D’oh. Another idiotic baseless accusation falls apart when confronted with photographic evidence against the biased (and factually wrong, actually impossible) fantasy by Hersh you jumped on because it looked bad for Biden, not because it made sense or there was any actual evidence…enjoy the photographic evidence of secret Russian deep sea operations at the explosion site just 4 days before the sabotage.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/russian-navy-vessel-seen-near-nord-stream-pipelines-days-before-blasts

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/04/29/Denmark-Russia-Nord-Stream/1621682806486/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65461401

Google it when you decide these sources are untrustworthy.

Or Ukrainians….or Russians…or Germans…or crab people.
Plenty of theories, but Hersh’s is wrong.
Here’s a theory.

Sure sounds like you got suckered again, mr gullible. Tricked into spreading more blatantly false Russian propaganda, again….unless you weren’t tricked and spread it intentionally, which is just as believable as you being as gullible as you act.

Yep, another totally moronic conspiracy theory spawned by Russia and spread by idiot righties totally 100% debunked…as expected….now what? Retraction? Never. Correction? Never. Just moving on to the next idiotic lies you can spout pretending you weren’t caught in the last 37 you tried? Sic simper.

Literally everything this liar Seymour Hersh claimed has been PROVEN conclusively to not only be false, but actually impossible. For instance, the plane he claimed dropped the sonobouy to trigger the non existent American charges is mothballed and hasn’t flown under its own power for a decade, can’t fly missions when it can’t fly…the mine sweepers and other military vessels were not in the area when he needs them to be for his theory to make any sense, proven public knowledge from ship trackers, and his sources are anonymous, unvetted, supposition, and just ridiculous….and mirror exactly the Kremlin’s ridiculous position/claims from the day after the pipeline was destroyed while surrounded by the Russian navy.
Makes sense you bought it, it is stupid and anti America. Right up your treasonous moronic alley.
Sucker, they sold you another anti American lie and you paid double for it. One more in an endless stream of anonymous sourced Russian propaganda pieces you choose to believe over verifiable facts….anything to make America the bad guy and Russia the innocent victim.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-united-states-baltic-sea-b837ae25021807a3caef4aa3043a8013

“ Seymour Hersh’s story would have been a lot harder to pull apart, had he decided to be more sparing with the details instead of going into depth with meaningless details that make little sense. A simpler story could have been believable, but this piece of Tom Clancy fan fiction is subpar. “
- OLIVER ALEXANDER

And now there's this: Sarin used in April Syria attack, chemical weapons watchdog confirms

So now we have two narratives that are mutually incompatible. Splendid, isn't it....

My own confirmation bias favours Hersh. Additionally, the OPCW openly admits they had had access to the site of the attack, and that all of their samples were gathered by third parties, primarily the White Helmets. That's about as tainted as evidence can be.

Either way, nobody has anything of substance in terms of proof, everything's circumstantial. Can't call it.

On that note, here's Hersh in an interview from a few days ago:

The Democrats may be playing with fire on all of these investigations because unless they really think they have something… I don’t see anything but getting sympathy for Trump. The Democrats aren’t attacking specific ideas, they’re just wallowing and trying to talk about what the Russians did, they stole the elections, and you know, the cover-up—which they’re not going to prove, I don’t think. I don’t see any reason to be optimistic about it.

@newtboy

"There is no publicly available PROOF that Trump himself colluded to steal the election....yet."

and when i see actual proof i shall adjust my opinion accordingly.

seymour hersh was the journalist who debunked and exposed the fabricated narrative of the assad regime using sarin gas against the syrian people.

that was in 2013.

and i think you need to differentiate between an institution and an individual.
there have been individual analysts who have come out and openly spoken against the current narratives being put forth by their respective intelligence institutions.

not trying to be a dick here,but i think you are painting with too broad a brush.

we actually agree FAR more than disagree.
the difference is i am demanding evidence not politically motivated speculation by agencies who have proven themselves to be extremely deceitful when it serves their interests.

and i refuse to recognize a corporate media outlet which puts profit above all else as a credible "news" source simply because it appeals to my dislike and disgust at our current sitting president.

james o'keefe is a slimeball,and breitbart a rag that appeals to the most base,and biased of us,but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

and to even attempt to give either any validity or credence is akin to accepting a big giant bowl of feces simply because it smells a tad less worse than the other.

still two bowls of shit to chose from....and i refuse both.

so when you say you disagree with me,you really don't.
you are just accepting that "less" smelly bowl of shit.

and hey,you may have chosen correctly,and it may all be true.
i will be the first to congratulate you on being right.

and then they will impeach trump,and then we all get to enjoy president mike pence.

now think on THAT little nugget for awhile.
good luck sleeping.....

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

Remember Scott Ritter? Arms inspector, made the rounds with Seymour Hersh about a decade ago with "Target Iran", when the Bush administration was in a very bellicose posture vis-a-vis Iran.

Interesting guy, often amongst the first to call out attempts to fabricate a casus belli on Middle Eastern nations.

He had a go at the NSA document supposedly leaked by Leigh Winner. Check it out: Leaked NSA Report Short on Facts, Proves Little in ‘Russiagate’ Case

"In many ways, the rush to blame Russia for attempting to undermine American democracy by meddling in our election system has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. The damage done to the credibility of our democratic institutions as a result of the politicized congressional proceedings has been incalculable, and by all accounts the worst is yet to come.

The Russians barely had to lift a finger—the wounds derived from this political maelstrom have all been self-inflicted. The fact that the mainstream media have been unable to accurately report on the issue only underscores the depths to which institutions and agencies will fall to deride and destroy that which they detest and abhor, namely President Trump."

@MilkmanDan

i do not want to speak for eric,so i will just explain why i downvoted.

this video attempts to explain the syrian crisis,with almost zero critical examination.the video practically regurgitates the current american political narrative and never mentions the conflicts of information.

let me explain:

1.the video states this all started due to the arab spring,but totally fails to mention that the MAIN reason for the continued conflict is not arab spring,but the fact the both qatar and saudi arabia have been pushing syria to allow them to build a pipeline through syria in order for those countries to sell oil and gas to europe.

which would be in direct competition with russia,which is the main provider of oil and gas to europe.

2.this video claims..twice..that assad has used chemical weapons against his own people.while convenient for a western power which may,or may not,wish to engage militarily.there was no evidence in 2013,and there is no evidence this time (mainly due to time.i mean come on,TWO days? and BOOM.assad did it,nothing to see here.move along).

the only journalist in 2013 that challenged the narrative was seymor hersh.who was ridiculed and chastised,and ultimately vindicated in 2014 by the UN securities commission,that assad was not the perpetrator,but rather the al qeada off shoot el nosra.

which was barely covered,if at all,in american corporate media.

it is also important to mention that the assad regime,in full compliance with the UN,handed over all materials that could be used in chemical warfare.i.e:sarin gas.

3.while the video DOES mention it,it does so in a very slick way,and if you are not following this situation,you will miss it.

america IS supporting and funding "rebels",but pay attention to who those rebels are:they are the offshoot of al qeada,el nosra.

so in effect,america sis funding and supporting al qeada to fight against the assad regime.

i will give you time to allow that to sink in a moment.

these are only a few of the glaring inconsistencies in this video,but i will agree that the situation in syria is complicated,but the reasons for that complication are not being mentioned in this video..at all.

and one final thing to chew about before i go,because i think it is an important aspect to ponder,and as of right now,thats all it really is:speculation.

assad was set to meet with a UN peace council in a week to discuss possible diplomatic solutions.add to this that trump had just recently (last week) backed off obama's "red line" approach,and stated quite clearly that america is ONLY interested in dealing with ISIS,and had NO interest in dealing with assad.

question:

why would assad,with only a week to go before peace negotiations,commit politicial suicide by gassing his own people?

who benefits from this attack?

because it sure is not assad.

we all know the situation in syria is dire,complicated and grotesque,but the current narrative being fed to americans simply does NOT add up.

2+2 does not = 5

and this video does nothing to clear that up,it simply regurgitates american corporate media's narrative.

and i refuse to upvote that.

Nope, me neither.

Which is sort of the point. It's unheard of that all of these agencies came to the same conclusion on a specific matter. Some may take this as an indicator of how damning the evidence really is, others see this as an indicator that the "assessments" were made on hierarchical levels reserved for political appointees.

The absence of dissent supports the second point of view. No group of analysts in their right mind would create a report without also strongly pointing out contradictory facts, inconsistencies, and separating fact from interpretation. That's what Hersh is referring to. This is not an NIE, it's an opinion piece. This memo by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (wierd name) goes down the same route:

As you will have gathered by now, we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the “intelligence” evidence in 2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact “certitude” – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, an opinion piece might be sufficient if it came from credible institutions and had a moderatly important subject. But this is throwing serious accusations at a sovereign nation in times when diplomatic relations are stressed as it is. And that's not going into the credibility problem of many of these agencies, who have a very dubious track record on these issues.

Ian Welsh had a piece the other day on the CIA vs Trump, and his take on intelligence agencies is pretty close to what mine has been since I learned about the Stasi some 20 years ago:

The CIA and NSA are not the friend of any left-wing worth having: they are innately anti-democratic, anti-privacy, and anti-rights. Secret agencies are anathema to any open government. At an existential level, intelligence agencies are at best a double edged sword, and by their nature, they always wind up serving the interests of the few, against the interests of the people.

This one's a bit dated (5 weeks), but still good stuff:
http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2016/16_12_15.mp3

Mark Ames on "Putin-did-it", starting at around 25:40.

Edit: also, first episode of Intercepted is out, Jeremy Scahill's weekly podcast.

He's got Sy Hersh on this time, and Hersh had a lot to say about "Putin-did-it", including this bit:
"It’s high camp stuff. What does an assessment mean? It’s not a national intelligence estimate. If you had a real estimate, you would have five or six dissents. One time they said 17 agencies all agreed. Oh really? The Coast Guard and the Air Force — they all agreed on it? And it was outrageous and nobody did that story. An assessment is simply an opinion. If they had a fact, they’d give it to you. An assessment is just that. It’s a belief. And they’ve done it many times."

Sy Hersh's account of the Bin Laden raid is quite a doozy:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

Either Sy is full of shit or all the reports about it were Pure-D propaganda -- and I don't know which of these alternatives is more disturbing.

The very first video I ever submitted to VideoSift was a discussion by Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh primarily about the US posture towards Iran, taped on 10/26/06. It's still available on FORA.tv, and despite everything that happened since then, it's still worth watching.

*quality

The first one, Target Iran, didn't cut it. So my first actual sift would be Wilhelm Kempff playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata -- and the quality went downhill ever since.

Do you realize that you are reinforcing the thesis of this video with these poor examples? >> ^quantumushroom:

How is exposing failed government programs, wasted tax dollars and ignoring the Constitution "violent rhetoric"?
OH THOSE PEACEFUL LEFT-WING LIBERALS.

I want to go up to the closest white person and say: ‘You can’t
understand this, it’s a black thing’ and then slap him, just for my
mental health — New York city councilman Charles Barron

It's good (Michelle Malkin's) in D.C. and I'm in New York. I'd spit on
her if I saw her. -- Geraldo Rivera

I have a good news to report; Glen Beck appears closer to suicide - I'm
hoping that he does it on camera; suicide is rampant in his family, and
given his alcoholism and his tendencies towards self-destruction, I am
only hoping that when Glen Beck does put a gun to his head and pulls
the trigger, that it will be on television, because somebody will capture
it on YouTube and it will be the most popular video for months. -- Mike
Malloy, radio "personality"

"It's about time that we have an intifada in this country that changes
fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every --
They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical -- well, you
haven't seen radicalism yet." -- U.C. Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian
fires up the crowd at an anti-war rally by calling for an American
intifada

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not
'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION,
the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win." -- Michael Moore

In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby
killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn’t happening now, but I will tell
you – there has never been an army as violent and murderous as our
army has been in Iraq. -- Seymour Hersh

“I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like
many black men do, of heart disease.... He is an absolutely
reprehensible person.” -- USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk
show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, Nov. 4, 1994,
on PBS’s “To the Contrary.”
"This administration is waging war on poor children," said "The
reality is that they are steadily and surely trying to turn the clock back
on all of the programs and supports that working families and their
children need and deserve. --Hillary Rodham Clinton