Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source

Greyhawk, fellow USAF veteran and founder of Milblogs, weighs in:

How far into The New Republic's fabricated war story did I have to get to recognize it was a fabricated story? Answer: Not very far. Here's the first line:

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.

Here's a true war story. One late night near Baghdad, my unit's First Sergeant and I went to the local USAF passenger terminal to pick up a newly arrived troop. Because food is important to survival and morale, the first place we took our newbie was the DFAC - the Dining Facility. (Pronounced DEEFAK with emphasis on the first syllable.) AS I said, it was late, so as we pulled into the parking area Top asked a passing soldier "Hey, what time does the chow hall close?". His response was a blank stare, and a "huh?". He moved closer to the vehicle.

"What time does the Chow Hall close?" The First Sergeant repeated. The soldier began to appear confused, and was unable to respond. Something clicked in my head. "He doesn't know what a chow hall is" I said. The term is outdated, appearing now only in old war movies on TV, but Top and I are old school. "What time does the DFAC close?" Asked the First Sergeant.

"Twenty hundred hours" he replied smartly. He wasn't being a smart ass, he was completely unfamiliar with the term "chow hall".

Excellent observation. (See? Now I feel old, because I would have called such a place a 'chow hall' as well. ) Be sure to read the rest.

Ray Robison does a bit more sleuthing and concludes--with benefit of the doubt--that "Scott Thomas's" real name is Clifton Hicks:

Clifton Hicks is a former army soldier who did serve in Iraq. Hicks has become that most cherished item for the anti-war crowd, a soldier who fulfills their need for first-hand accounts of war atrocities. Hicks was granted conscientious objector status and a release from the Army after receiving administrative punishment for unprofessional conduct. Since then, and especially recently, he has tapped into the anti-war establishment for self-promotion.

The evidence that links these two identities is strong but not conclusive. Clifton Hicks was quoted in a Newsweek article, Probing a Bloodbath, which focused primarily on the "Haditha massacre". Of great interest is the name of the Newsweek reporters:   Evan Thomas and Scott Johnson. Keep in mind that our TNR writer took the pseudonym "Scott Thomas". Is this a coincidence?

In the Newsweek article, Hicks states "One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank."

"Scott Thomas" writes for TNR:

I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs.

It seems that both writers focus on stories from Iraq of running over people and things with armored vehicles. Both write in a distinctive soul-searching, near self-loathing and existentialist style.

Michael Goldfarb links to a few more musings and wonders

how long can the New Republic hold out without bowing to the legitimate questions raised by the best and brightest of the blogospehre, and how long can the mainstream media avoid taking this issue up for themselves?

Until they're backed into a corner--as usual. They're not there yet.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston of Hot Air adds another nail into the credibility of TNR and its anonymous "Thomas." After reading this line from another of Thomas's missives from the front "Dead of Night,"

Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

Says Bryan:

Weapons are flowing into that country from every which way. Surely one or more of all of the arms dealers have Glocks that they’re willing to sell to anyone with the cash to buy them. The battlefield is just too chaotic for an infantryman who can’t tell the difference between a military and a civilian to be able to go SNAP–this lone casing proves that someone in the Iraqi police did this. That might work on CSI, but not in the real world.

It's amazing how often Big Media entities try to get away with this sort of thing. I read the first two "Scott Thomas" stories also (the third story, "Shock Troops," is the one that has been subject to dissection over the past few days) but since I'm less than familiar with things Army I couldn't see anything wrong with them. From what I can tell, other than the Glock information, there is nothing that stands out as bogus in the first two stories and, as a result, no one in the know raised an alarm. Because of that, TNR's editors became emboldened enough to put out such egregious B(D)S as "Shock Troops." Hubris makes one careless.