10 ms·

Seymour Hersh on spies, state secrets, and the stories he doesn’t tell

96 points by daddy_drank 8y ago

creaghpatr 8y ago
Great interview, really excited for the book.
farseer 8y ago
You write that you knew about atrocities during the Iraq War, including Americans destroying with acid the bodies of detainees who had died during torture. But you didn’t report it because Cheney would have destroyed your sources. Wow! That is information I have never heard before.
- boreas 8y ago
  I wouldn't take it for granted that he's telling the truth on that. He has been riding on My Lai credibility for so long, but some of his recent stuff such as his piece on how the OBL assassination went down is completely wack.
  - cup 8y ago
    > is completely wack. Truth is stranger than fiction and a journalist only lives by their credibility. He wouldn't publish it if he didnt think it was solid.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      There are reputable journalists of statute besides Seymour Hersh, and I think you'll have a hard time finding one that believes Hersh's claims about UBL. That people on message boards find him convincing doesn't tell us much; there were people on HN who believed PizzaGate.
      - wallace_f 8y ago
        Also had a harm time finding a scientist at NASA willling to support the foam strike hypothesis. Semmelweis showed hard evidence of the efficacy of hygiene in saving lives, but was an absolute pariah, literally driven into a mental hospital by his critics. There was a Nobel given to a physician for the lobotomy procedure. Point is if you just trust the methodology of using groupthink to determine righteousness you will get some things wrong. And it gets really bad once we venture away from scientific fields. You can see in history people's psyches sometimes coalescing around acceptableness of some pretty horrendous ideas like inquisitions, holocausts, abu ghraibs, etc.
        tptacek 8y ago
        This seems like an argument that comes pretty close to saying we should disregard all expertise and stature, except for your preferred sources.
        wallace_f 8y ago
        What you said by mentioning the groupthink status quo is something worth mentioning, but it hardly settles the matter. I was trying to say that dismissing credibility solely because most disagree is just not a good argument. We wouldn't have gotten very far if the scientific method included: "test your hypothesis by asking the most reputable people what they think." It should just be an indication of what is likely to be correct.
        pvg 8y ago
        You are being offered the chance to claim the titles of NSA and NASA shill here.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
varjag 8y ago
Good old Hersh has been in war crime denial business lately. In particular denying Khan Sheikhoun chemical massacre, which was attributed to Assad by UN JIT/OPCW.
- epicureanideal 8y ago
  I suspect I'll get downvoted for this by people who believe our media, but I think with some critical thinking it's possible to at least realize the possibility that the UN JIT/OPCW may be influenced to the point of bias by the US and its allies. Many smart people around me have asked, what would have been Assad's motivation to bring down the wrath of the US on himself at a point when he's winning the war? What is the US doing in Syria without an invitation by the Syrian government, supposedly "fighting terrorists" but against the government? Why does the US have the right to constantly invade other governments it doesn't like because "they're not legitimate"? Assuming the US was the size of Connecticut and had no nuclear weapons, it would be easy for a power like China to take the domestic unrest after the Bush, Trump, or any of several other elections to claim that the US has become a dictatorship and they need to occupy large parts of our territory to ensure freedom. Then assume that somehow that tiny US manages to start winning against the China-supported "insurgents". Then suddenly, out of nowhere, with the war turning in favor of the US, the US uses some chemical weapons on civilians and brings down international condemnation on itself. Who wouldn't be skeptical? But our government has done a great job of making every other country in the world and its government seem suspicious, so it's easy for many of us to think it's perfectly reasonable that Assad is a crazy person who doesn't want to live past next week, and so is perfectly happy to use unnecessary chemical weapons in a war he's already winning, with a major global power backing him. Some of the people who were even in the video showing the "chemical attack" have said that they were not attacked with chemical weapons. Those witnesses have been dismissed as "Russian propaganda". See for yourself, the "Russian propaganda" and a US-friendly media source denouncing the Russian propaganda. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-27/russia-presents-alleged-syrian-witnesses-to-opcw/9702128 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-27/russia-presents-allege... https://www.rt.com/op-ed/428514-douma-civilians-chemical-hoax/ https://www.rt.com/op-ed/428514-douma-civilians-chemical-hoa... By the way, there are plenty of people in the US who have criticized this overall US strategy for a long time. https://www.amazon.com/New-Military-Humanism-Lessons-Kosovo/dp/0745316336 https://www.amazon.com/New-Military-Humanism-Lessons-Kosovo/... But I suppose people on both sides of this debate will think that the other side is just believing the "obviously wrong" propaganda of the other side.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> In the book I’m writing, I can segue into this stuff; I’m writing a lot about what was going on in the FBI. There was a lot going on that was counter-Trump, I will tell you that. I’m telling you, it’s the missed story of all time. Any idea (or even guess) about what he's talking about here?
- deiznof 8y ago
  He would have to be referring to anti-Trump people within the FBI (not necessarily the entire FBI working together). I don't really know what else it would mean.
- lovemenot 8y ago
  It doesn't need to mean anything really. It's just the writer's way of marketing to Trump supporters. Notice alignment of both form (Trump-style breathless personal attestations and hyperbole) and content (Deep-state activity against Trump).
mcguire 8y ago
"I was told within two months not to put anything in the computer by somebody who was still inside working for Cheney. And I said, “Oh, god.” I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to connect it to the internet.” He says, “You’re not listening to me.” I said, “No. Fucking. Kidding.” The guy said I couldn’t protect him." What? This interview is not well written.
- rmason 8y ago
  No it explains why Putin's top staff has gone back to using typewriters. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-paper-nsa-leaks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts... Course if NSA can decode speech from just the vibrations of a window how much longer will it take for them to know which key you just pressed on a typewriter? https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded-vibrations-back-into-speech-and-music https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded...
  - ummm32 8y ago
    I though that tech was actually quite older, like that it was born just after masers got well powered and mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser#Uses
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Oh, I get the meaning. The writing is gibberish though.
tptacek 8y ago
Seymour Hersh's reputation has declined precipitously in the years since he was rightly hailed as a hero for breaking the Abu Ghraib story. He was pummeled for publishing, in the LRB, an all-but-refuted story claiming that the entire story about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden was a lie (he relied on the secondhand story of a retired, anonymous defense department employee for his sourcing; his home publication, The New Yorker, refused to run it). He's promoted a number of other stories that, to put it gently, an unusual quotient of support-among- journalists over impact-if-true. Among them, he believes that USSOCOM is run by a secret cabal of Opus Dei Catholics, and that the Syrian chemical attacks aren't just false, but actually a false flag operation run by Turkey. He believes that the US actively supports Islamist terrorists in Iran and in Lebanon, and that the US trained Iranian terrorists (the anti-regime MEK) on US soil. This isn't a new wrinkle in Hersh's career. Early on, he made outlandish claims about the Kennedy administration, including that the Chicago Outfit fixed the result of the Presidential election. Two tricky things about Hersh are first, and most obviously, that he occasionally breaks a story of immense national importance, and secondly, that he tends to orient his reporting in directions that are both largely valid and under-reported. Kennedy was almost surely one of our more crooked presidents. The Bush administration probably did play some kind of footsie with the MEK. But that doesn't make any particular story he reports actually true; in journalism, you can't just end up in the broad vicinity of right.
- leephillips 8y ago
  I thought the Chicago thing, or some version of it, was widely accepted. I could be wrong, of course. Generally, I think you have it right: Hersh is a maddening mixture of hero reporter and someone who can be very reckless with the facts.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Shenanigans of some sort in Chicago are widely accepted. That Kennedy conspired with Sam Giancarlo of the Chicago Outfit to fix the election in multiple states is not.
    - 8y ago
technotarek 8y ago
Another interesting story broken by Hersh: Vietnam's My Lai Massacre. Video interview at https://investigatingpower.org/vietnam-war/ https://investigatingpower.org/vietnam-war/
tootie 8y ago
As much as he was terrible for the country, I find it hard to believe Dick Cheney would have sources whacked.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Whatever Cheney's threats might have been, they didn't prevent Barton Gellman from savaging Cheney with _Angler_, which he wrote during the Bush administration. Cheney is today a marginal figure, possibly in no small part due to Gellman's reporting.
- jweir 8y ago
  But getting imprisoned, certainly https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-open-letter-prison https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/cia-whistleblo...
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Kiriakou was not imprisoned for ratting out Dick Cheney and his status as a "whistleblower" is contestable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, what is your opinion on things like Operation Northwoods? [1] Operation Northwoods was a plan for US intelligence agencies to engage in terrorist activity against Americans, and then blame it on Cuba as a means of justifying war. It was formulated by our intelligence agencies and approved by the joint chiefs of staff. Literally the only reason this did not happen is because one person, JFK, chose not to sign off on it. Or perhaps what the FBI did to MLK? After spying on him and discovering his 'sexual deviancy' they posed as a black supporter and tried to blackmail and shame him into suicide. [2] We don't tend to learn about these things until decades after they happen since they're heavily classified. And I imagine if Operation Northwoods went ahead, it's the sort of action that might have ended up with no paper trail at all. And so we can look back and say 'oh that was 50 years ago, we're so very different now.' Yet of course, after our secrets are revealed beyond doubt 50 years from now people will almost certainly be aghast at the things we are doing, yet will consider themselves beyond such a point since after all 'that was 50 years ago, we're so very different now.' And to be clear here I am in no way implying anything one way or the other about Cheney. This is a more general question that I'm quite curious about. What I am stating is that our government, which is made up of individuals, has an extremely rich history of Machiavellian behavior, even when such behavior is extremely unethical. To think that the individuals within government are somehow all, independently, reasonably good people is not really logical. Though I suppose JFK, at least, we can be sure was probably a good person. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [2] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr...
throw2016 8y ago
Matt Taibbi had a well written piece on Seymour Hersh in the Rolling Stones. [1] The world is a worse place if values are shown to be hollow and lacking substance. There will always be some real politik but between surveillance, dubious wars and neoliberalism the democracy project is in tatters. Jingoists will defend everything but there is a great responsibility on the the general public to hold their governments to account. If not there will be no credibility and no moral high ground from which to operate, and that's a serious loss that cannot be regained. It's already significantly diminished. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/seymour-hersh-reporter-w520927 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/seymour-hersh...

96 points by daddy_drank 8y ago

Great interview, really excited for the book.

You write that you knew about atrocities during the Iraq War, including Americans destroying with acid the bodies of detainees who had died during torture. But you didn’t report it because Cheney would have destroyed your sources. Wow! That is information I have never heard before.

boreas 8y ago
I wouldn't take it for granted that he's telling the truth on that. He has been riding on My Lai credibility for so long, but some of his recent stuff such as his piece on how the OBL assassination went down is completely wack.
- cup 8y ago
  > is completely wack. Truth is stranger than fiction and a journalist only lives by their credibility. He wouldn't publish it if he didnt think it was solid.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    There are reputable journalists of statute besides Seymour Hersh, and I think you'll have a hard time finding one that believes Hersh's claims about UBL. That people on message boards find him convincing doesn't tell us much; there were people on HN who believed PizzaGate.
    - wallace_f 8y ago
      Also had a harm time finding a scientist at NASA willling to support the foam strike hypothesis. Semmelweis showed hard evidence of the efficacy of hygiene in saving lives, but was an absolute pariah, literally driven into a mental hospital by his critics. There was a Nobel given to a physician for the lobotomy procedure. Point is if you just trust the methodology of using groupthink to determine righteousness you will get some things wrong. And it gets really bad once we venture away from scientific fields. You can see in history people's psyches sometimes coalescing around acceptableness of some pretty horrendous ideas like inquisitions, holocausts, abu ghraibs, etc.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        This seems like an argument that comes pretty close to saying we should disregard all expertise and stature, except for your preferred sources.
        wallace_f 8y ago
        What you said by mentioning the groupthink status quo is something worth mentioning, but it hardly settles the matter. I was trying to say that dismissing credibility solely because most disagree is just not a good argument. We wouldn't have gotten very far if the scientific method included: "test your hypothesis by asking the most reputable people what they think." It should just be an indication of what is likely to be correct.
        pvg 8y ago
        You are being offered the chance to claim the titles of NSA and NASA shill here.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

varjag 8y ago

Good old Hersh has been in war crime denial business lately. In particular denying Khan Sheikhoun chemical massacre, which was attributed to Assad by UN JIT/OPCW.

epicureanideal 8y ago
I suspect I'll get downvoted for this by people who believe our media, but I think with some critical thinking it's possible to at least realize the possibility that the UN JIT/OPCW may be influenced to the point of bias by the US and its allies. Many smart people around me have asked, what would have been Assad's motivation to bring down the wrath of the US on himself at a point when he's winning the war? What is the US doing in Syria without an invitation by the Syrian government, supposedly "fighting terrorists" but against the government? Why does the US have the right to constantly invade other governments it doesn't like because "they're not legitimate"? Assuming the US was the size of Connecticut and had no nuclear weapons, it would be easy for a power like China to take the domestic unrest after the Bush, Trump, or any of several other elections to claim that the US has become a dictatorship and they need to occupy large parts of our territory to ensure freedom. Then assume that somehow that tiny US manages to start winning against the China-supported "insurgents". Then suddenly, out of nowhere, with the war turning in favor of the US, the US uses some chemical weapons on civilians and brings down international condemnation on itself. Who wouldn't be skeptical? But our government has done a great job of making every other country in the world and its government seem suspicious, so it's easy for many of us to think it's perfectly reasonable that Assad is a crazy person who doesn't want to live past next week, and so is perfectly happy to use unnecessary chemical weapons in a war he's already winning, with a major global power backing him. Some of the people who were even in the video showing the "chemical attack" have said that they were not attacked with chemical weapons. Those witnesses have been dismissed as "Russian propaganda". See for yourself, the "Russian propaganda" and a US-friendly media source denouncing the Russian propaganda. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-27/russia-presents-alleged-syrian-witnesses-to-opcw/9702128 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-27/russia-presents-allege... https://www.rt.com/op-ed/428514-douma-civilians-chemical-hoax/ https://www.rt.com/op-ed/428514-douma-civilians-chemical-hoa... By the way, there are plenty of people in the US who have criticized this overall US strategy for a long time. https://www.amazon.com/New-Military-Humanism-Lessons-Kosovo/dp/0745316336 https://www.amazon.com/New-Military-Humanism-Lessons-Kosovo/... But I suppose people on both sides of this debate will think that the other side is just believing the "obviously wrong" propaganda of the other side.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

> In the book I’m writing, I can segue into this stuff; I’m writing a lot about what was going on in the FBI. There was a lot going on that was counter-Trump, I will tell you that. I’m telling you, it’s the missed story of all time. Any idea (or even guess) about what he's talking about here?

deiznof 8y ago
He would have to be referring to anti-Trump people within the FBI (not necessarily the entire FBI working together). I don't really know what else it would mean.
lovemenot 8y ago
It doesn't need to mean anything really. It's just the writer's way of marketing to Trump supporters. Notice alignment of both form (Trump-style breathless personal attestations and hyperbole) and content (Deep-state activity against Trump).

mcguire 8y ago

"I was told within two months not to put anything in the computer by somebody who was still inside working for Cheney. And I said, “Oh, god.” I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to connect it to the internet.” He says, “You’re not listening to me.” I said, “No. Fucking. Kidding.” The guy said I couldn’t protect him." What? This interview is not well written.

rmason 8y ago
No it explains why Putin's top staff has gone back to using typewriters. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts-paper-nsa-leaks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/russia-reverts... Course if NSA can decode speech from just the vibrations of a window how much longer will it take for them to know which key you just pressed on a typewriter? https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded-vibrations-back-into-speech-and-music https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded...
- ummm32 8y ago
  I though that tech was actually quite older, like that it was born just after masers got well powered and mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser#Uses
- mcguire 8y ago
  Oh, I get the meaning. The writing is gibberish though.

tptacek 8y ago

Seymour Hersh's reputation has declined precipitously in the years since he was rightly hailed as a hero for breaking the Abu Ghraib story. He was pummeled for publishing, in the LRB, an all-but-refuted story claiming that the entire story about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden was a lie (he relied on the secondhand story of a retired, anonymous defense department employee for his sourcing; his home publication, The New Yorker, refused to run it). He's promoted a number of other stories that, to put it gently, an unusual quotient of support-among- journalists over impact-if-true. Among them, he believes that USSOCOM is run by a secret cabal of Opus Dei Catholics, and that the Syrian chemical attacks aren't just false, but actually a false flag operation run by Turkey. He believes that the US actively supports Islamist terrorists in Iran and in Lebanon, and that the US trained Iranian terrorists (the anti-regime MEK) on US soil. This isn't a new wrinkle in Hersh's career. Early on, he made outlandish claims about the Kennedy administration, including that the Chicago Outfit fixed the result of the Presidential election. Two tricky things about Hersh are first, and most obviously, that he occasionally breaks a story of immense national importance, and secondly, that he tends to orient his reporting in directions that are both largely valid and under-reported. Kennedy was almost surely one of our more crooked presidents. The Bush administration probably did play some kind of footsie with the MEK. But that doesn't make any particular story he reports actually true; in journalism, you can't just end up in the broad vicinity of right.

leephillips 8y ago
I thought the Chicago thing, or some version of it, was widely accepted. I could be wrong, of course. Generally, I think you have it right: Hersh is a maddening mixture of hero reporter and someone who can be very reckless with the facts.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Shenanigans of some sort in Chicago are widely accepted. That Kennedy conspired with Sam Giancarlo of the Chicago Outfit to fix the election in multiple states is not.
  - 8y ago

technotarek 8y ago

Another interesting story broken by Hersh: Vietnam's My Lai Massacre. Video interview at https://investigatingpower.org/vietnam-war/ https://investigatingpower.org/vietnam-war/

tootie 8y ago

As much as he was terrible for the country, I find it hard to believe Dick Cheney would have sources whacked.

tptacek 8y ago
Whatever Cheney's threats might have been, they didn't prevent Barton Gellman from savaging Cheney with _Angler_, which he wrote during the Bush administration. Cheney is today a marginal figure, possibly in no small part due to Gellman's reporting.
jweir 8y ago
But getting imprisoned, certainly https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-open-letter-prison https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/cia-whistleblo...
- tptacek 8y ago
  Kiriakou was not imprisoned for ratting out Dick Cheney and his status as a "whistleblower" is contestable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796162
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Out of curiosity, what is your opinion on things like Operation Northwoods? [1] Operation Northwoods was a plan for US intelligence agencies to engage in terrorist activity against Americans, and then blame it on Cuba as a means of justifying war. It was formulated by our intelligence agencies and approved by the joint chiefs of staff. Literally the only reason this did not happen is because one person, JFK, chose not to sign off on it. Or perhaps what the FBI did to MLK? After spying on him and discovering his 'sexual deviancy' they posed as a black supporter and tried to blackmail and shame him into suicide. [2] We don't tend to learn about these things until decades after they happen since they're heavily classified. And I imagine if Operation Northwoods went ahead, it's the sort of action that might have ended up with no paper trail at all. And so we can look back and say 'oh that was 50 years ago, we're so very different now.' Yet of course, after our secrets are revealed beyond doubt 50 years from now people will almost certainly be aghast at the things we are doing, yet will consider themselves beyond such a point since after all 'that was 50 years ago, we're so very different now.' And to be clear here I am in no way implying anything one way or the other about Cheney. This is a more general question that I'm quite curious about. What I am stating is that our government, which is made up of individuals, has an extremely rich history of Machiavellian behavior, even when such behavior is extremely unethical. To think that the individuals within government are somehow all, independently, reasonably good people is not really logical. Though I suppose JFK, at least, we can be sure was probably a good person. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [2] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr...

throw2016 8y ago

Matt Taibbi had a well written piece on Seymour Hersh in the Rolling Stones. [1] The world is a worse place if values are shown to be hollow and lacking substance. There will always be some real politik but between surveillance, dubious wars and neoliberalism the democracy project is in tatters. Jingoists will defend everything but there is a great responsibility on the the general public to hold their governments to account. If not there will be no credibility and no moral high ground from which to operate, and that's a serious loss that cannot be regained. It's already significantly diminished. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/seymour-hersh-reporter-w520927 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/seymour-hersh...