Redstate

Let's Stop TNR From Getting Away With It.

By Martin A. Knight Posted in Archived — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Everyone here probably remembers the "Jamil Hussain" kerfuffle. "Jamil Hussain" was the pseudonym (though that was not made known to their readers at the time) of a police captain assigned to the Khadra police station in Baghdad who the AP has identified as a source for 62 of their stories - this included events that were outside the station's jurisdiction.

Then one day the AP filed this report;

Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.

The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes while killing an unknown number of Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

Read on ...

Now, the problem with this story is that all four mosques were still standing as at the time the story was written and there was no corroborating evidence that any such thing as the burning alive of six worshippers happened, such as burnt bodies in the morgue.

The AP was challenged on this story and it was demanded of them to produce this Jamil Hussain character. It took them more than a month, during which time the Iraqi Ministry of Information went searching for a Captain Jamil Hussain, failed to find one and announced that he did not exist. Later on, however, the AP's reporters identified a Captain Jamil Gulaim as the Captain Jamil Hussain for their stories.

Which answered the secondary question that arose during the entire kerfuffle when the AP could not produce their source on demand; did Jamil Hussain even exist? The answer, it turned out, if you ignore the man's denials of ever having spoken to them in that capacity, is that he did.

But the original question still remained unanswered, was the story of the burning mosque and worshippers attributed to him true? All the evidence (especially since all four mosques are still standing) leads one to the answer that no, it was not. And in that case, how many of his 61 remaining stories are equally as inaccurate?

We never got an answer because after the AP finally pointed to someone they could call Jamil Hussain, they and their defenders on the Left took it and acted as if it was a categorical vindication. That proving that Jamil Hussain was an actual human being somehow made all he said, including the four mosques (still standing) being burnt down, true. Note again that he somehow had an incredibly detailed knowledge of events far from the jurisdiction of his station.

In other words, the goal posts - with some thanks to Conservatives who focussed way too much on whether or not Jamil Hussain actually existed as opposed to whether what he was feeding the AP was true or false - were moved, and the AP was able to walk away from this business relatively unscathed.

The Left is already trying this tactic with the Beauchamp story. Two or three have come in here shrieking that since Beauchamp has been proven to exist, this should be confirmation enough to prove that a fully grown man could put a child's skullcap on his head and then wear a helmet on his head, and all would fit perfectly; soldiers (especially himself) are in the habit of insulting women who had been disfigured by an IED; and that soldiers were regularly using Bradley Fighting Vehicles to knock down store fronts and kill dogs.

TNR and the rest of their Lefty buddies are now trying the AP-Jamil Hussein maneuver, trying to weasel out of proving the veracity of Beauchamp's stories by repeatedly pointing to the fact that he is a soldier in Iraq - two different things entirely. "Scott Thomas" himself is employing the chickenhawk charge while at the same time loudly levelling accusations that others are calling the characters of his comrades in arms "into question." Which is rich considering he just finished writing up events that portrays them (especially the members of his unit) uniformly as grave-desecrating, inhumane jerks.

Let's not be distracted here - as at two days ago there were two questions under consideration;
[1] Does "Scott Thomas" even exist? The answer is apparently: 'yes.'
[2] Are his stories to The New Republic true?

The AP was successful in dodging question [2]. Let's make sure Franklin Foer and his crew answer it. If it is true, fine. The people described in Beauchamp's "Shock Troops" entries, including Beauchamp himself, and their apparently negligent commanders should be punished and punished severely.

If it's not true though ...