I have no idea at this point whether or to what extent the much-gnawed-upon “Scott Thomas” diaries in TNR were truthful, but this seems like odd reasoning:

I made this point in my column today, but let me tease it out: All things being equal, it’s more likely that the Army got the truth than that TNR did. The Army investigators interviewed members of Beauchamp’s platoon and company in person. It’s very difficult for liars to keep their stories straight under those circumstances. This is the basis of the prisoner’s dilemma. According to game theory, the equilibrium in the prisoner’s dilemma is for rational players to defect — that is, to snitch on other interviewees.

Recall that “snitching” in this context means claiming not to have participated in or failed to report various forms of misbehavior. First, it doesn’t seem like a great deal of coordination is required simply to claim that some vaguely described event didn’t happen. You need enough to be sure one of the others won’t break down and say it happened after all. Second, the analogy to the prisoners’ dilemma seems strained. In the classic setup for that, each individual is better off confessing, regardless of what the others do: If nobody confesses, they get both on a lesser charge, but if only one snitches, he gets off scot free. Here, if all your fellows are denying culpability, there’s no obvious gain for you in admitting it. More so if the military is not particularly eager to ferret out confirmation of the stories beyond asking around. Finally, since someone was lied to, either the military or TNR, the question of motivation comes up. The motivation for not admitting to potentially punishable acts that you actually committed or witnessed is clear enough. What’s the rationale for bullshitting a bunch of editors in DC? To protect your buddy who’s been cooking up lies that cast you all in an ugly light?

Again, I’m prepared to believe that many of these stories will turn out to have been either false or exaggerated. But not because it’s incomprehensible why soldiers might be more prone to lie to people in a position to punish them for the truth.