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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

#11

Post by baybal2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
epistasis wrote: post #3

[flagged]

He's in "I want corroboration" territory for me. The big scoops - My Lai, Abu Gharaib - were backed up with hard evidence and other organizations confirming the allegations. Stuff like "the US faked Bin Laden's burial and chucked chunks of him into the mountains" have, thus far, not been.

Abu Ghraib happened, and My Lai happened, and Hersh was first who brought these two stories to light.

Neither were some giant secrets, and were previously dismissed as unsubstantiated rumour. Hersh collected enough factoids together to substantiate them enough to become a news story, rather than a military legend.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#12

Post by giantrobot »

mannerheim wrote: post #7
runnerup wrote: post #2

It feels rather damning that Hersh didn’t verify some of the easily verifiable claims that his source made. Why would you not have researchers do some fact checking on the story before publishing it so loudly?

If you fact check and you're right, you've wasted your time. If you fact check and you're wrong, you either can't publish (wasting the time you took for the story) or you publish anyway knowing it's wrong, in which case, it's still a waste of time.

Or you publish and report the claims made by the source and call out specifically where those claims couldn't be verified. It's like science publishing, too often negative results go unpublished. Knowing what didn't work can be as useful as knowing what did work.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#13

Post by TheBlight »

ceejayoz wrote: post #9
epistasis wrote: post #3

[flagged]

He's in "I want corroboration" territory for me. The big scoops - My Lai, Abu Gharaib - were backed up with hard evidence and other organizations confirming the allegations. Stuff like "the US faked Bin Laden's burial and chucked chunks of him into the mountains" have, thus far, not been.

His contention involved the manner in which UBL's location was discovered. The popular narrative is that a courier was tracked with the aid of intelligence gathered during "enhanced interrogation" sessions. Whereas his claim is that an ISI officer walked in and received cash for the information.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#14

Post by caycep »

epistasis wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Granted...he is in his mid 80's. Say what you will about other national leaders in the 80's (some of whom have organizational apparatuses around them to support them, vs. being a lone wolf professional)...but cognition may play a factor vs. Seymour Hersh in the prime of his life...

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#15

Post by mannerheim »

TheBlight wrote: post #13
ceejayoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's in "I want corroboration" territory for me. The big scoops - My Lai, Abu Gharaib - were backed up with hard evidence and other organizations confirming the allegations. Stuff like "the US faked Bin Laden's burial and chucked chunks of him into the mountains" have, thus far, not been.

His contention involved the manner in which UBL's location was discovered. The popular narrative is that a courier was tracked with the aid of intelligence gathered during "enhanced interrogation" sessions. Whereas his claim is that an ISI officer walked in and received cash for the information.

If this is an accurate summary of what he's claiming, this seems a bit more ridiculous than that:

> The truth, Hersh says, is that Pakistani intelligence services captured bin Laden in 2006 and kept him locked up with support from Saudi Arabia, using him as leverage against al-Qaeda. In 2010, Pakistan agreed to sell bin Laden to the US for increased military aid and a "freer hand in Afghanistan." Rather than kill him or hand him over discreetly, Hersh says the Pakistanis insisted on staging an elaborate American "raid" with Pakistani support.

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#17

Post by dmix »

If someone was feeding Hersh false information why would they reference the Alta class? Assuming it was some Intel op or some insider, did they just google some Norwegian navy ships that could plausibly fit the picture? Or did Hersh draw that connection himself?

Hersh has been criticized for listening to cranks. Maybe some Intel officer (or adjacent gov/military worker) heard some rumours internally but there was comparmentalization or operational security protecting the details, and then tried to piece it together themselves, before leaking it to Hersh.

If it is false it's worth asking why and who would care to push these angles.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#18

Post by tptacek »

dmix wrote: post #17

If someone was feeding Hersh false information why would they reference the Alta class? Assuming it was some Intel op or some insider, did they just google some Norwegian navy ships that could plausibly fit the picture? Or did Hersh draw that connection himself? Hersh has been criticized for listening to cranks. Maybe some Intel officer (or adjacent gov/military worker) heard some rumours internally but there was com…

Presumably it's for the same reasons that people gave him faulty technical information about Sarin gas in his debunked Syria story, or whatever weird details he was fed about the notion that the Osama bin Laden raid never happened, or the idea that USSOCOM is secretly controlled by a sect within the Vatican. Because he'll run with it, and people pay attention to him.

People troll all the time on the Internet; why would we assume they wouldn't troll everywhere else too?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#20

Post by scythe »

The satellite imagery of the Alta shows the dates June 5, 7, 20, and later (until the Alta is scrapped on the 30th). The BALTOPS 2022 exercises took place June 5–17. So the imagery generally does not provide evidence of the Alta's location during most of BALTOPS 2022.
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