No More Anonymous, Please! By Victor Davis Hanson

The New Republic magazine recently ran into big trouble for publishing a first-person account of military savagery in Iraq. The author, Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, used the pseudonym "Scott Thomas" to write of the debasement of war that he claims he saw in the cauldron of Iraq.

But it was soon discovered that one of the gruesome "wartime" incidents the private described -- the author, desensitized by war, mocking a disfigured woman -- took place in Kuwait before his unit actually went into Iraq.

And when, post-publication, The New Republic rechecked Beauchamp's other suspicious anecdotes and assured its readers they were at least still accurate, the magazine would not identify the sources it used for verification.
The result of keeping these sources anonymous is that the reading public still can't believe the once-anonymous Beauchamp's account -- or what his New Republic editors are now saying.

 

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