The Fog of War

During Hezbollah’s most recent attempt to exterminate more Israelis, both the Associated Press and Reuters were caught red-handed manufacturing stories and altering photographs in attempts to make Hezbollah look more humane than the attacked Israelis.

In Iraq, Haditha will forever live on as the place where Congressman Murtha and other liberal Democrats smeared American soldiers who were defending themselves. Other Democrats, like Senators Kennedy, Durban and Reid have also used terms like “murderers”. “losers”, and “liars”. Senator Kennedy referred to Saddam’s Abu Ghraib as “under new management”.

What is it about liberals and liberal publications that they must constantly defame American leaders and the American military, as well as a country that has been attacked over and over again by its Arab neighbors?

One liberal publication, The New Republic, has finally admitted to the publication of scandalous lies about the American military – several months after they were exposed, and after several months of mealy-mouthed explanations. Last summer I published an article that contained the following paragraph:

“Liberal New Republic Caught in Lies
Last month I reported on the antics of The New Republic, a liberal publication that previously almost went out of business because it had been exposed as the publisher of several fake stories (The Phantom Baghdad Diarist?, 7/24/07). TNR has more recently been publishing the recounting, by a soldier in Iraq, of horrendous acts carried out by American solders there. Many aspects of these stories did not pass the smell test (shades of John Kerry), and TNR was called to account. It is now certain that these were all lies gleefully reported by the once respected journal. We hope that this time it means that TNR will now go out of business. It deserves the same fate as Antioch College.”

Only this week did TNR publish a 14 page explanation called, “The Fog of War” that ended with this paragraph:

“The New Republic
Fog of War by Franklin Foer
The story of our Baghdad Diarist.
Post Date Monday, December 10, 2007

In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity--which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate.

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.”

Powerline had this to say about the disgusting TNR:

“Today TNR editor Franklin Foer has posted his long-awaited climbdown from the magazine's Baghdad Diarist columns by Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Foer's 10,000-words is published under the heading "Fog of war." It is a pathetic, evasive, self-justifying, self-pitying, and deeply dishonest emission of verbal fog. Too bad, instead of all the rationalizations, that he didn't just apologize in a manly and direct way long ago as soon as the facts warranted an apology.”

I agree with Powerline's sentiments; The New Republic should just fade away.