What is up with Sy Hersh?

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What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby nathan28 » Wed May 12, 2010 9:51 am

I just heard on Democracy Now that he says there's summary executions of "detainees" taking place. Yesterday or the day before he said the Pentagon was forcing Obama's hand. Two years ago he swore we were going to invade Iran before Bush left office.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby elfismiles » Wed May 12, 2010 9:58 am

nathan28 wrote:I just heard on Democracy Now that he says there's summary executions of "detainees" taking place. Yesterday or the day before he said the Pentagon was forcing Obama's hand. Two years ago he swore we were going to invade Iran before Bush left office.


While I'd like to think otherwise,

He's just a ....

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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby Jeff » Wed May 12, 2010 10:37 am

nathan28 wrote:I just heard on Democracy Now that he says there's summary executions of "detainees" taking place. Yesterday or the day before he said the Pentagon was forcing Obama's hand. Two years ago he swore we were going to invade Iran before Bush left office.


I don't think it's fair to call Hersh a tool. I mean, look, there's a distinction that needs to be made here between claims. Asserting that something has happened or is happening now is not commensurate with prediction. Nevertheless it was a sound one. The White House was pushing for war, and the Joint Chiefs pushed back. I wouldn't fault Hersh because that horror hasn't happened yet.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby Nordic » Wed May 12, 2010 1:14 pm

Why would anyone criticize Sy Hersch, unless they were a tool?

The guy's one of the few real people out there.

His reporting on Bush's intent to hit Iran probably had a lot to do with the power struggle in the CIA that stopped it from happening.

I mean, c'mon.

NPR has been on a smear campaign against Hersch for years now. What's that tell you?

Just the other day, their top story was about how Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton have decided that the nation of Pakistan was "responsible" for the car non-bombing in NYC. And that the U.S. was going to act accordingly. This was announced by the mealy-voiced twerp newsreader they have there with the gravitas of indisputable fact.

Anyway, here's the story someone was referring to above:

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0512/hersh- ... nue-obama/

The journalist who helped break the story that detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were being tortured by their US jailers told an audience at a journalism conference last month that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan.

New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh also revealed that the Bush Administration had developed advanced plans for a military strike on Iran.

At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Hersh criticized President Barack Obama, and alleged that US forces are engaged in "battlefield executions."

"I'll tell you right now, one of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan," Hersh said. "They're being executed on the battlefield. It's unbelievable stuff going on there that doesn't necessarily get reported. Things don't change.:

"What they've done in the field now is, they tell the troops, you have to make a determination within a day or two or so whether or not the prisoners you have, the detainees, are Taliban," Hersh added. "You must extract whatever tactical intelligence you can get, as opposed to strategic, long-range intelligence, immediately. And if you cannot conclude they're Taliban, you must turn them free.

"What it means is, and I've been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are taking place," he continued. "Well, if they can't prove they're Taliban, bam. If we don't do it ourselves, we turn them over to the nearby Afghan troops and by the time we walk three feet the bullets are flying. And that's going on now."

The video of Hersh was uploaded to Michael Moore's YouTube account Tuesday.

Hersh has a long history as an investigative journalist and worked for many years at The New York Times. In 1969, he broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

This video is from YouTube, broadcast May 11, 2010.



Don't tell me that people here are starting to get short memories as to how the whole Iran hit was stymied.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby 23 » Wed May 12, 2010 2:26 pm

Nordic wrote:Why would anyone criticize Sy Hersch, unless they were a tool?


Most things that we do aren't done fully consciously.

One example of that is the looking for chinks in someone's armor of courage. To make it easier for us to live with the absence of courage in ours.

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http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black471b.mp3

Postby MinM » Wed May 12, 2010 2:28 pm

http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black471b.mp3

26:49 into the podcast linked above Jim DiEugenio notes how conveniently Seymour Hersh was planted at the New York Times in the midst of the Watergate Story. It would seem ostensibly to buttress the Watergate Cover Story made famous by the Washington Post.

rigorousintuition.ca - View topic - Hersh on Obama Being "Dominated" by the U.S. Military

Why the New York Times Deserves to Die

Ink: Watergate Days : The New Yorker

Seymour Hersh - CIA - Salon.com

Jim Hougan: Strange Bedfellows
Last edited by MinM on Wed May 12, 2010 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby JackRiddler » Wed May 12, 2010 4:03 pm

The December 2007 unauthorized release of the National Intelligence Estimate for Iran with its conclusions that there was no active nuclear weapons program in Iran is an event of greatly underestimated importance in our circles. To the Bushistas, it was a palace coup. It can't be known for sure that they would have struck Iran without resistance inside the Pentagon - they did after all reject Israeli pressure to strike or countenance an Israeli strike. But as Jeff says, the push back closed off a live option.

As for the detainees - would it be surprising? However, it's something Hersh needs to back up.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby elfismiles » Wed May 12, 2010 4:23 pm

Man MinM, now everytime this page loads I get to hear "Stem Cell Research" and scramble to to hit the pause button.

As for my calling Mr. Hersh a TOOL ... well, yes, there are plenty of things we can point to and say, "Thanks man."

But I'll never forget my anger over his sitting on THIS STORY BELOW and not going public with it, save for at the public speaking event where he casually drops the bombshell. I mean, for FUCKS SAKE, didn't he have a BLOG or some shit where he could've posted his info and do an end run around his editor!???!


HERSH: There was a meeting. Among the items considered and rejected - which is why the New Yorker did not publish it, on grounds that it wasn't accepted - one of the items was why not…

There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don't we build - we in our shipyard - build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives.

And it was rejected because you can't have Americans killing Americans. That's the kind of - that's the level of stuff we're talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

So I can understand the argument for not writing something that was rejected - uh maybe. My attitude always towards editors is they're mice training to be rats.

http://www.truthout.org/article/hersh-c ... lag-attack



That's why I called him a TOOL. Because he let his freaking editor get in the way of this important story.

Though, now that I'm re-reading / watching again I realize he DID apparently get it into an article. Or rather, he got this one line in:

“The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” he said.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008 ... z0nkU08sUH



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r29BtzfSz0o
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby Nordic » Wed May 12, 2010 4:40 pm

JackRiddler wrote:The December 2007 unauthorized release of the National Intelligence Estimate for Iran with its conclusions that there was no active nuclear weapons program in Iran is an event of greatly underestimated importance in our circles. To the Bushistas, it was a palace coup. It can't be known for sure that they would have struck Iran without resistance inside the Pentagon - they did after all reject Israeli pressure to strike or countenance an Israeli strike. But as Jeff says, the push back closed off a live option.


That's what I'm saying.

They're now back at square one, trying to ramp up the bullshit once again. And now Hillary Clinton and the rest of them are on board.

It's like playing whack-a-mole with these fascist fucks.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby chiggerbit » Wed May 12, 2010 4:49 pm

I always figured that the CIA/military was likely involved in these killings clear back in 2001. There shouldn't be any shock that they're executing detainees now.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/12-0
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby elfismiles » Wed May 12, 2010 5:20 pm

nathan28 wrote:I just heard on Democracy Now that he says there's summary executions of "detainees" taking place. Yesterday or the day before he said the Pentagon was forcing Obama's hand. Two years ago he swore we were going to invade Iran before Bush left office.


Wait, so again, where is the article on this!? He reveals another bombshell in a speaking engagement?


Sy Hersh reveals battlefield summary executions

Seymour Hersh, the report who brought the My Lai massacre to light during the Vietnam War, told an international gathering of journalists that he’s learned of summary battlefield executions of captives carried out by American and allied troops in Afghanistan.

If true, it’s murder and a war crime, and given Hersh’s track record, we should be demanding an investigation.

Recorded at the 6th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva two weeks ago. A quote:

What they’ve done in the field now is, they tell the troops, you have to make a determination within a day or two or so whether or not the prisoners you have, the detainees, are Taliban. You must extract whatever tactical intelligence you can get, as opposed to strategic, long-range intelligence, immediately. And if you cannot conclude they’re Taliban, you must turn them free. What it means is, and I’ve been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are taking place. Well, if they can’t prove they’re Taliban, bam. If we don’t do it ourselves, we turn them over to the nearby Afghan troops and by the time we walk three feet the bullets are flying. And that’s going on now.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z8zAKweYcQ

http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2 ... xecutions/



Sounds like the HOLOCAUST IN A BACKPACK / BIOMETRICALLY ENABLED EXECUTIONS I talked about could be involved... though there is certainly no need for hi-tech when all you need is a bullet in the head.

Robert Parry on New Manhattan Project on AntiWar Radio
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21250

And here:

Woodward claims new Manhattan Project won Iraq war
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20176
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby nathan28 » Wed May 12, 2010 5:42 pm

Jeff wrote:
nathan28 wrote:I just heard on Democracy Now that he says there's summary executions of "detainees" taking place. Yesterday or the day before he said the Pentagon was forcing Obama's hand. Two years ago he swore we were going to invade Iran before Bush left office.


I don't think it's fair to call Hersh a tool. I mean, look, there's a distinction that needs to be made here between claims. Asserting that something has happened or is happening now is not commensurate with prediction. Nevertheless it was a sound one. The White House was pushing for war, and the Joint Chiefs pushed back. I wouldn't fault Hersh because that horror hasn't happened yet.



I don't disagree at all, but I am getting the impression that Hersh is possibly getting played by his sources, or overemphasizing them, or failing to contextualize them, or failing to get other sources (like, e.g., on the Joint Cheifs of Staff) to provide more to his stories. There's a telling lack of detail in his more recent report, and it's increasingly difficult to sort out, especially without those details, what he's getting at. It's like they're leads in search of a story that I never get. Like this summary execution story. Okay, I believe him, but where and when? Like J-Rid pointed out, we get years of "OMG teh Iran bombings itz coming" stories but he can't bring light to the "palace coup" that prevented them. We get a nebulous assassination squad story from him with scant details besides a "Cheney authorized" bit. Okay, I kind of figured that assassinations fell under the rubric of black ops and are as old as James "I'm not a Latino" Angelton. A few days ago he said the Pentagon was controlling Obama and pushing to attack Iran when in 2007 they intentionally scuttled attack plans. Today he regales us with hints and accusations of extrajudicial executions but little else. I need actual details, not vague things lifted from the Dimestore of Mil-Intel Oppression Tactics.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby RocketMan » Wed May 12, 2010 6:03 pm

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that Hersh has acknowledged that he is dependent on his inside "official" sources. That doesn't mean he's a "tool" per se, but it does mean that he is receiving information from sources with an extreme interest in tilting the story a certain way. And they're often anonymous.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby nathan28 » Wed May 12, 2010 6:15 pm

RocketMan wrote:I read somewhere (can't remember where) that Hersh has acknowledged that he is dependent on his inside "official" sources. That doesn't mean he's a "tool" per se, but it does mean that he is receiving information from sources with an extreme interest in tilting the story a certain way. And they're often anonymous.



I think that's what's happening, but they don't even need to tilt the story. What comes out of some of Hersh's work can at times be genuinely one-sided, and I don't mean in the FoxNews way--I mean he hasn't triangulated the data. To draw a comparision Daniel Hopsicker did this a lot, too (e.g., Atta's no-i'm-not-yes-i-am-no-i'm-not girlfriend). You just get an incomplete picture, one that's doubly frustrating because everything Hersh talks about would be important if I knew what he was talking about.
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Re: What is up with Sy Hersh?

Postby MinM » Wed May 12, 2010 6:26 pm

elfismiles wrote:Man MinM, now everytime this page loads I get to hear "Stem Cell Research" and scramble to to hit the pause button...

Oops :oops: That apparently happens with IE because it's not a problem with Firefox. :shrug:

Fixed. :thumbsup001:
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