Winter Soldier II Epilogue

For various reasons I haven't been able to be all over the New Republic/Scott Thomas Beauchamp libel of American servicepeople in Iraq nearly as much as others in the white-hat side of the blogosphere, particularly the Frankie Foer end of it. Fortunately this graf from Double-H this morning sums up my thoughts on the aftermath pretty well:

What I suspect will happen without any more effort on the Army's part is that The New Republic and its friends will hunker down, Clinton-style, and hope the controversy passes over. Private Beauchamp will return to civilian life and say a "confession was coerced," and another generation of Winter Soldier slander will be established for the anti-war fringe to feast upon.

Where I differ with Hugh is I think this will be the endgame no matter what the Army does. You have to remember, as far as the Left is concerned facts do...not...matter. And since they control the media (no matter how much Hugh cheerleads to the contrary), their fictitious version of Beauchamp's vicious fables will be reality for at least a substantial plurality of the American people.

I do agree with the Commodore when he writes, "The Army should realize that the effort to discredit America's military is a part of the war, even when that effort is led from within the Beltway." What they also should have realized, along with their civilian overseers in the Bush White House, is that if they didn't want that fifth-columnizing to have a chance to take root, they should have waged a quick war from the start. Sorry to say, even with the belated success of the "Surge" strategy, the expiration date on this one passed over a year ago, and the electoral results since then speak for themselves - and are unlikely to get better any time soon.