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.
But the point is jejune, if you know what that means. Silly? Maybe. But potentially very lethal. Because one of the things they learned in the incident was the American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it. …What happened in the Gulf was, in the Straits, in early January, the President was just about to go to the Middle East for a visit. So that was one reason they wanted to gin it up. Get it going. Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.
FYI
Just look up Operation Northwoods.
Actually, I think Israel will bomb the crap out of Iran before we do.
They have a lot more to lose and tend not to wait for diplomacy to work.
Iran is also not really committed to working out anything with the US diplomatically. They are simply stalling for time so that they can finish their nuclear program. Which I am sure includes nuclear bombs.
At this meeting, did Cheney brain storm on how to bring the international community together to economically and politically isolate Iran or was that just accepted as “impossible?”
I won’t be happy until Cheney is swinging from a rope for treason. Yeah, like that will ever happen.
Sy Hersh is remarkably loose with the truth. Yet he still gets loads of space to spout his conspiracy nonsense. Has anything he’s written been accurate? See:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-imaginative-analysis-of-seymour-hersh-11482
The cognitive dissonance amongst “progressives” is mind boggling. This government is horrible, but more government will be better–just as long as we have our guys in there! Yeah, right.
Jefferson had it right. That government is best that governs least.
#4 – Improbus
>>I won’t be happy until Cheney is swinging from
>>a rope for treason.
What Improbus said. I second that emotion.
Bribery is a far better way than war to get the results you want, and it’s always cheaper in the long run.
Lots less dead people, too.
Of course, it cuts in on the profits of the military industrialists.
Ask myself why I have to read this stuff on a blog. LOL!
Answer: Because there is some stuff that is so bogus that the Enquirer won’t print it.
#2 Why not bomb Israel? They also have a clandestine nuclear weapons program?
#10 – Why not? Because they didn’t sign a treaty saying they wouldn’t make em & then start making them?
The Gov’t imposed by the children Iranian revolution has got to go. The era of the Islamo-fascism is at an end. Most of the world understands the utter necessity of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion”. These Islamic theocracys delude their citizens with corrupted ideals of “freedom from offensive speech” and “freedom of religion under Islam”.
So intelligence reports say your full of shit, and you still believe your beloved President again? Idiots abound.
12,
Too bad our current president is doing his best to negate that stuff here in the USA, huh?
Why does anyone think that Bush/Cheney need actual provocation or any excuse to start a war with Iran?
They could say U.S. troops in Iraq were attacked by Iranian solders – it doesn’t have happen, they could just issue a press release with a few photos of some guys wearing Iranian army uniforms.
Did they need an excuse for Iraq? WMDs? WTF!?
I think the only reason they haven’t invaded Iran is that we don’t have the troops to do it.
Imagine the conversation Bush/Cheney has with the Joint Chiefs. Bush says “invade!”, the General’s reply “with what?”
Uh …. EVIDENCE?
#16, see #9.
Headline:
Under-Reported News
Ask yourself why you have to read this stuff on a blog.
Because the national media still has a bit of sanity and won’t publish crazy loon stuff like Think Progress does.
I guess it wasn’t published because there’s not much evidence supporting Sy’s point of view or the opposite. Did we see a transcript of that meeting?
#6, Cmon,
Has anything he’s written been accurate?
Yes. As far as I know, everything.
Your link is just another unsubstantiated hit job. Full of the very bullshit it accuses Hersh of.
Please answer why it is fine, in your opinion, to totally besmirch a man who has researched and backed up his reporting with such garbage?
The cognitive dissonance amongst “progressives” is mind boggling.
LOL, make me laugh !!!. And I suppose your next comment has to do with Bush didn’t lie about WMDs.
#9, Cow-Paddy,
… some stuff that is so bogus that the Enquirer won’t print it
Like WMDs in Iraq? Such as not discussing diplomacy with our “enemies”? How about claiming a woman brain dead for years is really just sleeping?
Face it. This administration has no credibility left. They have out and out lied so many times before that even if this were true, only Bush’s mommy would believe him. Maybe.
#11, More Cow-Paddy,
… because they didn’t sign a treaty saying they wouldn’t make em & them start making them?
And I wonder why no one wants them to sign a nuclear treaty? Aren’t they more dangerous than Iran which doesn’t invade its neighbors or are armed to the teeth with weapons superior to anyone else in the region?
#20, Mr. Fusion.
Sorry, but this guy does have serious credibility problems. In fact, he has so little credibility that few take him seriously anymore.
“Hersh’s 1997 book about John F. Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that he had had a “first marriage” to a woman named Durie Malcolm that was never terminated, and that he had a close working relationship with mob boss Sam Giancana. In a Los Angeles Times review, Edward Jay Epstein cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, “this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy.” Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called Hersh “the most gullible investigative reporter I’ve ever encountered.”
Hersh, like most investigative journalists, makes frequent reference to anonymous sources in his reporting; some have criticized this usage, implying that some of these sources are unreliable or even made up. In a review of Hersh’s book, Chain of Command, neo-conservative commentator Amir Taheri wrote, “As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a “source” to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances… By my count Hersh has anonymous ‘sources’ inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the US government.”[28]
David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh’s unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review that “I know every single source that is in his pieces…. Every ‘retired intelligence officer,’ every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, ‘Who is it? What’s his interest?’ We talk it through.”[29]
In a response to an article in the New Yorker in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Brian Whitman said, “This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources.”
“Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people… I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”[31]
Some of Hersh’s speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:
“ Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has. They’re in total terror it’s going to come out.”
And it just goes on and on and on…
Sorry for the long post.
“And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. ”
Remember the Maine
Cursor_
“Because one of the things they learned in the incident was the American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it. …”
Do any of you see yourself here? Don’t you see yourselves as being a tad gullible, who these guys can play for fools over and over and over? Because if not, than you really are just morans.
Personally, I think there should be more reporters called Sy and Morley.
Where’s my post?
Whatever it takes to elect a Republican will be employed. If it’s war with Iran so be it !
Pick your war president:
(A) McCain : Old War veteran, experienced, steady hand, tough American stance, money for Pentagon
(B) Obama : Black teenager, no experience, a pussy in war, Hussein middle name, rhymes with Osama.
YOU be the judge
#28, Lyin’ Mike,
Where’s my post?
Buried in the ground like all good posts should be.
#22, Ah Yea,
The problem Hersh has is that he must maintain his source’s anonymity. Otherwise their careers would be over, they could face criminal charges, or ultimately, be killed. This is no different that any other reporter. As you point out, his editor knows the source’s names and positions.
I suppose you will next argue that Watergate Break-in didn’t reach to the White House because Bradley allowed Bernstein to keep the source’s name out of the paper. Yes he altered the actual incidents. Only to protect otherwise vulnerable people.
Many people do things, not because they want to, but because they have to. In short, they need a paycheck. They have no protection if their name is revealed. Maybe that is hard for you to understand, but that is reality. It is solidly because of that they want to remain anonymous.
*
I also noticed that you didn’t include the source you stole your post from. What I did notice is that none of the comments refuted Hersh’s assertions, they only called him names. Go ahead, read your own post and then tell me which assertion was refuted? Even the Pentagon spokesman didn’t deny what Hersh wrote.
Can you actually find something that would refute his allegations? Until then Hersh stands as correct.
#31. “Many people do things, not because they want to, but because they have to. In short, they need a paycheck. They have no protection if their name is revealed.”
I agree and to add to that, it shows that there are some good people in government who are patriotic enough to get the word out. Exposing criminal behavior such as this may be the only way they can stop it.