think that photography is a type of art. Thanks for reminding me of the error of my previous thinking!
Does anyone know about Movable Type?
http://www.movabletype.com/blog/
Seems like a better platform. I'm dying. I've tried blogger and didn't like it. Journalspace and didn't like it. Wordpress and haven't found anything I love but it's better than blogger or journalspace.
I'll look into Movable Type. Argh!
The light cast on fascinating and beautiful objects by a good photographer never ceases to surprise me. I have no eye, so I look upon those who do, like Dana, as magicians. I love the sunflower, but had I seen it I would never have seen it like Dana did.
Who's the redhead to Slick's right before H's BO blessing? He's chatting her up nearly continuously and she seems like she's trying to politely avoid him.
Dana has a good eye for photography.
Greetings from Lesotho
We've made it here in one piece and are now about to go on a pony trek up into the Drakensberg.
The countryside is beautiful, the weather sublime and people friendly. The countryside is comprised almost entirely of women as all the menfolk work as migrant workers in the nearby S.A gold mines.
I'm typing this from a Caltex petrol station which still has old manual pumps.
Great to see Dana's back and LOVE the photo.
Will write more when/if we make it up to Thaba Nchu, the mountain capital of the king.
Gaak! Remember TNR's "reporter" Beauchamp? His fisked reports might have been far less worse than what apparently actually happened! If true, my apologies to TNR.
A U.S. Army sergeant outed as a murderer in today's NYT seems to be the same one that led the unit involved in last years New Republic / Beauchamp controversy. Then he denied atrocities Beauchamp reported on.
Turns out the sergeant is up for promotion. I wonder what happened to Beauchamp. This is disgusting.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/200...-sgt-
hatle.html
h/t warandpiece
doug,
If this holds up and is not a NYT blunder, then it would indeed cast a far different light on Beauchamp. But I suggest looking for other news accounts that tell the same story before we give it serious consideration.
Let's see how Fox News handles this. In science, convincing a skeptic is a key indication that an idea is being validated. Fox News could be considered a skeptical source.
@Bradley - is Stars & Stripes good enough for confirming the NYT?
http://www.stripes.com/article.a...4&
article=57000
Bradley,
It isn't the Times that connected this to the Beauchamp story. It was a blogger, moonofalabama. I hadn't heard of it before.
The Times story is about the alleged prisoner executions confessed to by subordinates. They missed the connection (if it exists). This could be big news.
Nothing yet in powerline or lgf. Odd.
doug, Okay, you're right. Some of us who criticized Beauchamp may have to eat our words, or at least some of them.
"b" also points out in the moonofalabama story that the Stars and Stripes carries the old unit designation (which is Beauchamp's unit) while the Times carries the new one and hence the connection isn't as obvious.
Bradley,
"Some of us who criticized Beauchamp..."
As did I. Which is why I believe I had a duty to point out the story.
BTW, "b" is the original poster of this story at the moonofalabama blog.
How did he find his way here?
I don't know, but nevertheless, thank you, "b", for showing up. Perhaps The Festering Swamp has more lurkers than we know!
I'll follow up with a post later this week.
I think b got pinged!
thanks, cassandra. The obvious thing for a Webmaster to do.
cassandra,
Yep. I shoulda posted the link de linkified so it wouldn't generate a "from."
Oh, this is a bad thing?
No, it's not a bad thing at all. I'm glad to hear from "b".
Well, until such time as Beauchamps is proven to be anything other than a narcicisstic liar and fifth-columnist (remember, TNR itself could not validate his claims), I'm remaining skeptical.
Mike L.
The issue isn't Beauchamp per se. It's whether the murders he alleged to have happened actually did so. He could very well be all you describe, but the charges could still be true.
Of course, you are right to be skeptical.
Did he allege murders ? I missed that. There was the skull from the graveyard story; the burned woman and the running over dogs with a Bradley. When did he allege murders ?
Mike K.
Maybe he didn't allege murders, my memory on that needs refreshing. But if one of those disputing Beauchamp's story did order killing Iraqis in the manner described, that is huge.
Patterico has a post on an ugly smear by Andrew Sullivan against McCain. There is a guy named Ted Sampley who was making money from MIA families back in the 70s and 80s and who was exposed by McCain and Kerry who headed a delegation to investigate after we established diplomatic relations with Vietnam. Here is Sampley's own web site. Note how he quotes McCain in what is a true statement. Imagine someone so deluded as to quote that statement about himself. And then think about Andrew Sullivan citing such a person in an attack on a Senator. Truly despicable.
Mike K.
Sullivan wrote one paragraph noting that Sampley was going after McCain, and linked to a gossip column about it. Sullivan didn't say that he believed it. Patterico correctly points out that Sampley could not have been in the Swift Boat veterans.
There is plenty to fault Sullivan for, but this is not worth worrying about.
BTW, "b" is the original poster of this story at the moonofalabama blog.
How did he find his way here?
Simple - stats on my blog point to the source of anybody accessing it - that is a simple and NORMAL web feature every website has.
I didn't allege murder, btw, the witnesses in the army case did.
What I found was the connection with the Beauchamp issue.
Beauchamp reported some brutal but otherwise not really remarkable behavior of a unit and got burned for it. Weeks before that the same unit and specifically its leader willfully killed bound prisoners.
I simply pointed out the relation.
Does that make Beauchamp's reports more believable? Yes it does. But knowing how military units function psychologically, I never doubted them in the first place.
Those who doubted his reports should try to get some taste for crows.
b,
The only direct effect I can see is that the soldier in question wouldn't be acceptable as a witness against Beauchamp's reports. Those reports still must stand or fall on independent evidence.
Bradley, Mike,
No, he didn't allege murders. He wrote about activities that were cruel and hard to comprehend normal soldiers doing but far from killing captives. He "embellished" hs writing with a dollap of fiction. In this case the facts may well be far worse than the fiction.
The executions were a few months before Beauchamps "reports" blogged in TNR's "Shock Troops." This could explain the behaviours Scott alluded to. They certainly can't all be dismissed as easily as before.
You can't make this stuff up. Usually.
Bernhard, aka "b"
Looks like quite a significant find. Congratulations for putting the pieces together.
As for Beauchamp, he was caught posting "facts" that were disproved. This brought the rest of his reporting into question. However this new info brings into question much of the case against Beauchamp from the 1Sgt as well as other members of his unit. It would be interesting to hear from Beauchamp on this. Where is he now?
Very good question, doug.
This is really getting, ah, interesting. I'll have a post on this by tomorrow, probably with more questions than answers.
In the meantime, thanks to b for putting the pieces together to raise this issue.
Well, OT, I was blogging and had the TV on MSNBC..oh my god, what a love fest after the roll call put Obama over the top. I swear, Matthews was tearing up. Everyone's over the top emotional.
I'm kind of afraid the yearning to make a "first" has resulted in a not very good choice. Meh.
Meanwhile, Tom Brokaw said in passing that Montana Republicans were, if not in disarry, "disheveled."
HarrrRUMPPH!
There have been a lot of similar allegations in Iraq, all of which have been disproved thus far. Haditha is one example. LT Pantano was another. Pantano was accused by a disgruntled sergeant he had demoted. All of the accused in those cases have been found not guilty, in spite of John Murtha's attempts to smear them.
This may suggest that Beauchamp was not as obvious a liar as he appeared but I would await events before getting too excited.
If the accusation is true, that would be horrid. If the accusation is false, well, that would be horrid as well. Just more of the same horrid we've seen all along. Unfortunately, it's easy to make accusations against soldiers during war. I'd like to see the proof.
Also, Beauchamp's reporting veracity issues didn't hinge just on his cohort's word, right? He had other issues with the truth.
In other words, If the former turns out to be true, I still very much want to see the proof for the latter. As I remember it, the incident with the burned woman was bunk, or at the very least retold with the facts bungled. I don't remember anymore. It wasn't just that Sargent saying it didn't happen. There just wasn't any general back up for Beauchamp's reports. Am I wrong there?
Lycopene Goddess,
You are correct, Beauchamp had several layers of veracity challenges to his stories. But if this new accusation is true, it is far worse than anything Beauchamp has alleged.
Watch carefully how the dextro- and sinistrophere handle this new allegation. Those that cast doubt on his report should in all fairness take another look.
Here he is in all his glory. More here. I'll believe him when I see proof. He is a liar.
Interesting how comments fisking Ackermans article just sort of stopped. Ackerman does seem to have a good sense of timing.....
But then there is a world of difference between Beauchamp's fanciful writing and the written confessions of two soldiers claiming the sarge ordered the execution of blindfolded prisoners that had been ordered released.
Beauchamp's honesty isn't the issue now. It isn't even is second place.
Bradley,
So far I am disappointed at the silence.
The TNR should look into retracting its retraction of Beauchamp's accounts.
Uh, no. The New Republic and Beauchamp don't deserve sympathy and latitude for a phony-baloney article anymore than I'd deserve kudos for accusing my co-worker of stealing money at the workplace, even though I was totally wrong about it----or, worse, had flat-out lied about the whole thing----merely because a few days later it was discovered that an employee at the company next door had been caught embezzling money.
Mark,
Uh, no. The New Republic and Beauchamp don't deserve sympathy and latitude for a phony-baloney article anymore than I'd deserve kudos for accusing my co-worker of stealing money at the workplace, even though I was totally wrong about it----or, worse, had flat-out lied about the whole thing----merely because a few days later it was discovered that an employee at the company next door had been caught embezzling money.
Not quite. The NCO of Beauchamp's unit is the one charged. That NCO also specifically stated he was involved in the investigation into Beauchamps charges. He sent this email re Beauchamp and the publishing of it was a major component of trashing Beauchamp:
SFC McElroy,
I’m not in the habit of answering these email’s. It would be far too many. I appreciate all the support from home and I can assure you that not a single word of this was true. We’ve been fighting this fight for quite some time. Numerous soldiers within my unit have served on several deployments and this is my third year as a First Sergeant in this unit. My soldiers conduct is consistently honorable. This soldier has other underlining issues which I’m sure will come out in the course of the investigation. No one at any of the post we live at or frequent, remotely fit the descriptions of any of the persons depicted in this young man’s fairy tale. I can’t and won’t divulge any information regarding this soldier, but I do sincerely appreciate all the support from the people back home. Again, this young man has a vivid imagination and I promise you that this by no means reflects the truth of what is happening here. I’m currently serving with the best America has to offer. I have worked and fought closely with every soldier within my company and they are consummate professionals in an area most people can’t fathom. I’m proud of my soldiers and would gladly give my life for any one of them. Please continue to keep them with you in your prayers and thank God that we have these courageous men willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, Americans, and the people of this struggling nation.
Sincerely,
1SG Hatley
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2007...cs-man-in-iraq/
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