I’ll identify myself as liberal, and I know I will have a tendency to believe a liberal story easier than a conservative story, but in most cases I have a functioning gut check when I read something that appeals to me. It’s not always possible to do your own fact checking to be sure that what you’re reading is true, but it’s as least worthy to ask yourself, since I don’t know the full background here, is it possible this can be false? Or, at least, not entirely true? If it’s important enough to be sure, do further investigation. If not, at least come away with the idea that what you’re reading might not be as complete as it should.

I extend that concept, then, to groups of people. If there’s a story that liberals are greatly agreeing with, is it simply slipping into group acceptance because all these other people believe it to be true, and they don’t do their own fact checking? I’m not as vigilant with this one, because I tend to identify with liberals more, and I have an innate belief that liberals are more rational. I should say, an innate, irrational belief. People are irrational everywhere, and while the majority of the reading I do makes me feel that liberals on average have a better handle on logic than conservatives, it doesn’t make that an absolute truth. But I can forget it, sometimes.

But on the other hand, sometimes a story comes along that makes me think I should take a stronger mental stance against conservative groupthink, and in this case the story is about Scott Beuchamp.

As I’ve said, I’ve been enjoying Gleen Greenwald recently. I like his even-toned writing, and his sourcing is very good—he’s convinced me that I can tend to believe him. Recently he said something about the Scott Beauchamp story. For context, Beauchamp is a soldier in Iraq, who wrote some features in The New Republic about his Iraq experiences under the pseudo-pseudonym Scott Thomas (his full name is Scott Thomas Beauchamp), and some things he wrote about were fairly nasty and possibly illegal. (Subscription is required to get them on the Web.)

Greenwald wrote the following about the right’s reaction to Beauchamp:

I would simply add that right-wing troop-exploiters always reserve their most hateful, vicious and deeply personal attacks for soldiers and veterans who deviate from their political church — Jack Murtha, John Kerry, Wes Clark, Max Cleland, Scott Beauchamp. Similarly, the minute Pat Tillman’s political views became known, the use they had for him vanished (and nobody has less interest in finding out what happened to Pat Tillman than they do). As Digby points out, they “support the troops” only to the extent that the troops are useful props for their political agenda.

This is strident enough that it caught my attention. How would he come to this fairly strong conclusion? I started looking through the story in various parts of the web, and yeah, the right sure has been coming down hard on him.

Sadly, No! summarizes the course of events, but it goes like this: TNR published stories from Scott Thomas, who says he’s a soldier in Iraq. The stories are not happy, and as I said, possibly describe illegal activities. The wide opinion on the rightwise blogs is that TNR is being suckered by an imposter who’s trying to make the troops look bad, and of course, we must Support the Troops. But, it turns out that he’s Really Real. Rather than back down at this point, though, the right blogs attack the hell out of him. I didn’t see anyone explicitly calling him a traitor—I’d really like to see someone rationalize that and Support Our Troops simultaneously—but the discussions quite rapidly moved to the topics of Beauchamp’s honesty, motives, and general worthiness, rather than the effects of war on a human living it.

Firstly, digby has an excerpt of one of Beauchamp’s stories, a heartbreaking scene in which Beauchamp and his pals are the ones who are the assholes—it’s like reading a woman’s story of courage, except written by the pricks who are the reason she needs it. But digby’s reaction to this is: there’s some controversy now over whether these stories are true, but she believes the possibility, due to personal experience:

I worked years ago on the Alaska Pipeline and was exposed, at a young age, to the misogynistic preening of certain men in such situations and I assume the hyper-testosteroned environment of war makes it even more acceptable and sadistic than what I lived with.* And that was a lot. (Of course it was 30 years ago, so perhaps there has been some consciousness raising since then.)if this story isn’t true in this instance, it almost assuredly is true in its essence. There is a certain type of person, particularly in these stimulating macho environments, who lose all social restraint and become barbaric jerks. And there are always a whole bunch of sycophants who join them, either for fear of being called a pussy or genuine attraction to such cruelty.

And I believe it, not due to direct personal experience of people working in extreme environments, but mostly due to my knowledge that 1) some people are just assholes, and 2) otherwise sane people will do strange and terrible things in the right (wrong) circumstances, and later, not even be clear why they did (Abu Ghraib, the Milgram experiment, the Stanford prison experiment, etc).

But rather than understand that, and thereby threaten the image that all our Boys in Uniform are right-thinking, square-jawed conservative personifications of the American Way, the right blogs were quick to villify Beauchamp as a terrible and broken example of something gone wrong, the “something” probably being that he wants to insult his fellow soldiers, or that he’s a liberal in wolf’s clothing, or some other motivation other than being a normal guy in an abnormal situation. Some of the arguments against him…in the aggregate, I was having a hard time dealing with the swiftness with which some of these people slam down the shields to protect from any sunlight getting in.

The people who refute Beauchamp’s accounts for operational reasons—people in the military, people with direct knowledge and access to information I don’t—I can’t really speak to. But the ones that would refute him on “that just wouldn’t happen” grounds, especially by people who, to my knowledge, were never in combat, really knock me over with their assumed Rightness of Position.

Is it possible that American soldiers would be so sadistic when confronted by a badly burned woman, who may be a fellow soldier? Well, yes: Anything is possible when it comes to human depravity. But consider: these are enlisted men who, by the author’s own account, don’t know who this woman is or what rank she might hold. (Incidentally, wouldn’t soldiers be able to distinguish a soldier from a contractor–especially if she is a regular at the chow hall?) Would they really ridicule her with raised voices in a public place, on “one especially crowded day”?… (Michael Goldfarb, The Weekly Standard)

First, he labels this “human depravity”, rather than “basic assholism”, which is what this particular account really is. And he tips a bit of his hand: asking if it’s possible “American soldiers” would be this mean. American soldiers are not forged from the purest Unclesamonium; American soldiers are American people with combat training. And some percentage of American people are just pricks.

Second, the whole “that just wouldn’t happen” argument. How can he say “oh, this just wouldn’t happen with other people around”? Probably because he has an image of what the American Soldier would do, and since this account diverges from that image, it can’t be true. Probably, if the American Soldier did have a less-than-honourable opinion about the woman’s disfigurement, he’d keep it to himself, maybe at worst share it with a good buddy quietly over beers later.

Unless maybe the soldier in question is just a prick. Why does this not seem possible to him?

Some people write in to more properly refute this account; military people who say an officer would most probably be within hearing range, and that they wouldn’t tolerate his actions. Okay, probably true, but does that mean it was absolutely true? Does saying “that sounds unlikely” mean we get to write it off as lies?

After all the “Scott Thomas is fake” hullabaloo, he outs himself in TNR. Here’s Jonah Goldberg’s reaction to that:

That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

Isn’t this just a bit too precious? The guy writes about how his comrades mock disfigured women, slaughter dogs and wear baby skulls as hats, but he’s upset that others have called his and his comrades’ character into question? Someone explain that to me.

Okay, since you ask: because they’re in a fucked-up situation on the edge of death, and the abnormal starts to seem normal. Again I will profess I don’t have direct experience here, but again, 1) I can understand it, and 2) I’m amazed at the ease withwhich Goldberg and others simply wave it off because “that just can’t be.” This is what Beauchamp’s living through, and this is the kind of thing that starts to seem rational to people in his situation, but those who wanted to insist he doesn’t exist (or if he does, he’s worthless and an inferior, honorless soldier) came down on him pretty hard. And he wants to make it clear that he’s not a terrible person, and that his motives and the motives of his comrades are still honorable. Despite the things they’re doing and how they’re living.

Even as I write this, I’m hearing my internal devil’s advocate saying: how would you know? You’re not living it either, you don’t know what it’s like. But all I can say is: I don’t personally understand it, but I can understand how it can be. I know I’m not making a strong case here, but I can’t put it any more convincingly than that.

But this one from Power Line is my favorite—it started me down this path of writing this too-long post.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a whole lot more on Beauchamp, who has a blog and a MySpace page. He’s a pretentious ass, and a lefty.

Oh ho, so that’s how it’s done. What I said above about reconciling “he’s a traitor” and “Support Our Troops” simultaneously: easy. He’s a “lefty”. So obviously he has an Agenda. Nevermind that, despite the fact he may disagree with the current administration, he loves his country enough to risk hot death at any moment. He’s a Lefty. Whew, for a minute there we might have to actually Support him, but thank (the correct and only) God we’re off the hook, there.

I could be wrong about all this—which, so far, on my own personal scale of viewpoint acceptance, puts me far and away above a lot of people who are hanging him out to dry, because they have assumed things about him and considered it to be True. But I’m still just amazed at how swiftly people shut down any sense of inquisitiveness they should have, because they assume motives of other people, with no evidence other than the belief in their own position.

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