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>First of all, denigrating a legendary reporter who has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive as a “conspiracy theorist” because his story containe

>First of all, denigrating a legendary reporter who has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive as a “conspiracy theorist” because his story contained a few details a little too implausible for some people’s taste is beyond insulting. Besides this being a blatant appeal to authority can you blame people for thinking he is drifting into conspiracy theorist territory when he has claimed that US Special Forces have been infiltrated by Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta?

pera 11y ago
"infiltrated"? may I have some source for that?
sroerick 11y ago
He didn't claim that they had been "infiltrated". He simply claimed a few high ranking generals were members. The narrative he was trying to create was that the military literally considers our presence in the Middle East as a crusade, in the historical sense. And frankly, I don't think this is too far off. George Bush used "crusade/holy war" rhetoric both publicly and (reportedly) in private. Religious indoctrination in the army is rampant. Eric Prince of Blackwater has been accused by former employees of trying to start a Crusade. So what's your counter narrative? The higher-ups in JSOC and the military are all reasonable secular humanists? The Pope is a member of the Jesuit order. This doesn't mean that the Jesuits have "infiltrated Catholicism", it just means the Pope is a Jesuit. If you think that Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta are "shadowy conspiracy groups", you need to stop reading Dan Brown books, and start embracing the fact that other people have different ideologies. As far as your "appeal to authority" is concerned, yes, that's exactly what it is. That's how journalism works. Anonymous sources get quoted all the time for pro-military stories. Deal with it. Would you have criticized Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for using "anonymous sources"? Part of good investigative journalism is relying on the reputation of established journalists. And while you're right that this is an appeal to authority, your argument is nothing more than an ad hominem designed to discredit the narrative Hersh has created.
- twic 11y ago
  Eric, Prince of Blackwater? Sounds at least a little bit Crusade-ish.
  - 67726e 11y ago
    That wold be Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and a former commissioned officer in the Navy SEALs. The book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army"[0] paints a pretty solid picture of his Crusade mindset. [0] - http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary-ebook/dp/B0097CYTYA http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercen...
    - deckiedan 11y ago
      Which was renamed to Xe for a while in 2009 or so, and now is called 'Academi', and part of the Constellis group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi
- mpyne 11y ago
  > He simply claimed a few high ranking generals were members. He also claimed that JSOC was passing around "crusade coins" as part of their religious "crusade". I don't know how he got 'crusade coins' from something completely benign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin) but that's the kind of "journalism" we've been receiving from Hersh in the past few years. Besides which, if your interpretation of Hersh's comments were true then they simply wouldn't be news at all. "Some members of a typically-conservative organization are also members of a separate typically-conservative organization" is hardly worth a mention at all. On the other hand the implied story "Opus Dei secretly in control of (or heavily influencing) America's special operations arm" would be news, Sy Hersh-winning-a-Pulitzer kind of news... if it were true. The comment you replied to wasn't claiming anything sinister about Opus Dei, that honor goes to Hersh himself.
  - sroerick 11y ago
    The claim is that top ranking officials believe they are waging a traditionalist "Holy War" against Islam. I don't know if your obsession with Catholic or military trinkets is simple misinterpretation or deliberate obfuscation. Hersh never made the claim which you put "in quotes". And it's disingenuous to claim he did. If top generals believe they are fighting a Crusade, that's newsworthy. If you want to address that narrative, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say. But as it stands, the strawman you're arguing against has no basis in Hersh's words or viewpoint.
Elrac 11y ago
In order for Hersh's comments about Opus Dei to discredit him as you're trying to do, they would have to be false. Do you know this? _The Nation_'s Greg Grandin thinks the discreditors have more egg on their faces than Hersh does: http://www.thenation.com/blog/207001/its-conspiracy-how-discredit-seymour-hersh# http://www.thenation.com/blog/207001/its-conspiracy-how-disc...
MisterWebz 11y ago
As I posted before: “Many of them are members of Opus Dei,” Hersh continued. “They do see what they’re doing — and this is not an atypical attitude among some military — it’s a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They’re protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function.” My understanding of that statement is that he meant that they were deeply religious and were members op Opus Dei, not that there's a secretive organization that's controlling USSOCOM. Please stop propagating things you read in that horrible VOX article.
- tootie 11y ago
  I don't think this is even a controversial statement. Gen William Boykin was the former head of Delta Force and has been pretty unequivocal that the US is at war with Islam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin#Religious.2FPolitical_views_and_comments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin#Religious.2FP...
  - sukilot 11y ago
    Being at war with Islam is not the same as being at war for Christ. A vocals segment of athiest thought leaders are also at war aIslam.
    - tootie 11y ago
      How many of them are senior military leadership?
pdkl95 11y ago
> a blatant appeal to authority This isn't really an appeal to authority. The claim "has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive" is suggesting that the probability of the current story being true is higher, given the unusually large number of successful stories previously published by the reporter. The claim isn't that we should listen to the reporter because he is some sort of expert or that is he occupies a position of authority. Any problem with inferring the probability of a new event from a record of past events would would be an error in the inductive inference. (i.e. the black swan problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_categorical_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_catego... )
mcantelon 11y ago
Why is the idea that an organization, affiliated with one of the most powerful religious institutions in the world, would want to infiltrate a powerful miliary org intrinsically implausible?
viraptor 11y ago
I thought the appeal to authority was in the form of "x is likely right because y is a known person", not "y has a track record of being right in similar cases and has experience in digging out details". That's just acknowledging experience. He doesn't even say "he's right", just "don't dismiss him without paying attention".

pera 11y ago

"infiltrated"? may I have some source for that?

sroerick 11y ago

He didn't claim that they had been "infiltrated". He simply claimed a few high ranking generals were members. The narrative he was trying to create was that the military literally considers our presence in the Middle East as a crusade, in the historical sense. And frankly, I don't think this is too far off. George Bush used "crusade/holy war" rhetoric both publicly and (reportedly) in private. Religious indoctrination in the army is rampant. Eric Prince of Blackwater has been accused by former employees of trying to start a Crusade. So what's your counter narrative? The higher-ups in JSOC and the military are all reasonable secular humanists? The Pope is a member of the Jesuit order. This doesn't mean that the Jesuits have "infiltrated Catholicism", it just means the Pope is a Jesuit. If you think that Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta are "shadowy conspiracy groups", you need to stop reading Dan Brown books, and start embracing the fact that other people have different ideologies. As far as your "appeal to authority" is concerned, yes, that's exactly what it is. That's how journalism works. Anonymous sources get quoted all the time for pro-military stories. Deal with it. Would you have criticized Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for using "anonymous sources"? Part of good investigative journalism is relying on the reputation of established journalists. And while you're right that this is an appeal to authority, your argument is nothing more than an ad hominem designed to discredit the narrative Hersh has created.

twic 11y ago
Eric, Prince of Blackwater? Sounds at least a little bit Crusade-ish.
- 67726e 11y ago
  That wold be Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and a former commissioned officer in the Navy SEALs. The book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army"[0] paints a pretty solid picture of his Crusade mindset. [0] - http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary-ebook/dp/B0097CYTYA http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercen...
  - deckiedan 11y ago
    Which was renamed to Xe for a while in 2009 or so, and now is called 'Academi', and part of the Constellis group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi
mpyne 11y ago
> He simply claimed a few high ranking generals were members. He also claimed that JSOC was passing around "crusade coins" as part of their religious "crusade". I don't know how he got 'crusade coins' from something completely benign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin) but that's the kind of "journalism" we've been receiving from Hersh in the past few years. Besides which, if your interpretation of Hersh's comments were true then they simply wouldn't be news at all. "Some members of a typically-conservative organization are also members of a separate typically-conservative organization" is hardly worth a mention at all. On the other hand the implied story "Opus Dei secretly in control of (or heavily influencing) America's special operations arm" would be news, Sy Hersh-winning-a-Pulitzer kind of news... if it were true. The comment you replied to wasn't claiming anything sinister about Opus Dei, that honor goes to Hersh himself.
- sroerick 11y ago
  The claim is that top ranking officials believe they are waging a traditionalist "Holy War" against Islam. I don't know if your obsession with Catholic or military trinkets is simple misinterpretation or deliberate obfuscation. Hersh never made the claim which you put "in quotes". And it's disingenuous to claim he did. If top generals believe they are fighting a Crusade, that's newsworthy. If you want to address that narrative, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say. But as it stands, the strawman you're arguing against has no basis in Hersh's words or viewpoint.

Elrac 11y ago

In order for Hersh's comments about Opus Dei to discredit him as you're trying to do, they would have to be false. Do you know this? _The Nation_'s Greg Grandin thinks the discreditors have more egg on their faces than Hersh does: http://www.thenation.com/blog/207001/its-conspiracy-how-discredit-seymour-hersh# http://www.thenation.com/blog/207001/its-conspiracy-how-disc...

MisterWebz 11y ago

As I posted before: “Many of them are members of Opus Dei,” Hersh continued. “They do see what they’re doing — and this is not an atypical attitude among some military — it’s a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They’re protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function.” My understanding of that statement is that he meant that they were deeply religious and were members op Opus Dei, not that there's a secretive organization that's controlling USSOCOM. Please stop propagating things you read in that horrible VOX article.

tootie 11y ago
I don't think this is even a controversial statement. Gen William Boykin was the former head of Delta Force and has been pretty unequivocal that the US is at war with Islam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin#Religious.2FPolitical_views_and_comments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin#Religious.2FP...
- sukilot 11y ago
  Being at war with Islam is not the same as being at war for Christ. A vocals segment of athiest thought leaders are also at war aIslam.
  - tootie 11y ago
    How many of them are senior military leadership?

pdkl95 11y ago

> a blatant appeal to authority This isn't really an appeal to authority. The claim "has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive" is suggesting that the probability of the current story being true is higher, given the unusually large number of successful stories previously published by the reporter. The claim isn't that we should listen to the reporter because he is some sort of expert or that is he occupies a position of authority. Any problem with inferring the probability of a new event from a record of past events would would be an error in the inductive inference. (i.e. the black swan problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_categorical_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_catego... )

mcantelon 11y ago

Why is the idea that an organization, affiliated with one of the most powerful religious institutions in the world, would want to infiltrate a powerful miliary org intrinsically implausible?

viraptor 11y ago

I thought the appeal to authority was in the form of "x is likely right because y is a known person", not "y has a track record of being right in similar cases and has experience in digging out details". That's just acknowledging experience. He doesn't even say "he's right", just "don't dismiss him without paying attention".