The New Republic is now investigating the veracity of the claims made by the pseudonymous "Scott Thomas" that I outlined last week. This is probably something they should've done before they printed it, but The New Republic has a history there.

I encourage you to visit The Weekly Standard's blog and just start scrolling for the most extensive coverage of the story.

For those of you who want some more background, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz had an article on the controversy last weekend. From that article, I'd like to point out this gem from New Republic editor Franklin Foer.

As the criticism mounts, Foer says he sees an ideological agenda.

"A lot of the questions raised by the conservative blogosphere boil down to, would American soldiers be capable of doing things like the things described in the diarist. The practical jokes are exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented by the U.S. military. Conservative bloggers make a bit of a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq."

And the reverse can be said about the liberal blogosphere and magazines. So what? It's irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is did this happen or did it not?

Along those lines, I direct you to this note (via the Weekly Standard) from a contractor in Iraq who was a frequent visitor to FOB Falcon, where the harassment of a disfigured female soldier/contractor allegedly occurred.

Please withhold my name and position as I am a civilian contractor and do not need to gain any notoriety.

I was at FOB Falcon on and off from 05 through mid 06. While I did not live there, I was a daily guest of the chow hall which was better than the locally procured and prepared Iraqi chow we got provided for us. In addition we usually hung around in between mission times trading pieces of kit and whatnot with the soldiers stationed there.

Not once did I ever notice a female, either active duty or contractor, fitting the rather overblown description in the "Shock Troops" article. Furthermore, even if such a female existed, any Joe would have adjusted the attitudes of those fictional soldiers. Mocking the wounded is simply not done. Period. Full stop. Do not pass "GO". Do not collect 200 dollars. For a soldier to not only mock, but sexually harass a wounded woman would have brought down the wrath of every senior enlisted and officer in the mess hall. Some of us get pretty protective of women over here and the chance of a 4 wall counseling session occurring immediately afterwards is around the 99th percentile.

We contractors hate IEDs as much as the military does, and jokes about them are usually followed by a thorough thrashing somewhere out of sight. For a soldier to be publicly joking about them and the effects on a person is nonsensical. Nobody would have put up with the kind of verbiage attributed to the supposed soldiers at FOB Falcon. Even if the first sentence somehow escaped the brain-mouth checkpoint- he would have been told (and not too politely) to cease and desist.

Bottom line is that this section of the article is total, complete, wholehearted, bovine scatology.

I love the idea of a "4 wall counseling session."