\nSeparately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:<\/p>\n
An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
According to the military source, Beauchamp’s recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military’s investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, “I’m willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This seems pretty definitive, and unless someone who is accountable by name is flat-out lying – which in this era seems pretty darn risky – I’d say that we’re one step away (public comment from Beauchamp and\/or release of his sworn statement) from putting a wooden stake into the heart of this story.<\/p>\n
On the other side, I’ll raise a simple proof that would go a long way toward establishing some veracity on Beauchamp’s part. Find someone who recalls a burn-disfigured woman who served at Camp Buehring, in Kuwait during the time that Beauchamp might have been there. I can’t believe that’s not something people would remember.<\/p>\n
For me, I think this issue is close to closed. Sadly, it’s also closed for people who want to believe the worst of our troops – that the kind of soulless cruelty that Beauchamp wrapped himself in is close to the norm, rather than the exception – the truth or falsity of Beauchamp’s ‘facts’ are irrelevant – his stories, like all good literature speak to a deeper truth that they embrace tightly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re getting close to some truth on Beauchamp. It won’t matter to those who believe the deeper truth of his stories, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}