For Scott Thomas

When Beauchamp writes next, perhaps he will aspire to what might have possibly inspired his poisonous purple prose instead of butchering the English language and pretending to be an author.

For his zombie dogs eating a corpse, I am reminded of the opening page of Oriana Fallaci's novel Ishnallah.

"... or perhaps they did not exist because they weren't dogs but ghosts of dogs who materialized with the darkness to imitate the men who had killed them. Like men they divided into bands consumed by hate, like men they wanted only to tear each other to pieces, and the monotononous rite always took place under the same pretext: the conquest of a sidewalk made precious by food scraps and scum. ... at first you did notice them because they stalked without a sound: the strategy of soldiers who creep in wary silence to surprise the enemy and butcher them."

Or how about when a driver of a Bradely cuts a dog so quickly in half the dog is still smiling? I am again drawn to Gus' Short Timers when Joker and Rafterman hitch a ride on an M-48 Patton into Hue.

Suddenly the tank shifts to the left. Rafter Man and I are thrown hard into the turret. Metal grinds metal. The tank hits a bump, shifting sharply to the right and jerking to a halt, throwing us forward. Rafter Man and I hang onto the gun and say, "Son-of-a-bitch..."
The blond tank commander climbs out of the turret hatch and jumps off the back of the tank. The tank driver has run the tank off the road.
Fifty yards back a water buffalo is down on its back, legs out straight. The water bo bellows, tosses its curved horns.

On the deck, in the center of the road, I see a tiny body, facedown. Chattering Vietnamese civilians pour out of the roadside hootches, staring and pointing. The Vietnamese civilians crowd around to see how their American saviors have crushed the guts out of a child. ...
The blond tank commander climbs up onto his tank and reinserts his legs into the turret hatch. "Iron Man, you fucking shitbird. You will drive this machine like it's a tank and not a goddamn sports car. You hit that little girl, you blind idiot. Hell, I could see her through the fucking vision blocks. She was standing on that water bo's back..."

Of course that last excert could now be used to describe Scott and the whole TNR staff including Foer. Scott is the negligent driver of the tank. The small dead child represents the honor of the 160,000 soldiers who were slandered by these articles. The struggling and bellowing water bo is Foer as he tries to right himself and TNR while denying a hard fact, truth is a brutal mistress that plays no favorites. While the irate tank commnder is all the mil-bloggers who smelled a rat in these writings and took it upon themselves to fact check Scott's writing.