Back to the good old days when Stalin ruled

Unfortunately, I am old enough to remember the days when Stalin ruled Russia. In those days, if they were lucky, critics of the government would be sent off to a gulag in Siberia for "psychiatric" treatment. Within a few weeks word would come out that the person had "recanted" whatever anti-government position he/she had expressed before being locked up. Then, the person would just disappear into never-never land.

Somehow, the story of Scott Beauchamp reminds me of those days. You may recall that Beauchamp is a GI, based in Iraq, who published a series of stories in The New Republic about atrocities committed by his fellow GIs in Iraq. The Weekly Standard and the conservative blogosphere went wild, claiming the stories were all fakes. The New Republic conducted an investigation and found his stories to be largely true. Here's Josh Marshall's summary of the latest news:

So what's up here?

Beauchamp makes his charges. The US Army allegedly investigates and finds the highly embarrassing charges to be false. But no information will be released about which of his charges were false, how they were false or how they were determined to be false.

They then punish Beauchamp by preventing him from having any communication with the civilian world. And if that's not enough, an unnamed military source tells the Standard that Beauchamp has undergone a successful self-criticism session and has recanted everything. But an Army spokesman tells TNR that he's not aware of any confession or recantation.

I don't think I'd like to be holding the insurance policy on Beauchamp's life right now.