See More Hersh
I would be hesitant to run with this, given that it only emerged in a couple of Pakistani papers, but it has the ring of truth. Pakistan’s The Nation:
NEW YORK (Online) – Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of the special death squad formed by former US vice-president Dick Cheney, which had already killed the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief of that country.
The squad was headed by General Stanley McChrystal, the newly-appointed commander of US army in Afghanistan. It was disclosed by reputed US journalist Seymour Hersh while talking to an Arab TV in an interview.
By “ring of truth,” I mean it sounds like something Seymour Hersh would have said. Lack of pickup may indicate that the western media has concluded at longlast that this guy is, in the popular idiom, batshit crazy. “Talking to an Arab TV” presumeably is just poor usage, and not a literal description of what he was doing, however. Though I have to admit I talk to American TVs and radios sometimes.
Hold everything! Like everything involving Hersh, it’s a self-contradicting rollercoaster ride. Here’s Hersh in the Pak Daily Times denying all:
US journalist Seymour Hersh on Monday contradicted news reports being published in South Asia that quote him as saying a “special death squad” made by former US vice president Dick Cheney had killed Benazir Bhutto. The award-winning journalist described as “complete madness” the reports that the squad headed by General Stanley McChrystal – the new commander of US army in Afghanistan – had also killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafique Al Hariri and a Lebanese army chief. “Vice president Cheney does not have a death squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Mrs Bhutto,” Hersh said. “I have never said that I did have such information. I most certainly did not say anything remotely to that effect during an interview with an Arab media outlet.” He said Gen McChrystal had run a special forces unit that engaged in “high value target activity”, but “while I have been critical of some of that unit’s activities in the pages of the New Yorker and in interviews, I have never suggested that he was involved in political assassinations or death squads on behalf of Mr Cheney, as the published stories state.”
I like this part:
“This is another example of blogs going bonkers with misleading and fabricated stories and professional journalists repeating such rumours without doing their job – and that is to verify such rumours.”
OK, Moe Lane does the honors on Seymour Hersh, in March, claiming that Cheney ran an executive death squad. Heck, I’ll do the honors on Seymour Hersh claiming that Cheney ran an executive death squad. HotAir, meanwhile, cruelly links to a Hersh mendacitology.
(Technically, that has to be classed as blogs going bonkers with a rumor repeated by a professional journalist without verification, because in fairness, as Hersh noted when he told a bunch of college kids about it, he wasn’t ready to print it, though his claim to be a professional journalist at this point is right up there with the Boston trolley-crash driver’s claim to be a man … Sorry, I retract that. Comparing delusional cross-dressing to what Seymour Hersh does is hurtful and uncalled for. My apologies to delusional cross-dressers. No cruel remarks about professional journalism and delusional cross-dressing, please.)
Abu Muqawama: You opened the can of worms, Sy, you gotta eat ‘em.
Clearly, we need to see more Hersh. Specifically, we need to see this Arab TV he was talking to. Checked MEMRI and Google News, couldn’t find it. Here’s a Gulf News transcript in which he specifically denies the Hariri bit but repeats a lot of the Cheney blah blah blah. The Pak Nation report doesn’t specify which Arab TV he was talking to, however, and Gulf News doesn’t say where it got the Hariri idea from. It could be any number of Arab TVs. He was in Dubai recently lauding the Arab media, though. Plucky Arab journos cover stories the western media won’t. Apparently he means Bushian war crimes, Arabia’s Favorite Jihadi Videos and Crusader war porn, not Passover blood libel. He has to have been a pretty popular interview for Arab TVs.
Hey, this is a good one I missed. Hersh told Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air that Cheney left “stay behinds” in government to keep him informed. I guess he means Robert Gates.
OK, any questions? Just ask Surber, who notes that one of Cheney’s stay-behinds includes his purported executive death squad chief, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, now running the show in Afghanistan. It’s insidious!
Topics: Cheney, Intel, media, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:50 am Comments (6) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
6 Responses to “See More Hersh”
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May 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
[...] Crittenden brings up the ’stay-behinds.’ I do wonder sometimes whether these people wanted to be oppressed, and resented us for not doing [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
You when my mom got to that stage we took away the car keys and hired some nurses. Doesn’t Sy have a family?
May 19th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Yeah, well I saw a documentary on CNN the other night exposing the long list of ridiculous accusations that Seymour has foisted on the American people………….
Or maybe I didn’t.
http://www.jourtegrity.blogspot.com
May 19th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Man, if only we could get this guy a job as Biden’s spokesman! Between the two of them… well, the next three and a half years would at least be the most entertaining political disaster in history.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
It was disclosed by reputed US journalist Seymour Hersh
Reputed US journalist. Heh.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
Of course, the true absurdity – it jumped right out at me – is that no Lieutenant General commands a squad. And if we are so damned good that we can get close enough to them to assassinate leaders of other nations, it then is entirely contradictory that a lame hack such as Hersh would be able to find out all the details.
We had a term for these kind of fools in the Army: “Shitbirds.”