...at The New Republic.

I think a good argument can be made for Hugh Hewitt's point, that part of the problem here is that journalists generally haven't served, and don't know anyone that has, and so are utterly clueless about military machinery. I'm guessing the editor read "Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle" and had the vague mental image of a Hummer with a machine gun on top.

Now, if someone had written about how American Airlines co-pilots landing in Baghdad liked to swerve their 737s on the runway to run over stray dogs, a lot of alarm bells would have gone off in the editor's head...

Wait a minute, the co-pilot swerves over a dog without the pilot or passengers noticing? Or saying anything? If a pilot risked damaging a big expensive plane like that all the time, you'd think someone responsible would notice. And how easy is it to see a dog on the runway under the wheels if you're up in a cockpit anyway? How easy is it to "swerve" a 50-ton airplane sharply enough to catch an agile animal?

These questions should have occured to the editor with respect to the Bradley, but since he wouldn't know a Bradley from a VW Beetle, they didn't.

The US Army would never lie about atrocities committed by its soldiers. Army soldiers never commit atrocities.

Hey Tim, somebody lied when they told you that you weren't fit to lie in the mud and filthwith pigs.

I, an Army guy, took up for you and argued the contrary. Imagine that!

Imagine also the rest of us having far more than the necessary greater than second grade level intelligence necessary to see thru the diseased and weatherbeaten strawman argument you are so poorly attempting to make.

Beauchamp is a malacious liar, he broke faith with his comrades and lied about the Unite States Army. He provided aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. I hope the little shit rots in Leavenworth for a couple of decades as he richly deserves.

There is nothing more detested in the service than a 'buddy phucker'.

Interesting, isn't it?

The military has had cases of atrocities. The press has had cases of blatant lying.

So, which one to believe?

You could be consistent, and believe neither.

You could be credulous, and believe both.

But I think it's kinda perverse to believe the press, which has few mechanisms for self-correcting (and even fewer that it seems to actually adhere to), and not the military, which actually has mechanisms for self-correction (consider that Abu Ghraib was under investigation by the military long before anyone had ever heard of Lyddie England).

The US Army would never lie about atrocities committed by its soldiers.

Atrocities? Atrocities? Dude, what planet are you from? Beauchamp reported the following about himself and his buddies...

(1) He laughed and made fun of a woman injured in an IED explosion.

(2) Some other guy in his unit wore on top of his head a piece of a child's skull found in a random grave.

(3) Some other guy used to run over stray dogs in his Bradley IFV.

Which are "atrocities," pray? Which rise to the level of herding women in children into ditches and machine-gunning them, such as the Nazis did in Poland in the Second World War? Or which rise to the level of wholescale rape and plunder, like the Red Army in Berlin in 1945?

Is it some kind of mental disease with those on the left that they can't usefully distinguish between dinky stuff and true horror? Some total lack of perspective that you get with your Democratic Party card? This is why you fools can't tell the difference between dressing a prisoner up in women's underwear and a dog leash (Abu Ghraib) and cutting some innocent guy's head off with a knife in order to make a kewl YouTube recruitment video (Nick Berg)?

Sheesh, what a bunch of moral midgets.

Mr. Lakeston (if that really IS your name):

I am an Army veteran. We veterans, and our successors currently serving, aren't perfect. We make mistakes, and we do wrong.

We also self-police, and imprison soldiers who are found guilty in a military court of atrocities. The soldiers receive due process superior to that of most civilian criminal cases.

Compared to us, what are you? Compared to the US military, what do you offer for the benefit of the world?

*crickets chirp*

Yup, that's what I thought.

Nothing. You are, and offer, nothing at all.