Beauchamp was lying. Bob Owens has the confirmation from MNF Iraq:
Col. Steven Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for U.S. Army Commanding General in Iraq David Petraeus, just emailed me the following in response to my request to confirm an earlier report that the U.S. Army’s investigation into the claims made by PV-2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp made in The New Republic had been completed.He states:
To your question: Were there any truth to what was being said by Thomas?
Answer: An investigation of the allegations were conducted by the
command and found to be false. In fact, members of Thomas’ platoon and
company were all interviewed and no one could substantiate his claims.
As to what will happen to him?
Answer: As there is no evidence of criminal conduct, he is subject to
Administrative punishment as determined by his chain of command. Under
the various rules and regulations, administrative actions are not
releasable to the public by the military on what does or does not
happen.
The New Republic owes the US military an apology and its readers a refund.
I never doubted that he was lying. Not for so much as a nanosecond.
“Administrative punishment,” i.e. NJP. Good old ENN JAY PEE. Just like with Christmas presents, it is better to give than to receive! I hope his command maxes him, the filthy little punk.
Strictly speaking it’s either administrative or it’s punishment. Not both.
NJP is nonjudicial punishment. I.E. not enough to warrant a court-martial, but still “criminal” (violative of the UCMJ) in nature.
If there’s no criminal misconduct, then there’d be nothing to charge. PAO probably just misspoke.
This guy should be dealt with in an out of the way fashion, away from the lawyers.
He should be made an example of.
That’s how things like this were taken care of decades ago, and it was far better.
It’s not a particularly pleasant suggestion, but we’re not in pleasant times. This guy is aiding and abetting our enemies, de facto, if not de jure.
And the men in the ranks, the men who served alongside him, should take care of him, make an example of him. And when asked about it later, by lawyers and the reporters, who will invariably descend upon them, they should shut the hell up, and maintain the silence of the tomb over the whole damn sorry episode.
But this guy should pay……….
Yes, that’s the way to go. To hell with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and what it stands for. To hell with duty and integrity. Let’s just sink to the level of PVT Beauchamp and start acting like the Army that he painted a picture of.
The Uniform Code is almost incapable of doing anything about this twit.
It’s as I said, this guy has DE FACTO aided and abetted the open enemies of this country, during a time of war.
And the Uniform Code can’t do spit about it.
Go ask an Army lawyer what charges can be brought against this asshole.
During and after ‘Nam, men like Kerry got away with describing horrors that never took place, atrocities that never occurred, and they ripped apart the Armed Forces, and ripped apart the war effort.
And as a result, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE were either driven from their homes, their villages, the land of their ancestors, or they were killed outright.
We’re in a war.
This little snot picked a side.
What is your duty towards?
A legal fiction, or to this country, to the Army, to the overall mission, which isn’t simply prevail in Iraq, but prevail in the overall war on muslim mayhem.
What is integrity, pretending that our legal system can deal with this guy, when it clearly can’t, or is integrity measured by the punishment that you’ll demand from a man, WHO BY HIS OWN WORDS, only joined to smear you, to betray you, to aid and abet the enemies of this country.
You need to get your priorities right.
I’ve said NOTHING that wouldn’t have been batted around in the ranks of our military only several decades ago.
There are many in our midst who have become very comfortable, OVERLY comfortable rationalizing passivity, rationalizing defeat.
This country hasn’t decisively defeated an enemy since 1945.
The last officer who demanded the right to respond in kind to enemy provocations was MacArthur.
You’ve become content to rationalize why victories can’t be achieved, by blaming politicians.
Now you rationalize letting this dirtball get away with aiding and abetting the enemies of this country, during a time of open conflict, by urging us all to adhere to the Uniform Code.
Cut me a break!
First off, there’s almost nothing in the Uniform Code that deals with this situation. Secondly, before the Uniform Code could be applied, THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE A DECISION by the Judge Advocate General to go after this guy. And that’s not going to happen.
This guy is going to skate, but for the attention that The Weekly Standard and NRO
directs his way, nothing will happen to him. He’ll probably end up with a gigantic book deal.
Is that justice?
Is that a result that in any way is consistent with “integrity?”
Standing by, doing nothing, letting the lawyers take over, while they do nothing……………. is that now the standard of duty?
It was the lawyers, who made a fetish over rules of engagement and the Uniform Code, who dictated to men in command that Mullah Omar had to be allowed to skate.
And our officer corps stood still for it. Again, standing still, being docile, being passive, accepting this bullshit, now is the measure of an officer’s integrity.
That’s not how Nelson measured integrity, that’s not how he measured or understood duty.
Not simply has our officer corps become politically correct, but they now regurgitate politically correct platitudes, on their own, without outside urging.
You’ve INTERNALIZED the politically correct, effeminate ethos, in lieu of maintaining the warrior ethos.
Fifty years from now nobody is going to put a little star on someone’s forehead because he waged a war consistent with the Uniform Code. Nobody is going to say: “Yea, you lost, but at least you did so following ridiculous orders to the very end.” It’s not going to go down that way.
Nor is the officer corps going to be able to dump defeat on to the politicians.
Not after ‘Nam.
Korea, ‘Nam, now Iraq, now the overall war on muslim sponsored mayhem.
What duty do you owe to the men in your command who died honourably, who served, and whose memory is now besmirched by this dirtball, what of the duty you owe to THEM?
What of the duty that you owe to the men in Walter Reed, who try to navigate corridors getting used to the prosthetic devices they’ll be wearing the rest of their lives, who lost limbs, who’ve been maimed, who’ve been disfigured, and yet whose service has been cruelly mocked, DELIBERATELY, INTENTIONALLY, and FALSELY mocked by this little dirtball?
What of them?
What of those long dead, whose memory we honour, who expect you, now, regardless of difficulties, to maintain proper form, to maintain standards, to erect boundaries, that cannot be crossed.
This guy just didn’t lie about you.
He laughed while doing so.
And again, as in so many things anymore, your response is passive, you throw up your hands, asking: “what can I do, what can we do?”
In Stephen Ambrose’s book CITIZEN SOLDIER, there is recounted an event that concerned the 28th Infantry Division, {Penn. National Guard}, in the Huertgen Forest. Several Pennsylvanians were captured by the enemy, taken into the ruins of a church and crucified over the altar of sacrifice, and left hanging in the air. A Pennsylvanian unit found them. What they did was wait. They waited for some Germans to show up, they captured a handful of them. Then they took those Germans to the same exact church, and crucified them in the same exact fashion as our men had been crucified, and left them hanging, just as their fellow Pennsylvanians had been left hanging.
They didn’t report it to the lawyers.
They didn’t report it to high command.
They didn’t write their congressmen.
They put an immediate end to the German practice of crucifying Pennsylvanians.
That’s what they did.
Would you dare ask them “what of duty, what of integrity?”
Do you honestly think that little snot Beauchamp would be the first soldier who had his act ended, promptly, by the men around him? Do you really think the men in “the Greatest Generation” didn’t occasionally have to take care of business in this way?
Do you really think I enjoy making such a suggestion?
Do you really think this is the kind of crap I enjoy pondering?
Business as usual is not going to cut it, after ‘Nam, you guys have to know that standard operating procedure is a surefire way to protracted conflict and ultimate defeat.