Sy Hersh interview on Lebanon War and Iran

[mhgaffney]

This killer interview with Seymour Hersh cuts to the chase. According to Hersh Israel's attack on Hezbollah was to be a dry run for a coming US war on Iran.

Clearly, things did not go wel -- from the standpoint of the warmongersl.

This link has video, audio, and a transcript.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14540.htm

[epicSocialism4tw]

.

Clearly, things did not go wel -- from the standpoint of the warmongersl.



Hizbullah showed that their might clearly rests in appealing to the mass international media for the UN to step in and save their butts from getting blasted into Syria.

In no way, shape, form, or fashion did they win anything but the coming reprieve when the UN garbage faulters again.

[epicSocialism4tw]

I wont bat an eyelash when you get rounded up with the rest of the Islamofascists.

[BroncoBuff]

I watched Hersch and Bill Kristol in a fascinating debate on this topic on Charlie Rose last night.

Hersch is terrific, and I'm going to subscribe to 'The New Yorker" again right away ...

BUT: That said, Kristol did make some points - and Hersch was caught in an improper linkage once by him ... that Hersch said there were "definite" plans to attack Iran once Hezbollah was broken. At that moment, Hersch was definitely on the defensive.

[Rohirrim]

I wont bat an eyelash when you get rounded up with the rest of the Islamofascists.

Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism.

You, Errand, etc. are more fascists than Bin Laden and the Arab terrorist movement are. They are theocrats. They want a state completely controlled by their interpretation of religious law. They are anti-corporate and anti-nationalistic.

I know Cheney/Rove/Bush are instructing you to parrot this line, but as an individual with the right to think for yourself afforded you by your creator and ensured for you through our founding fathers wisdom and the blood of patriots in the fight for liberty, you might want to borrow a dictionary.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism.

You, Errand, etc. are more fascists than Bin Laden and the Arab terrorist movement are. They are theocrats. They want a state completely controlled by their interpretation of religious law. They are anti-corporate and anti-nationalistic.

I know Cheney/Rove/Bush are instructing you to parrot this line, but as an individual with the right to think for yourself afforded you by your creator and ensured for you through our founding fathers wisdom and the blood of patriots in the fight for liberty, you might want to borrow a dictionary.

Islamofascist is a catch all little term neocons and some republicans like to throw around. It fits their overall agenda well though it's a hardly an accurate description of the people they label with it.

[mhgaffney]

There are something like 14 characteristics of fascism. See the link below. By any reasonable definition of the term, the US is a fascist nation.

http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm

[W*GS]

By any reasonable definition of the term, the US is a fascist nation.

The problem with your comment is that "reasonable" doesn't apply, especially when it comes to your ideology.

[Rohirrim]

There are something like 14 characteristics of fascism. See the link below. By any reasonable definition of the term, the US is a fascist nation.

http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm

The fact that you are able to post this leads me to believe that the U.S. does not currently fit with any reasonable person's definition of fascist. I may have a sniffle, which indicates a cold, maybe even the flu - but not necessarily pneumonia.

[footstepsfrom#27]

In this entire 45 minute interview there is no mention of who Seymour Hersh's "sources" are for this information. According to Hersh, "people tell me things", presumably since he once won a Pulitzer.

Sorry, but IMO you only get to play off a Pulitzer for so long...and 36 years is about 20 past where he had automatic credibility...especially since any journalist who could string together the 5 w's in an opening paragraph oculd have won for My Lei. Note the following from the New York Metro (1st of 4 pages):

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11719/index.html

Sy Hersh Says It’s Okay to Lie (Just Not in Print)

The runaway mouth of America’s premier investigative journalist.

By Chris Suellentrop

Since the Abu Ghraib story broke eleven months ago, The New Yorker’s national-security correspondent, Seymour Hersh, has followed it up with a series of spectacular scoops. Videotape of young boys being raped at Abu Ghraib. Evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be a “composite figure” and a propaganda creation of either Iraq’s Baathist insurgency or the U.S. government. The active involvement of Karl Rove and the president in “prisoner-interrogation issues.” The mysterious disappearance of $1 billion, in cash, in Iraq. A threat by the administration to a TV network to cut off access to briefings in retaliation for asking Laura Bush “a very tough question about abortion.” The Iraqi insurgency’s access to short-range FROG missiles that “can do grievous damage to American troops.” The murder, by an American platoon, of 36 Iraqi guards.

Not one of these exclusives appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, however. Instead, Hersh delivered them in speeches on college campuses and in front of organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and on public-radio shows like “Democracy Now!” In most cases, Hersh attaches a caveat—such as “I’m just talking now, I’m not writing”—before unloading one of his blockbusters, which can send bloggers and reporters scurrying for confirmation.

Every writer understands that there is a gap between the print persona and the actual self, but Hersh subscribes to a bright-line test, a wider chasm than is usually acknowledged, particularly in today’s multimedia age.

There are two Hershes, really. Seymour M. is the byline. He navigates readers through the byzantine world of America’s overlapping national-security bureaucracies, and his stories form what Hersh has taken to calling an “alternative history” of the Bush administration since September 11, 2001.

Then there’s Sy. He’s the public speaker, the pundit. On the podium, Sy is willing to tell a story that’s not quite right, in order to convey a Larger Truth. “Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people,” Hersh told me. “I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”

And in bending the truth, Hersh is, paradoxically enough, remarkably candid. When he supplies unconfirmed accounts of military assaults on Iraqi civilians, or changes certain important details from an episode inside Abu Ghraib (thus rendering the story unverifiable), Hersh argues that he’s protecting the identities of sources who could face grave repercussions for talking. “I defend that totally,” Hersh says of the factual fudges he serves up in speeches and lectures. “I find that totally not inconsistent with anything I do professionally. I’m just communicating another reality that I know, that for a lot of reasons having to do with, basically, someone else’s ass, I’m not writing about it.”

Hersh insists that he takes great pains to be right when it counts the most—that is, when he writes, not when he talks—and that his close ties with the underside of the defense world are the reason he’s so confident about his understanding of that reality. “I’m not working with guys outside the system,” he tells me. “You do understand that, don’t you? I’m not outside the system in what I do. I’m really not.”

Hersh’s colleagues say that he’s achieved mastery of his beat thanks to his reputation as someone who’d never compromise a source—and who will go to any length to find one. “It’s sort of like being a spy,” says Warren Strobel, a Washington-based Knight Ridder reporter who, with Jonathan Landay, wrote some of the most skeptical prewar coverage of the Bush administration’s WMD claims. “It takes years to develop sources who will talk to you and not talk to very many other journalists, which he obviously has. . . . The version of reality that he has described in his writing, since 9/11, to me is a lot closer to reality than the version of reality that the administration has described, whether it be WMD in Iraq, or the abuses at Abu Ghraib, or secret policies in Iran.”

Still, what’s emerged from Hersh’s numerous speaking engagements—dozens of speeches last year, he says, which have drawn as much as $15,000 per university lecture—is a vast, tantalizing trove of what might be termed Hersh apocrypha: unpublished tales of official screwups, ideological intrigue, cover-ups, and government lies that have an influential—and growing—public life of their own.

[RunByDesign]

An Op-Ed piece does little to discount Hersh's aims, in effect, if that were indeed the intent.

A lightly construed Op-Ed piece thats' begrudginly inherent theme is that Hersh get's paid for lectures.

Thanks for the read.

[Rohirrim]

Let's see: Hersh has great sources inside the clandestine side of the government. He never reveals his sources. They trust him and keep giving him the inside scoop. He hints at broader knowledge in his speeches, but won't write it because that would compromise his sources. He's the number one investigative reporter in American clandestine operations and he gets paid a lot of money for his lectures. Okey dokey.

[footstepsfrom#27]

An Op-Ed piece does little to discount Hersh's aims, in effect, if that were indeed the intent.

A lightly construed Op-Ed piece thats' begrudginly inherent theme is that Hersh get's paid for lectures.

Thanks for the read.
Hersh's report is also an op-ed piece until he decides to name some sources...nothing more. Listening to the entire 45 minute video, he failed to name a single source.

[footstepsfrom#27]

Let's see: Hersh has great sources inside the clandestine side of the government. He never reveals his sources. They trust him and keep giving him the inside scoop. He hints at broader knowledge in his speeches, but won't write it because that would compromise his sources. He's the number one investigative reporter in American clandestine operations and he gets paid a lot of money for his lectures. Okey dokey.
Actually Hersh admits to lying:
“Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people,” Hersh told me. “I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”
BTW...my inside sources at the New Yorker told me Hersh is a cross dresser. I can't reveal who they are of course because they trust me not to. ;D

[RunByDesign]

Hersh's report is also an op-ed piece until he decides to name some sources...nothing more. Listening to the entire 45 minute video, he failed to name a single source.

I understand that.

But addressing his credibility with another Op-Ed piece that does little more than point out that he get's paid, (we do have to make a living and in certain circles, people tend to address other people who get paid to provide a service as 'professionals') is lacking in effectiveness, if discounting or marginalizing his credibility or insight, is indeed your aim.

I would reccomend a thread dutifully dedicated to researching Hersh's history, citing some reputable historical sources, for a start, if the interest is indeed, the above stated.

[RunByDesign]

BTW...my inside sources at the New Yorker told me Hersh is a cross dresser. I can't reveal who they are of course because they trust me not to. ;D

LMAO :rofl:

[Rohirrim]

I think Hersh is providing a very valuable service to the American people. He is trying to warn all of us, to the best of his abilities, and without violating the trust of people who are giving him inside information, that the current inhabitants of the WH are friggin certifiable, have every intention of igniting a devastating conflagration in the ME by invading Iran, and that we should move as quickly as we can to impeach these nutjobs.

[footstepsfrom#27]

I understand that.

But addressing his credibility with another Op-Ed piece that does little more than point out that he get's paid, (we do have to make a living and in certain circles, people tend to address other people who get paid to provide a service as 'professionals') is lacking in effectiveness, if discounting or marginalizing his credibility or insight, is indeed your aim.
So the part where he admits to making stuff up is irrelevant huh?
I would reccomend a thread dutifully dedicated to researching Hersh's history, citing some reputable historical sources, for a start, if the interest is indeed, the above stated.
So you expect me to offer proof...something Hersh himself failed to do?

If Hersh wants to keep the identity of his sources confidential, he ought to have those sources produce something evidenciary in nature...a memo...email...something scribbled on a coctail napkin in Dick Chaney's handwriting...anything.

Where's the proof?

The problem with allowing this kind of reporting is that it cuts both ways. By accepting this as automatically authoritative you open the door to those on the right doing the same thing. Or are you going to tell me that if a notable conservative writer writes something without proof or named sources you'll buy it no questions asked?

I despise Bush. I still expect credibility to be earned, not granted automatically for something done 36 years ago. Hersh is a big time lefty...and that automaticaly means he needs to prove what he's asserting when he weighs in on politics.

[Rohirrim]

BTW, The New Yorker has the most stringent, and the most respected, editorial staff in American publishing - and have for more than a hundred years. You'll notice when the New York Times and Washington Post were getting busted for slopply editorial work over the last couple of years nobody, including the Right wingers, would take on The New Yorker. They know better. Seymour told Chris Matthews last night that his editors on The New Yorker know his sources, and talk to his sources on every article.

[RunByDesign]

So the part where he admits to making stuff up is irrelevant huh?

Not at all.


So you expect me to offer proof...something Hersh himself failed to do?

No, I simply reccomended a more influential way of gathering sentiment to your cause.



If Hersh wants to keep the identity of his sources confidential, he ought to have those sources produce something evidenciary in nature...a memo...email...something scribbled on a coctail napkin in Dick Chaney's handwriting...anything.

Where's the proof?

Point taken. I support the notion that Hersh's opinions are speculative, as it relates to the kind of information that I am privy to, which is to say, I am not an insider and couldn't verify Hersh's assertions, one way or the other.

Who am I to say?



The problem with allowing this kind of reporting is that it cuts both ways. By accepting this as automatically authoritative you open the door to those on the right doing the same thing. Or are you going to tell me that if a notable conservative writer writes something without proof or named sources you'll buy it no questions asked?

Certainly not. It makes for interesting discussion, however and in the least, gives you or another an attractive avenue and medium for counterargument.



I still expect credibility to be earned, not granted automatically for something done 36 years ago. Hersh is a big time lefty...and that automaticaly means he needs to prove what he's asserting when he weighs in on politics.

Indeed, however the contrast between which kind of sentiment particular guys like Hersh has behind him and what normal people like you or I have, is light years. That is why I pointed towards a particular kind of counterargument.

[bendog]

Anybody honestly think that cheney and the neocons don't want an excuse to have a go at Iran or that they knew, and approved, that in Israel their neocons wanted an excuse to have a go at hezbollah, and that if our necons prevail in getting the boy wonder king to approve of attacking Iran we'll fail as miserably as Israel did in Lebanon and we've failed already in Iraq?

[Rohirrim]

Anybody honestly think that cheney and the neocons don't want an excuse to have a go at Iran or that they knew, and approved, that in Israel their neocons wanted an excuse to have a go at hezbollah, and that if our necons prevail in getting the boy wonder king to approve of attacking Iran we'll fail as miserably as Israel did in Lebanon and we've failed already in Iraq?

That's what blows my mind about these guys; They keep doing the same thing over and over again, but keep expecting a different result.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

BTW, The New Yorker has the most stringent, and the most respected, editorial staff in American publishing - and have for more than a hundred years. You'll notice when the New York Times and Washington Post were getting busted for slopply editorial work over the last couple of years nobody, including the Right wingers, would take on The New Yorker. They know better. Seymour told Chris Matthews last night that his editors on The New Yorker know his sources, and talk to his sources on every article.

Doesn't matter.

Any source that presents facts which discredit the Christian Zionist and "death to all Muslims" crusaders' delusional worldview is automatically dismissed as a "far-left" source, or its credibility is dismissed w/o any actual disconfirmation of its facts or rebuttal of its claims.

People like angrydrama are ideologues who simply ignore facts which threaten their foregone conclusions.

[mhgaffney]

In this entire 45 minute interview there is no mention of who Seymour Hersh's "sources" are for this information. According to Hersh, "people tell me things", presumably since he once won a Pulitzer.

Sorry, but IMO you only get to play off a Pulitzer for so long...and 36 years is about 20 past where he had automatic credibility...especially since any journalist who could string together the 5 w's in an opening paragraph oculd have won for My Lei.

Sy Hersh Says It’s Okay to Lie (Just Not in Print)

The runaway mouth of America’s premier investigative journalist.

By Chris Suellentrop



Footstseps has no original thoughts. He always quotes someone else. But who in the H is Chris Suellentrop???

Anyone heard of him. I haven't.

One time I had lunch with Sy Hersh. He interviewed me as he interviews many people. He told me that he never prints anything unless he has redundant sources. I believed him.

That's how Hersh covers his ass in a town (Washington) full of Ann Coulters and worse who would just as soon ream you out as look at you. It's a cut throat dog eat dog place. Yet, Hersh has not only survived, he has flourished.

BTW Footsteps, he won 3 Pulitzers, not one.

The first -- for breaking My Lai
the second - for the Price of Power (the story of a slug, Kissinger in the Nixon White House)
the third - for breaking Abu Graib

MG

[footstepsfrom#27]

Doesn't matter.

Any source that presents facts which discredit the Christian Zionist and "death to all Muslims" crusaders' delusional worldview is automatically dismissed as a "far-left" source, or its credibility is dismissed w/o any actual disconfirmation of its facts or rebuttal of its claims.
What facts would those be? I listened in vain for a single shred of actual evidence or factual information but heard only opinion supposedly backed by "sources", all of whom are anonomous.

As you well know, I've also insisted the right deal honestly with facts and produce evidence to support their conclusions.

[footstepsfrom#27]

Footstseps has no original thoughts. He always quotes someone else.
Proof you're an idiot...I've got 544 posts in the WRP...you've read...what...5% of them?
http://www.gnosticsecrets.com/pages/bio.htm

Mark Gaffney is a researcher, writer, poet, environmentalist, peace activist, and organic gardener. Mark was the principal organizer of the first Earth Day at Colorado State University in April 1970. Hilarious!

[footstepsfrom#27]

BTW Footsteps, he won 3 Pulitzers, not one.

The first -- for breaking My Lai
the second - for the Price of Power (the story of a slug, Kissinger in the Nixon White House)
the third - for breaking Abu Graib

MG
Wrong.
Mark Gaffney is a researcher, writer, poet, environmentalist, peace activist, and organic gardener. Mark was the principal organizer of the first Earth Day at Colorado State University in April 1970.Hilarious!

[footstepsfrom#27]

and Hersch was caught in an improper linkage once by him ... that Hersch said there were "definite" plans to attack Iran once Hezbollah was broken. At that moment, Hersch was definitely on the defensive.
That's not the first time Hersh has been caught making statements that aren't true. In the article by Chris Suellentrop that was summarily disregarded as an "op-ed" piece (it was actually a personal interview with Hersh himself) Suellentrop, the Washington Bureau Chief for the online Slate.com, and an acomplished writer hiimself who has written features for Wired, the Washington Post, New York, the Los Angelos Times, and the New York Observer, actually gave considerable credit to Hersh for his accomplishments while also reporting numerous indiscretions with the truth also reported elsewhere on the web.

Nobody bothered to answer Suellentrop's charge that numerous examples exist of Hersh breaking supposedly major scoops that he never took to print but spoke of freely in front of his audiences at college campuses and leftist organizations, leaving the impression that he's making things up. Since I doubt anyone in here read the full 4 page article before condemning it...here's a few examples of Hersh getting caught lying, and they are not all things he said on the lecture circuit. Hersh has been caught lying in print also.

1) He admitted to the New York Observer reporter Tom Scocca that he embelished reports on Guantánamo Bay prisoner abuse in a speech at U Cal Berkley (where else) for the purpose of attracting potential witnesses from reservists assigned to the detention facility.

2) In 1981, writing in the New York Times, he falsely accused Edward M. Korry, the former U.S. ambassador to Chile, as a collaborator in the CIA-backed 1973 coup in that country, which was proven to be a lie. Hersh was forced by the Tiimes to print a 3,000 word retraction on the front page of the paper.

3) 1991’s he wrote the book, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, relied heavily on a source whom Hersh later characterized in an interview as a liar.

4) Hersh's 1997 book on JFK, The Dark Side of Camelot, included information on JFK's affair with Marilyn Monroe alleging he'd offered her hush money to keep quiet. It turned out that he was duped into accepting forged documents by a con artist. Critics were not happy, including In the Los Angeles Times, Edward Jay Epstein who said that Hersh “must have invented” some of his facts and that the book “turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy".

5) In July 2005 Hersh told the ACLU's annual membership conference that he had information about multiple rapes of Iraqi children by US troops manning the Abu Ghraib prison including video footage, which he implied he'd seen when he hadn't. Bloggers got the information all over the web with streaming video footage that caught Hersh by suprise. He asked the ACLU to remove the video of his speech from their website and later excused his actions with this:

“I actually didn’t quite say what I wanted to say correctly. It wasn’t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful.”

[mhgaffney]

I stand corrected. Hersh's 1983 book The Price of Power won the National Book Award -- not a Pulitzer.

Here's a summary of Hersh's awards:

Hersh's work has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk Awards. His other books, including the best-selling expose of President Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot, and The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, have also won major national awards and spent weeks on the bestseller lists. His book prizes include the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times award for biography, and a second Sidney Hillman award, for The Price of Power. Hersh has also won two Investigative Reporters & Editors prizes, for the Kissinger book, in 1983, and in 1992 for a study of American foreign policy and the Israeli nuclear bomb program, "The Samson Option." In 2004, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for public interest for his three pieces, "Lunch with the Chairman," "Selective Intelligence," and "The Stovepipe."