Monday, July 23, 2007

More on the 'Shock Troops' story

Emphasis on 'story'.

Over at Q&O, found several pieces, from earliest to latest here, here, and here, and links to a Howard Kurtz article here. The response to the questions from New Republic:
"The Standard raises some important questions about the piece, and we're investigating them," New Republic Editor Franklin Foer said yesterday. "I've been in touch with several members of the author's unit who corroborate the details under question. And the author has provided compelling responses himself."

Which boils down to "We say it's true, so there. We'll have some proof at some point. When we feel like it." Which, considering the attention this is getting, would seem to mean "Crap, we need something to prove at least some of this! What'll we do? We can't get away with 'the story is true even if the facts are not' anymore!"

One thing , aside from the other BS in this, is the stuff about a Bradley driver ramming through walls, etc. I'm not an armor guy, so I'm going by what I've read. And one thing you don't do with a bloody TANK if you can avoid it is ram through concrete walls; hard on the vehicle and the people inside. Well, the Bradley is NOT a tank, it's much lighter and more lightly armored, and the consequences to the vehicle of doing such a thing would be, shall we say, 'bad'. Like damaging the gun, and the missile launcher, and the people inside... I kind of think the vehicle commander and unit commander would have some words to say to the driver who did something like this without very damn good reason. Said words probably being accompanied with the driver's ass being relocated to somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder blades.

But, why let nasty facts get in the way of a 'true' story? Didn't stop Dan Rather.

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