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Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

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Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#101

Post by djur »

pydry wrote: post #30
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abu Ghraib was over 20 years ago mate. Journalists during Bush Jr's era were solid. Post Obama, the entire profession couldn't handle not being the under dog. And now we're paying the price with untrustworthy or outright made up "anonymous sources".

And he got exactly the same reaction when he published the Abu Ghraib story. The Pentagon called it nonsense.

Where is your source for the Pentagon calling it nonsense? Here's George W. Bush publicly apologizing for the abuses on May 7, 2004:

https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/07/bush.apology/inde...

Hersh's New Yorker article was published April 30. His reporting was based on the Army's Taguba report, which leaked broadly in the first week of May. Other reporters had access to and reported on the leaked report. There's absolutely grounds to criticize the Pentagon in terms of its lack of transparency with regards to the report, but once the story was broken it was way too well-substantiated to outright deny.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#102

Post by marcusverus »

rexxxmi wrote: post #56
DeLeeuw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was always opposed to Nord Stream and for good reasons. I'm in fact glad it's gone. Many people already speculated it was the US, because Biden himself literally says "we will bring an end to it": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8 With a smirk. Even when pressed how he is going to do it. For me, Hersh' story is the secondary corroboration.

A general criminal law principle known as the corpus delicti rule provides that a confession, standing alone, isn't enough for a conviction. I am not taking a position. I'm saying no one has presented hard evidence. And until they do, if ever, both sides will play hot potato and nothing will happen. When someone presents hard evidence for either position I'll listen to them happily.

It may not be sufficient for a conviction in criminal court, but it goes a long way in the court of public opinion. As well it should.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#103

Post by [deleted] »

createdapril24 wrote: post #7

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

[deleted]

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#104

Post by InTheArena »

pphysch wrote: post #73

Sure, there are probably some holes/slight inaccuracies in Hersh's story. This particular "debunking" is mostly nitpicking. The tweet about the minesweeper path is a head-scratcher, because it sure looks like the boat slowed down/loitered near both blast sites. It is interesting that the White House, CIA, State Department, and establishment media class all found the need to promptly respond to what they characterized…

Hersh is well connected to the Russian intelligence agencies and has been for his entire career, including before the recently very viable "Debunking" of his Syria story-line (another story that benefited Russia). He's publicly stated he is close friends with Scott Ritter, who recently called for Ukraine's "annihilation", and both are regular guests on propaganda organ RT.

Hersh's previous activity played a key role in eliminating support for anti-Russian forces in Syria. Hundreds of thousands are dying in Ukraine right now. I think it's pretty obvious exactly why Russia would want want to pin these explosions on the USA, and why the USA would take steps to ensure the truth came out,

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#105

Post by kspacewalk2 »

htwaterx wrote: post #17

While interesting, the author appears to be nitpicking. It does not really refute Hersh's story, because these minor inconsistencies appear in any news article, including the NYT. It is irrelevant whether Hersh gets all details right, the important thing is whether his source is correct on the big picture or not. It seems to me that the veracity of Hersh's claims cannot be decided by textual analysis, but rather by a…

It's not nitpicking. It's an attempt to evaluate

>whether his source is correct on the big picture or not

(which cannot be verified), based on the details that can be verified.

>another investigative reporter who would travel for months to Florida, Norway, etc. and try to dig into the story.

What would be one concrete specific claim that you'd try to dig into?

>Who would dare that?

The question of "why would someone want to bother" is still open for debate, and until that's settled, there's little use bringing in conspiratorial woo questions.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#106

Post by remote_phone »

I don’t care either way who blew up the pipeline but to me the biggest glaring reason why I don’t think it’s the US is because Russia did not retaliate in any meaningful way.

Us peons are clueless about what happened but Russia knows and they would know if it was them. If it wasn’t them then it’s obvious who did It and escalating the war would be justified. The fact this didn’t happen to me suggests it was Russia all along.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#107

Post by waffleiron »

JackFr wrote: post #34
pydry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. Nobody much wanted to talk on the record about My Lai or Abu Ghraib when it happened either.

Really? People absolutely went on the record about My Lai.

Potentially people are more careful after Snowden and Assange.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#108

Post by 0xDEF »

createdapril24 wrote: post #7

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

>For the linked article - it commits far more journalistic sins than Hersh's article - in an attempt to take it down. Through continued use of insinuation, analogies, and strawmen

Like what? Give some examples.

Hersh's article is just made up fiction. Hersh has a habit of making up "anonymous sources":

>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 U.S. government.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#109

Post by [deleted] »

htwaterx wrote: post #17

While interesting, the author appears to be nitpicking. It does not really refute Hersh's story, because these minor inconsistencies appear in any news article, including the NYT. It is irrelevant whether Hersh gets all details right, the important thing is whether his source is correct on the big picture or not. It seems to me that the veracity of Hersh's claims cannot be decided by textual analysis, but rather by a…

[deleted]

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#110

Post by [deleted] »

pdog wrote: post #46

The sheer number of rhetorical fallacies employed in the opening of this "takedown" inclines me to believe that Hersh's reporting is a largely accurate and truthful account. For example, stating that you could write "an entire post on the reasons why sounds entirely made up by someone with no real grasp of what that suggestion would actually technically entail" is a clear-cut appeal to ridicule [1] fallacy with no fu…

[deleted]
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