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First Sgt. Hatley and the Beauchamp TNR Affair

Updated below
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A U.S. Army sergeant outed as a murderer in today's NYT seems to be the same one that led the unit involved in last years New Republic / Beauchamp controversy. Then he denied atrocities Beauchamp reported on.

In July 2007 a U.S. soldier under the pseudonym Scott Thomas wrote about the war in Iraq at the The New Republic's Shock Troops blog. Scott Thomas described some disgusting behavior by his fellow soldiers. Such included running over dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles and playing with a child's scull found in a mass grave.

The rightwing media, the Weekly Standard, the National Review and many others, went nuts over these reports. The blogger's name was disclosed as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1-18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division, and after some heavy push and pull and an army investigation, The New Republic said it "cannot stand by these stories."

At the time of that controversy, a mil-blogger in the U.S. wrote to Beauchamp's company senior non-commissioned officer, identified as First Sgt. John E. Hatley, and got this response:

My soldiers conduct is consistently honorable. [...] Again, this young man has a vivid imagination and I promise you that this by no means reflects the truth of what is happening here. I'm currently serving with the best America has to offer. [...]

Sincerely,

1SG Hatley

Today the NYT reports about willful killing of Iraqis who were taken prisoners by the U.S. troops.

In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal, two of the soldiers said in sworn statements.
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After the killings, the first sergeant -- the senior noncommissioned officer of his Army company -- told the other two to remove the men's bloody blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, according to the statements made to Army investigators, which were obtained by The New York Times.
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The soldiers, all from Company D, First Battalion, Second Infantry, 172nd Infantry Brigade, have not been charged with a crime.
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The accounts of and confessions to the killings, by Sgt. First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sgt. Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D's senior medic and an acting squad leader, were made in January in signed statements to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany.

In their statements, Sergeants Mayo and Leahy each described killing at least one of the Iraqi detainees on instructions from First Sgt. John E. Hatley, who the soldiers said killed two of the detainees with pistol shots to the back of their heads.
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Last month, four other soldiers from Sergeant Hatley's unit were charged with murder conspiracy for agreeing to go along with the plan to kill the four prisoners, in violation of military laws that forbid harming enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody.

Is the First Sgt. John E. Hatley who l

Your rebuttal is by Gavin Schmidt (a well known AGW activist) and a bunch of "scientists" who happen to live in socialist countries. Here's a rebuttal to Gavin Schmidt's overall findings, drawn out from Gavin Schmidt himself:

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/11/gav in_schmidt_on_the_acquittal.html

"
"Climatologists calculate that annually the oceans dissolve between 92 and 107 Gigatons of carbon, and emit variously between 90 and 103 Gigatons back into the atmosphere, accuracy unknown."

These are HUGE numbers. In comparison, the entire yearly emissions of all human activity are estimated at 7 Gigatons. [...]

"
The anthropogenic crowd presume that the 90 GT figure is natural equilibrium and that the excess uptake of 2 GT is associated with anthropogenic CO2. Of course, this is nonsense. The 2 GT figure is merely the difference between two large, uncertain estimates. The sources for both the 90 GT and 92 GT figures and the 103 GT and 107 GT remain a mystery, concealing the method of computation, its probable accuracy, and the dependence on conditions and assumptions, especially but not exclusively global temperature (climate).
"

There's a ton more there, worth reading, including the fact that the Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 samples (widely cited as the definitive atmospheric CO2 record) are higher than anywhere else because Hawaii sits right next to where the biggest part of Oceanic CO2 is released.
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Quotes from a forum (albeit political in nature):
http://www.rightnation.us/forums/lofiversion/index .php/t116707.html

Isn't Intel based in the USA? Interesting to see that in light of the latest tensions between Israel and the USA Intel is going forward with the new factory deal and that the US government is not preventing them from doing that. Then again, the US government wouldn't bite a feeding hand, would it?

Okay, you asked for it. Here's a raw, unvarnished look into the secret world of the neoconservative. This site has many other threads that will help you understand Bush supporters. Or at least be amused.

America is a nation where killing can be shown on any broadcast television, but nudity is banned.

America is a nation where a thirteen-year-old schoolchild can be let in to watch a movie starring action hero becoming a vigilante and gunning down and knifing all the bad guys that have been trying to get in his way, but where that same thirteen-year-old cannot watch a movie where two people are making love.

America is a nation where exchanging money for sex is illegal everywhere but in parts of a single state of the fifty, but exchanging money to kill, becoming a corporate mercenary working in Iraq, is considered laudable and encouraged.

America is a nation where up until one year ago, thirteen states had laws banning consentual anal sex. Forty years ago, *every* state made consentual anal sex illegal. Fifty years ago, sodomy could widely be (and was) punished by "corrective actions", such as forced lobotomies. For those of you unfamiliar with lobotomies, they are commonly performed by inserting an ice pick through a patient's skull and swirling it around in certain areas of the brain in hopes of destroying portions of the brain that induce "deviant behavior".

America is a nation where (well, with the exception of San Francisco), being in public showing bare breasts (unless one is nursing an infant), genitalia, or one's rear end is grounds for lewdness arrest, but carrying a loaded gun visibily on one's hip is legal and acceptable.

America is a nation where a seventeen-year-old who convinces his seventeen-year-old girlfriend to send him a nude picture of herself has committed a felony (United States Code Title 18, Part I, 2251).

America is a nation where it is perfectly legal for an Olympic swimmer and lifeguard to stand by a pool and point, yelling insults and mocking, as someone drowns.

America is a nation where we cannot expose nipples, but we cheer on invading Afghanistan to "free women from the burka" and promote other human rights.

America is a nation that values free political speech, as long as it isn't:

(a) in Iraq and in opposition to the invasion (freedom of press was one of the first things removed from Iraqis, and newspapers and the only available television station were shut down for being critical of the invasion).

(b) Involving presidential candidates debating other than Bush or Kerry.

(c) Involve any Islamic advocacy. A student volunteer forum webmaster visiting the United States was charged with terrorist activities for running Islamic websites. The other side is well represented and permitted to operate, however -- consider the following quotes from this single forum thread:

My vote is that if they nuke us, we don't bother asking exactly where the bomb came from. Instead we turn ALL the likely sponsor nations into radioactive parking lots. The we tell the rest of the Islamic nations that if they don't get rid of their own terrorists, they will face the same thing.
*** ...I agree with your nuclear solution with one addition. As we find out the names of the people involved, we hunt down and kill every son, daughter, aunt, uncle, and every other relative they have on the entire planet right on out to the 8th cousin.

Payback isn't payback unless they continue to hurt for a long, long time. As each father, mother, and child is assasinated, it will be very hard for anyone to celebrate the conspirators as martyrs.

The message would be, "We won't only roast your damned nation. We will kill every last person on earth you ever cared about."
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I take it one step further - desroy Mecca and Media. That's right nuke their holy lands - get rid of them and than start destroying the mosques. Sprinkle their lands with pig blood. We might as well face it - this is a holy war against us supported by Muslims (look at the

But a moslem calls for the death of Jews and the forces of the state rally to protect his "rights".

If a white man were to call for the murder of non-whites, he'd be branded a racist and hounded by the state for "hate crimes". This may just be due to national differences between the United States and the United Kingdom (which is where I assume that you are located).

However, an Islamic student was arrested, and the United States attempted to jail him because he volunteered time to help moderate a forum containing people that had advocated violence against Christians.

I think that it's not unreasonable to say that any governmental crackdown is, if anything, biased toward Christianity, when you consider the fact that quite similar discussions take place in the open, without federal officials feeling the need to become involved.

Dan, would you do me a favor, and take a look at the following thread? The Muslim student who moderated a forum that contained calls for violence against Christians was arrested, and the federal government attempted to jail him for such activities. Would you consider the moderator of this forum to be on equally illegal ground? I believe that the federal government has no complaint with his activities.

If you consider it reasonable for the federal government to classify this as legal and the Muslim student's actions as illegal, what criteria do you find important in making such a classification?

HOWEVER, recently I've witnessed the influx of HATE sites claiming to be "islamic" sites. The preech hate and praise desruction. I'm all for free speech, but the freedom of a group or indivduals aren't absolute, and it shouldn't infringe or in anyway threaten the freedoms of others. In these sites they are calling for attacks on western intrests everywhere. They cheer for teh killing of westerners and/or Chrstians and calling for more acts like teh ones we saw in Saudi. I think the freedom of speech those ppl. have should be revoked because they very grossly abused.

Would you be so kind as to review the following thread?

If you believe that the Islamic student in question should have been jailed for moderating his site, what about the moderator on this site?

Here's an idea, Junior. Why don't you investigate what kind of freedoms the "webmaster" in question advocated. Suicide bombing. Genocide. Mass murder of "infidels" (i.e. gays, lesbians, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, dope smokers, beer drinkers, girls in bikinis, Pat Robertson, Larry Flynt, ...).

Please read this, and ask yourself whether you believe that the forum moderator in question should be imprisoned, as the federal government attempted to do to the student in question. If not, what is different between the two moderators?

While most Muslims are not terrorists, a recent poll found that 57% of all Muslims in the Middle East would provide support and comfort to the terrorists among them. 68% supported bin Laden as a "man who can get things done as a strong leader". Only 26% approved of their policies of killing and suicide bombing. Interpolate those numbera as you like.

While most Christians are not terrorists, it's a good bet that most would provide support and comfort to American military personnel that have killed Iraqi civilians (remember that the current war in Iraq has killed over twice as many Iraqi civilians as 9/11 killed American civilians). Most of them support Bush as a "man who can get things done as a strong leader". A far smaller number support torturing prisoners and indiscriminate killing of Muslims.

If you really want to have your eyes opened to very moderate Islamic doctrine, do a google on the word kuffar/kuffir. A good portion of Islamic religion believes that all non-believers in Islam are in the same category, and are in need of being converted, killed, or have their rights ignored.

Well, I can't speak for the killed, but when it comes to nonbelievers needing to be converted, that's certainly standard practice for a number of Christian faiths. Some of them are quite active -- I've had Jehovah's Witnesses at my door a number of times.

I went to browsing RightNation, lookie what I found! They're running the SCO story too! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No replies to it though, so I have no idea what they think about it. I almost expect them to be on SCO's side, but they wouldn't be rooting against blue-chip corporate american IBM would they?

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Try RightNation.