Ký Giả Điều Tra Chính Qui và Độc Lập Còn Thiếu Sót Vướng Mắc Điều Gì?Seymour Hersh, nhà báo điều tra nổi tiếng với việc phanh phui sự kiện âm mưu bao che vụ thàm sát Mỹ Lai xảy ra tại Quãng Ngãi Việt Nam tháng 3 năm 1968, và mãi đến tháng 11 năm 1969 mới được Seymour Hersh đưa ra ánh sáng. Seymour Hersh chuẩn bị phát hành quyền sách của ông về "an ninh quốc gia và nền báo chí", trong đó một chương dành cho vụ "ám sát Bin Laden tại Pakistan" mà theo kết quả điều tra của ông , đã hé mở cho biết rằng : "Cho đến nay, chẳng có gì nỗ lực gì về việc này, nó là một điều dối trá lớn lao, không có một lời nào của chuyện này là thật hết... Giới chức Pakistan đưa ra một bản tường trình...mà phần lớn dữ kiện là do Mỹ bỏ vào.. Nó là một bản tường trình láo khoét" ("Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true...The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report)
Chúng ta phải đợi đến khi quyển sách này xuất bản mới biết rõ Seymour Hersh qui kết như thế nào. Nhưng Nhân Chủ không kỳ vọng nhiều với một nhà báo, dù nổi tiếng với những tường trình phanh phui thẳng thắn như vụ nhà tù tra tấn Abu Ghraib., nhưng cho đến nay vẫn "sợ hãi" vũ khí bịt miệng "thuyết âm mưu", mà chính bản thân ông đã từng chứng minh là luôn có những sự kiện âm mưu và nỗ lực bao che lấp liếm dấu kín như vụ Mỹ Lai.
Khi nói về sự kiện 911, Seymour Hersh cũng vẫn chỉ dừng lại ở giả định rằng tám hay chín tên "tân bảo thủ" đã đảo chính "nền chính quyền nhà nước Mỹ". Nói cách khác, Seymour Hersh vẫn tin vào có một Nhà nước Tận thiện và rằng chỉ có những tên trong chính phủ gian ác, chứ không phải bản chất nhà nước độc ác phi dân chủ, hay thật sự chính "Nhà nước Mỹ nối dài" là tội phạm vụ 911 và của tất cả những tội ác trước đó- Cũng như cụu đại tá L. Fletcher Prouty trong tác phẩm điều tra "Đội Bí mật" qui kết rằng nhà nước Mỹ đã bị một tập đoàn bí mật đảo chính từ khi CIA thành lập, và ký giả Martin Broeckers trong "Cuộc ám sát JFK đánh dấu sự cáo chung của nền cộng hoà Mỹ" cũng qui kết rằng nhà nước Mỹ bị lật đổ qua vụ ám sát Kennedy..Thật sự Nhà nước chỉ là ảo thể, là cái mặt nạ được dùng để bao che bản chất của bọn quyền lực trong định chế chính phủ, chứ chẳng ai lật đổ nó. Nhà nước chưa bao giờ bị lật đổ, và chẳng bao giờ bị lật đổ vì Nó chẳng có thật; Nó chỉ là cái tên để quyền lực có nơi bám víu "chính đáng", và và cái tên của Nó, một ảo thể tưởng tượng chưa bao giờ ngưng nghỉ "hiện hũu" một giây phút nào trên cửa miệng và văn bản của bọn quyền lực nhân danh nó và những kẻ ngây ngô mù loà tin vào Nó như niềm tin vào Thượng Đế.. Nó chưa bao giờ thay đổi tên.Chỉ có những thay hình đổi dạng phương thúc sử dụng niềm tin vào Nó qua sự thay đổi từng định chế chính phủ, nhưng với cùng một bản chất cho cùng một mục tiêu nhất quán: Dùng nó để chính đáng hóa sự cai trị quần chúng bằng gian trá và bạo lực! Thượng đế cũng được dùng để chính đáng hóa những dàn tra tấn và hỏa thiêu của tôn giáo pháp đình, của những cuộc "thánh chiến" với những đạo quân của Chúa Trời, của Allah!
Trước Kennedy "nhà nước Mỹ" vẫn là "nhà nước Mỹ" mà Henry David Thoreau đối kháng, vẫn là cái "nhà nước" của Abraham Lincoln và cái gọi là nội chiến giải phóng nô lệ để củng cố quyền lực tập trung vào trung ương; vẫn có William McKinley và cuộc tàn sát thôn tính Philippines, Woodrow Wilson với gian trá lý cớ cho thế chiến thứ I với sự thiết lập Ngân Hàng Dự Trữ Liên Bang Mỹ để kiện toàn hệ thống cai trị sau lưng qua việc độc quyền vũ khí kinh tế tài chính; F.D.Roosevelt với cuộc tịch thu vàng bạc của công chúng và thế chiến thứ II - Trân Châu cảng v.v tất cả chỉ nối nhau làm công cụ cho một tập đoàn quyền lực với ảo thể "nhà nước", cũng như Thượng Đế, chưa bao giờ được xác định hiện hũu cụ thể, vì cũng như ảo thể Nhà nước, cả hai chẳng bao giờ xác định cụ thể được. Nhưng cả hai ảo thể này luôn được nhắc tên bằng niềm tin để chính đáng hóa tàn bạo và dối trá! Kennedy chỉ là người bước vào trong rọ, nhưng ngây ngô tin vào tính khả thi "tận thiện" của nó và dám cưỡng chống quyền lực để bước ra ngoài vòng kềm tỏa của nó với hy vọng "kiện toàn chính phủ", vì thế phải bị triệt tiêu một cách tất yếu mà thôi. Nói ngắn gọn, anh em Kennedy là nạn nhân của chính niềm tin ngây ngô của họ. Họ chết trong cuộc tương tranh quyền lực của danh nghĩa nhà nước quốc gia, cũng như anh em nhà Ngô Đính Diệm là nạn nhân trong tiến trình tranh giành quyền lực nhà nước chính phủ mà Kennedy là kẻ thừa hành nhân danh quyền lợi nhà nước Mỹ mà thôi!
Nếu những vụ "nho nhỏ" như cái chết của anh em Kennedy, vịnh Bắc Bộ, Northwood, Mỹ Lai, Watergate, Abu Ghraib, vũ khí toàn diệt của Sadam Husein, vụ Seal Team 6 ám sát Osama BinLaden nay đã được chính S.Hersh minh chứng là những âm mưu với những nỗ lực dối trá bao che của hệ thống nhà nước, thì tại sao vụ 911 lớn tầm cỡ, ảnh hưởng tác động không chỉ ở Mỹ mà khắp toàn cầu như thế, lại được coi là biệt lệ của sự "thành thật đúng đắn với thông tin chính xác" của Nhà nước qua bản tường trình chính thức "911 Commission Report", mà những người bản lãnh chính qui như Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedge v.v không hề thắc mắc điều tra chất vấn? Phải chăng vì nó quá lớn ở mức độ "liên quốc gia nhà nước" và toàn diện tận nền tảng tội ác quyền lực, mà nếu bị phanh phui nó sẽ làm sụp đổ hoàn toàn niềm tin và ý niệm "tận thiện" của hệ thống nhà nước và vai trò chính phủ, khiến những người vẫn còn tin là "phải có và cần" một nhà nước chính phủ tận thiện như Seymour Hersh phải chùn chân?
Nó giống như những tín đồ tôn giáo, họ có đủ can đảm tố cáo từng cá nhân hay nhóm tu sĩ độc ác băng hoại, nhưng không bao giờ đủ can đảm tố cáo sự băng hoại ở mức độ toàn bộ hệ thống giáo hội và sự gian dối phi lý ở nền tảng tín lý và giáo điều .. Vì tố cáo có mức nền tảng như vậy, thì toàn bộ "niềm tin" mà họ nhầm lẫn cho là lẽ sống, là giá trị cuộc đời của họ sẽ phải sụp đổ. Một cách gián tiếp họ phải nuôi dưỡng lẽ sống niềm tin của họ bằng chính sự gian dối và bao che gian dối của chính họ. Tôn giáo "thờ Nhà nước quốc gia tận thiện" (statism) là mẹ đẻ của các tôn giáo, và tín đồ của họ cũng không đi ngoải biệt lệ: Làm đủ mọi cách,, tố cáo đủ mọi khía cạnh, nhưng phải tận lực bao che bảo vệ "tín lý" và "giáo hội" dù nghịch lý phi khoa học đến mức nào cũng mặc!!!
Nói dễ hiểu và cụ thể hơn với người Việt, thì với một tên ngụy ngục, nó có thể thừa nhận sự băng hoại của 99% nhân viên chế độ Ngụy là tồi bại.. vì bằng chứng sự thật không thể chối bỏ nhưng chế độ ngụy VNCH vẫn tốt đẹp!!! Và ngược lại, một tên "lão thành cách mạng" của đất Bắc cũng có khả năng thừa nhận và lên án 99% đảng viên và nhân viên các cấp cũng như 99 % xã hội chủ nghĩa VN băng hoại... vì bằng chứng hiển nhiên...nhưng "bác Hồ" vẫn là thánh nhân, vĩ nhân, Đảng và Nhà Nước vẫn tốt đẹp sáng ngời!!!
Khoa họcNhân Chủng Sinh Hóa, và khoa học Không Gian Vũ Trụ có khám phá thành công đến mức nào đi nữa, nhưng với một tín đồ Do Thái và Thiên Chúa Allah, thì đại vũ trụ cũng chỉ được Chúa "chế tạo" trong 6 ngày với một ngày nghỉ xả hơi, cách đây 6 ngàn năm mà thôi.. Và loài người vẫn khởi đi từ cặp vợ chồng Do Thái Adam va Eve do Chúa thổi nước bọt vào cục đất tạo thành...(quyền năng vô biên như thế mà Chúa Trời cũng phải mất 6 ngày mệt đứ người để tạo dựng vũ trụ! Phải nghỉ xả hơi! Chưa nói là 6 ngày của Chúa Trời tính từ đâu, thời gian tính bằng cách nào? toàn chuyện vớ vẩn hơn trẻ con)
Mà ngay cả khi có những tín đồ với kiến thức khá hơn, buộc phải thừa nhận đây là những vớ vẩn khi đã không thể chối bỏ bằng chứng khoa học cụ thể hiển nhiên, thì Chúa Trời vẫn cứ khơi khơi hiện hũu không cần bằng chứng cụ thể.. họ viện dẫn rằng .... chính những khám phá khoa học mà họ từng hãi sợ chối bỏ, cho thấy sự vĩ đại vô biên không cùng này của vũ trụ mà hôm nay biết được là do... Chúa "quan buồng" tạo ra!!! Nhưng không bao giờ chất vấn tiếp : Vậy Ai tạo ra Chúa? Chúa ở đâu chui ra? Hình dạng cơ cấu hình thành của Chúa thế nào? Nếu nói rằng Chúa Trời tự hũu, thì tại sao vũ trụ với những phân tử Boson lại không thể tự hũu như các nhà vật lý đã minh chứng trình bày trong thuyết "Big bang"? Ngay cả khi cứ chấp nhận rằng Chúa tự hữu, nhưng tự hũu bằng những chất tố nào? Và trước khi Chúa tự hũu thì vũ trụ là gì? Ra sao? Chúa Trời -Allah tự hũu với mục đích gì? Hay chỉ để răn đe hù dọa bắt nạt cái nhóm sinh vật nhỏ xíu "mới hình thành" sống trong một cái "chấm xanh mờ nhạt" giữa vũ trụ vô biên?
Nó cho thấy những tín đồ của niềm tin mê tín không phải không có khả năng chất vấn, họ có khả năng chất vấn rất chi tiết và sắc bén... nhưng không phải đề truy tìm sự thật hay tính hũu lý, thuận lý, mà là để chống trả và bảo vệ một niềm tin mù lòa có sẵn mà thôi.. Cho nên họ không hể và không có khả năng áp dụng cùng những nguyên lý và phương pháp chất vấn sắc bén, đúng đắn và chính đáng mà họ dùng để chống trả những ai chất vấn TÍN LÝ của họ, vào chính những TIN LÝ GIÁO ĐIỀU của Giáo Hội và vào những tuyên bố của Giáo Chủ của họ... Điều nghịch lý này họ gọi là ĐỨC TIN và ĐỨC VÂNG LỞI (bất khả tư nghị)
Trong tôn giáo tôn thờ nhà nước quốc gia cũng thế, người tín đồ "công dân" luôn luôn chất vấn không ngửng rất chính đáng và cần thiết, bất cứ ai đưa ra những thông tin, lập luận mới nghi ngờ hay tố cáo nhà nước chính phủ ...Nhưng họ không hề áp dụng khả năng chất vấn không ngừng chính đáng và cần thiết này lên những tuyên bố thông tin chính qui , từ chính phủ, đài báo chính qui phát ra. Họ mặc nhiên chấp nha5n đó là sự thật.. Hành xử nghịch lý này, họ gọi là lòng TRUNG THÀNH với TỔ QUỐC và TÍNH THƯỢNG TÔN PHÁP LUẬT!
Khi qui kết vào "một tổng thống" hay một "chế độ chính phủ" cho những băng hoại tội ác thường trực của "định chế chính phủ nhà nước" là vẫn còn sa lầy vào trong cái khung bẫy của chủ nghĩa quốc gia nhà nước(Statism) và "quyền lợi quốc gia" (raison d' état).. để rồi sẽ chẳng giải quyết được gì hơn là cứ hành xử vô vọng vào "tiến trình dân chủ gián tiếp" bầu cử bỏ phiếu vô tận với những tên chính khách, chính trị gia thay nhau cai trị lũng đoạn và băng hoại bằng dối trá và nanh vuốt chó sói.
Để xem S. Hersh có thoát nổi MA TRẬN ĐỊNH CHẾ NHÀ NƯỚC này hay không trong quyền sách sắp phát hành nay mai. Nhưng trước mắt S.Hersh đã hé mở nền tảng qui kết của ông khi tuyên bố: "Nền Cộng Hòa Mỹ đang gặp nguy nan, chúng ta (nhà nước chính phủ, báo chí ) dối trá tất cả mọi chuyện, nói dối đã trở thành thực phẩm căn bản hàng ngày" ("The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple"). S.Hersh hàm ý muốn cúu định chế nhà nước "cộng hòa" chính phủ về con đường "tận thiện", một nỗ lực tuyệt vọng nghịch lý như giáo hoàng Francis đang cố kéo Tôn Giáo và Giáo Hội La Mã đi về phía "đạo đức nhân bản và khoa học tiến bộ"
QUÁ KHỨ , HIỆN TẠI,và TƯƠNG LAI
Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch, sử gia Pháp với kinh nghiệm "quyền lợi quốc gia" tàn độc trong vụ án Dreyfus affair, đã nhận định trong tác phẩm về khoa sử học của ông : "Việc hiểu sai sự kiện hiện tại được phát sinh một cách chết người từ sự thiếu hiểu biết về quá khứ" (incompréhension du présent naît fatalement de l'ignorance du passé).
Nhưng vấn đề then chốt là cái "quá khứ" được gọi là "sử" hay "chính sử", mà những thế hệ cận đại và hiện đại đang học hỏi ghi nhớ, đã được hư cấu ngụy tạo liên tục cho mục tiêu "quyền lợi quốc gia"; "cái quá khứ chính qui" này được nhồi nhét trong hệ thống giáo dục chính qui, hay nói cách khác là dã bị điều chế để điều khiển hiện tại và tương lai, thì càng "biết" về nó, càng ngu đi nếu không thách thức chất vấn nó. Thí dụ như những "huyển sử" của nhà nước và giống nòi đã được mặc nhiên coi như là "sự thật" (Âu Cơ đẻ 100 trứng, Chúa nặn ra cặp vợ chồng Do Thái Adam-Eve, Thái dương thần nữ- Bành Tổ của Hán tộc v.v Quyền Cai Trị của Chúa Ban - Rule by Divinity - hay là do Trời Ban làm Con Trời - Thiên Tử v.v... Và "cao cấp hơn trong nền tư duy và giáo dục chính trị hiện nay là "khế ước xã hội."
Làm sao người ta có thể nhìn hiện tại rõ ràng được khi phải dựa vào quá khứ như "chính sử" của các triều đại chính thống, chính sử các Đảng Cộng Sản, chính sử về Holocaust của Do Thái, chính sử Warren Report về vụ ám sát Kennedy, chính sử về vụ 911 v.v mà hiện nay các "học giả" "nhà báo" dùng làm căn bản để viết những nghiên cúu luận cứ sách vở? Chưa nói đến những "đặc quyền bí mật" của định chế nhà nước tự cổ chí kim với nhân danh quyền lợi quốc gia phải "nói dối và viết gian" để bảo vệ quyền lợi quốc gia dân tộc!
Thí dụ điển hình :tương lai của Việt Nam vẫn đang bị điều khiển từ "quá khứ rồng tiên cho đến huyền thoại cụ Diệm và thánh Hồ"- những "chính sử" về cuộc chiến Việt Nam- bởi tập đoàn quyền lực đã kiểm soát được từng "hiện tại" để tạo ra những "quá khứ" này.
Và với những "quá khứ" ĐÃ và ĐANG tiếp tục được điều khiển bởi những quyền lực(báo chí thông tin chính qui) đang điều khiển hiện tại hôm nay, chúng ta có thể biết được "tương lai" chúng ta đã được xếp đạt ra sao rồi!
Khi tất cả hiện tại đang được "diễn tiến" dựa vào "quá khứ 911" với "sự thật chính sử" mà trong đó "19 tên khủng bố theo lệnh Osama Bin Laden" dùng 4 chiếc máy bay gây hư hại Ngũ giác đài, đánh sập 2 tòa nhà WTC,- tòa nhà thứ ba WTC 7 "tự sập".. và bằng chứng thủ phạm được nhà nước Mỹ "giữ bí mật" vì an ninh quốc gia... thì những hoạch định tương lai coi như đã được an bài!
Tất cả còn lại là tự nơi mỗi CÁ NHÂN chúng ta tự truy tìm và tháo gỡ những hư cấu "quá khứ" để HIỂU ĐÚNG HIỆN TẠI và không bị điều khiển trong TƯƠNG LAI mà thôi.
Và phải luôn ghi nhớ nhớ rằng cái giá phải trả khi DÁM THÁCH THỨC "SỰ THẬT CHÍNH QUI và CHÍNH SỬ" rất đắt.. Điều này đòi hỏi sự CAN ĐẢM ở mỗi cá nhân chúng ta. Sự can đảm thật sự chỉ có khi chúng ta hiểu rõ về lý lẽ của cuộc tử sinh mà chúng ta hiện hũu ngắn gọn trong đó để dám "giả gieo với đời"!
nkptc
----
Duyệt tin dẫn chứng để suy ngẫm về "nhà nước" :xx
Đảng Dân Chủ Mỹ ủng hộ đảng Cộng Hòa thông qua đạo luật tiếp tục tài trợ Quân Sự trong trường hợp chính phủ bị "quốc hội" không chấp thuận ngân sách quốc gia!!! (ở Úc gọi là Bill of Supplies) Có nghĩa là chính phủ hành pháp sẽ không có tiền trả lương, chi dụng các thứ v.v nhưng Quân Đội An Ninh v.v vẫn có tiền!!! Nghĩa là cứ an nhiên mà thả bom, bắn giết chiếm đóng.. dù chính phủ không có tiền chi cho công trình và lương bổng dân chính ...Nhưng lương bổng của tổng thống, các chính trị gia dân biểu nghị sĩ v,v vẫn được trả!!! (ai trả?!) Chỉ có một số công trình công cộng và các công chức nhỏ trong các sở bộ là bị về nhà không có lương! Theo mộtso61 trường hợp, khi ngân sách lại được "thông qua" thì các công chức này sẽ được truy lãnh... nhưng...còn tùy vào quyết định của "quốc hội" đại biểu "vì dân" có thật sự vì dân hay không!!! (thở dài)
Nên biết Ngân Sách Quốc Gia Mỹ hàng năm thường vào khoảng giữa 3 đến 4 ngàn tỉ (trillion) mỹ kim... Trong khi đó Ngân Hàng Trung Ương Mỹ "in tiền"khơi khơi cho không thiên hạ, như trong thời gian 2007-2010 đã "in" 16 ngàn tỉ mỹ kim phát không cho các ngân hàng Mỹ và bè bạn.. ($16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world's banks, corporations, and governments)
Có cái gì không THUẬN LÝ và HỢP LÝ t, hay đúng hơn là NGHỊCH LÝ và PHI LÝ như một TRÒ HỀ trong "nguyên lý hoạt động kinh tế tài chính " của "guồng máy nhà nước" "dân chủ gián tiếp" như thế này.. Nó giống như một hoạt cảnh của phim bộ Hồng Kông, đầy trơ trẽn hớ hênh giả tạo hơn là một "hiến định điều hành nhà nước"!!! Bố khỉ!.
Dems Open to Back Clean GOP Bill to Fund Military in Case of a Shutdown
Cơ quan điều tra liên bang FBI đã bám sát công ty thư tín điện toán của Snowden ngay sau khi Snowden công khai lộ diện.
Cơ quan điều tra liên bang FBI đã bám sát công ty thư tín điện toán của Snowden ngay sau khi Snowden công khai lộ diện.
Feds Targeted Snowden's Email Provider the Day After NSA Whistleblower Went Public
Dân biểu D,Feinstein lỡ lời xác nhận NSA rình mò theo dõi toàn bộ cơ cấu hạ tầng mạng toàn cầu
Một phụ nữở Kansas đã bị đuổi việc và bị đe dọa giết chết sau khi viết phê phán quân đội Mỹ trên FaceBook !
==============Dân biểu D,Feinstein lỡ lời xác nhận NSA rình mò theo dõi toàn bộ cơ cấu hạ tầng mạng toàn cầu
Một phụ nữở Kansas đã bị đuổi việc và bị đe dọa giết chết sau khi viết phê phán quân đội Mỹ trên FaceBook !
NGUỒN TRÍCH DẪN:
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media
Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'
Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis
Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.
The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.
"It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," he declares in an interview with the Guardian.
"It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn't happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.
He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.
"Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we've all written the notion there's constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it's real now," Hersh says.
"Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game," he adds, before qualifying his remarks.
"But I don't know if it's going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters 'al-Qaida, al-Qaida' and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic," he says.
Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London's summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.
"I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever … Not that journalism is always wonderful, it's not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity."
His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.
Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: "Sergeant, I want Calley out now."
Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize. "I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [New York] Times were paying $5,000."
He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."
Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.
"Do you think Obama's been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What's going on [with journalists]?" he asks.
He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.
"Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It's journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize," he adds. "It's a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don't mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that's a serious issue but there are other issues too.
"Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren't we doing more? How does he justify it? What's the intelligence? Why don't we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don't we do our own work?
"Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here's a debate' our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who's right and who's wrong about issues. That doesn't happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more."
He says in some ways President George Bush's administration was easier to write about. "The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.
Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.
"I'll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can't control," he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don't get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say 'I don't care what you say'.
Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.
If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn't stop with newspapers.
"I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let's start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won't like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that's what we're supposed to be doing," he says.
Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.
"The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple." And he implores journalists to do something about it.
===
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has broken some massive stories in his day, but uncovering secret societies within the highest echelons of America's military would probably be the biggest of his career.
Well, get ready for the media storm: That's essentially what Hersh told an audience in Doha, Qatar recently, according to a report published earlier this week by Foreign Policy.
Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government.
It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced," he continued, according to the published quotes.
Hersh also lamented President Obama's continuance of the Bush administration's worst abuses.
"Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one," he reportedly said.
The Foreign Policy report added that in 2003, those "in the Cheney shop" were not concerned about the havoc the invasion of Iraq was destined to cause.
"[The] attitude was, 'What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting?" Hersh was quoted as saying. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change moseques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.' That's the attitude. We're gonna chance mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC]."
He further claimed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the JSOC were members of the "Knights of Malta" and "Opus Dei," two little known Catholic orders.
"They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally," Hersh reportedly continued. "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."
He added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent "the whole notion that this is a culture war" between religions.
It was President George W. Bush who first invoked images of a holy war in the Middle East, when he suggested soon after Sept. 11, 2001 that the US was on a "crusade" in the region.
The "Knights of Malta" were a Catholic order founded in 1085 as a group of monks who cared for the wounded. It evolved into a military order that safeguarded Christian pilgrims from Muslims during the nine "Crusades," where Europe's Christian states laid siege to Muslims for control of Jerusalem.
"Opus Dei," popularly depicted in the Hollywood film "The DaVinci Code," was founded in 1928 and officially accepted as part of the Catholic church in 1947. The group's website claimed their principle calling was to bring about a "Christian renewal" around the world.
Doubts, denials and a distinctive trend
Raw Story reached out to Hersh and The New Yorker to confirm the accuracy of his quotes, placing this report on hold until they responded. Both declined to make any further statement, neither confirming nor denying the quotes.
However, one source close to Hersh who spoke to Raw Story off the record, suggested that Foreign Policy's report was indeed correct.
Raw Story followed-up on the quotes due to a widely-reported false claim attributed to Hersh in May 2009, where he'd allegedly said former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The report, which appeared to have originated in Pakistan, was picked up by The Wall Street Journal and the conservative-leaning American Spectator, but both removed the links after Raw Story published a denial from Hersh. A link to Raw Story's original report was unavailable due to a database malfunction.
Hersh, a Pulitzer-winning author and reporter, has previously reported that the JSOC was set up by former Vice President Cheney as something of an "executive assassination squad" that operated outside of congressional authority.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who resigned after Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings quoted him mocking the US civilian command, led JSOC before taking command of America's war effort in Afghanistan.
In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
“The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal’s involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact,” he reportedly wrote. “General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization.”
The religious indoctrination of US soldiers has been in headlines in recent weeks as soldiers who "failed" the "spiritual fitness" portion of the "comprehensive soldier fitness" test claimed they were forced to attend Christian ceremonies and become "born again" by professing love for the Christian deity.
Similarly, GQ magazine uncovered last year a series of top-secret military briefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that included passages from the Bible.
Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was also discovered last Janurary to have been for years placing scriptural references on gun sights used by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their actions revealed, Trijicon was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits to remove the codes.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/highranking-members-military-part-kni...
NEW YORK, September 29, 2013 — Forget about whether Al Qaeda is actually on the run—Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Seymour (“Sy”) Hersh does not even believe that American Forces killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011.
According to Hersh, “not one thing is true” about the White House narrative concerning Osama bin Laden and his fateful end. Think how many people are at grave risk if Hersh actually proves his allegations.
Reaching well beyond the specifics concerning what happened at Abbottabad in Pakistan, Hersh also sucker-punches the self-reinforcing filter that the American media uses to display President Obama to the public.
Count on whispers that Hersh, at 76, may now actually be a bit daft. However, even President Obama’s media wranglers will have trouble arguing Sy Hersh is leader, in secret, of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Would President Obama and his team manufacture a false narrative and sell it to the entire world starting on May 2, 2011?
Some Reasons the Administration Should Truly be Worried
Even Senator Diane Feinstein will concede that Sy Hersh has a valid “license” to investigate and then share his findings.
Looking at the body of his work, one finds that he is a thorough man who skillfully navigated his way through numerous controversies, ceaselessly uncovering solid evidence that shapes his assertions.
Reading published accounts of his recent remarks, we learn that Hersh has long been at work on a book and that the raid allegations may only occupy one chapter. Think of the kind of evidence Hersh must already have.
For example, numerous Obama Administration members and confidantes use email—some likely have personal accounts while others may also have alias accounts. Would Hersh reach out to Edward Snowden, to Julian Assange, or perhaps to disgruntled individuals with access to helpful documents? In the simple words of one steadfast Obama critic: “you betcha”.
Before making his stunning claims, would Hersh prepare his ground? One imagines he is aware of ways in which the Obama Administration and allies disparage and harass “enemies”. One also expects that Hersh and others rising to challenge the Obama Administration have much more to reveal.
What Actually Happened in Abbottabad, Pakistan?
President Obama and his team are not the only ones with serious problems. On August 8, 2011, The New Yorker published an extensive piece entitled “Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad”, written by Nicholas Schmidle.
In crisp and vivid terms, Schmidle describes planning, execution and aftermath of the mission, lacing his account with numerous quotes and insights from various Obama Administration officials and military personnel.
Back in 2011, others quickly questioned Schmidle’s reporting.
Now the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick cannot have it both ways. Either Hersh or Schmidle are bonkers—and the public absolutely has a right to know where reality bites.
Related Issues Posed by a 60 Minutes Episode in 2012
Other media organizations appear to join the Administration in having massive credibility issues, thanks to Hersh’s outbursts.
On September 9, 2012, just 3 days following conclusion of the Democrat National Convention, an unidentified Seal Team member described on 60 Minutes what he says happened on May 2, 2011 in thrilling detail. For Hersh to be correct, this entire story would have to be “inoperative”.
Ordinary mortals learn that getting the 60 Minutes team to concentrate upon a story is no easy matter—senior executives and journalists at CBS generally do their homework carefully.
Given Hersh’s claims and In view of the fact that Ben Rhodes worked directly for President Obama while his brother served as President of CBS News, a responsible chief executive officer at CBS must swiftly conduct a thorough and credible investigation.
We shall see whether Les Moonves rises to the challenge.
Getting Back to Benghazi
Re-evaluating the Obama Administration’s record inevitably takes one to Libya. The trouble that erupted in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 did not start that day or in that place.
As awful as the tragedy became, Benghazi was likely just one stop along a disturbing trail where powerful Americans inside the Obama Administration mounted clandestine efforts that do not serve the national interest.
Well before the 2012 Democrat Convention, Mohamed Morsi was acting as President of Egypt in ways that the Obama Administration cannot have welcomed.
On June 29, 2012, Morsi again demanded that we release Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” in a move highly unlikely to convince American voters that substituting Morsi for Hosni Mubarak was inspired statecraft.
Thereafter, President Morsi stoked tensions inside Egypt that finally erupted on September 11, 2012, 3 days following airing on local television of a movie trailer that offended Muslims around the world.
To date, no renowned reporter with mainstream credentials has succeeded in pulling pieces along the trail of deceit where America, surprisingly, found ourselves arming and financing the Muslim Brotherhood.
John Batchelor on WABC radio, multiple reporters at Fox News, and Sharyl Attkinson at CBS are among those who have worked tirelessly to unravel the truth about what likely happened in Benghazi, in Egypt and in producing a false narrative concerning the Arab “Spring”.
If Sy Hersh does not buy the Abbottabad story, he certainly will not end up accepting the wider story line running through Benghazi.
Placing Phony Scandals in Appropriate Context
Perhaps President Obama is right to characterize investigations into Benghazi, IRS abuses, and government surveillance inside the United States as “phony scandals”.
But if Sy Hersh is correct about the 2011 raid, the President and all those who helped sell this narrative pulled off crimes that make Watergate look like child’s play.
Forget Vladimir Putin’s humiliating ascent on world stage, forget America’s failure to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and forget all the dysfunction we watch now in Washington, DC. The President and a team that lulled the mainstream media and public to sleep are getting a tumultuous lesson in the power of the press.
President Obama’s string of luck is breaking bad—even he must finally know it.
It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".
He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.
Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.
The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.
"It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," he declares in an interview with the Guardian.
"It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn't happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.
He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.
Snowden changed the debate on surveillance
He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "changed the whole nature of the debate" about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government's policy."Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we've all written the notion there's constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it's real now," Hersh says.
"Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game," he adds, before qualifying his remarks.
"But I don't know if it's going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters 'al-Qaida, al-Qaida' and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic," he says.
Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London's summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.
Hope of redemption
Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption."I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever … Not that journalism is always wonderful, it's not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity."
His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.
Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: "Sergeant, I want Calley out now."
Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize. "I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [New York] Times were paying $5,000."
He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Put in the hours
For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been "despoiled"."I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."
Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.
"Do you think Obama's been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What's going on [with journalists]?" he asks.
He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.
"Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It's journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize," he adds. "It's a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don't mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that's a serious issue but there are other issues too.
"Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren't we doing more? How does he justify it? What's the intelligence? Why don't we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don't we do our own work?
"Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here's a debate' our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who's right and who's wrong about issues. That doesn't happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more."
He says in some ways President George Bush's administration was easier to write about. "The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.
Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.
"I'll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can't control," he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don't get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say 'I don't care what you say'.
Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.
If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn't stop with newspapers.
"I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let's start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won't like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that's what we're supposed to be doing," he says.
Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.
"The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple." And he implores journalists to do something about it.
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Seymour Hersh's new book to detail "how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government."
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has broken some massive stories in his day, but uncovering secret societies within the highest echelons of America's military would probably be the biggest of his career.Well, get ready for the media storm: That's essentially what Hersh told an audience in Doha, Qatar recently, according to a report published earlier this week by Foreign Policy.
Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government.
It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced," he continued, according to the published quotes.
Hersh also lamented President Obama's continuance of the Bush administration's worst abuses.
"Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one," he reportedly said.
The Foreign Policy report added that in 2003, those "in the Cheney shop" were not concerned about the havoc the invasion of Iraq was destined to cause.
"[The] attitude was, 'What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting?" Hersh was quoted as saying. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change moseques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.' That's the attitude. We're gonna chance mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command [JSOC]."
He further claimed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the JSOC were members of the "Knights of Malta" and "Opus Dei," two little known Catholic orders.
"They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally," Hersh reportedly continued. "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."
He added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent "the whole notion that this is a culture war" between religions.
It was President George W. Bush who first invoked images of a holy war in the Middle East, when he suggested soon after Sept. 11, 2001 that the US was on a "crusade" in the region.
The "Knights of Malta" were a Catholic order founded in 1085 as a group of monks who cared for the wounded. It evolved into a military order that safeguarded Christian pilgrims from Muslims during the nine "Crusades," where Europe's Christian states laid siege to Muslims for control of Jerusalem.
"Opus Dei," popularly depicted in the Hollywood film "The DaVinci Code," was founded in 1928 and officially accepted as part of the Catholic church in 1947. The group's website claimed their principle calling was to bring about a "Christian renewal" around the world.
Doubts, denials and a distinctive trend
Raw Story reached out to Hersh and The New Yorker to confirm the accuracy of his quotes, placing this report on hold until they responded. Both declined to make any further statement, neither confirming nor denying the quotes.
However, one source close to Hersh who spoke to Raw Story off the record, suggested that Foreign Policy's report was indeed correct.
Raw Story followed-up on the quotes due to a widely-reported false claim attributed to Hersh in May 2009, where he'd allegedly said former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The report, which appeared to have originated in Pakistan, was picked up by The Wall Street Journal and the conservative-leaning American Spectator, but both removed the links after Raw Story published a denial from Hersh. A link to Raw Story's original report was unavailable due to a database malfunction.Hersh, a Pulitzer-winning author and reporter, has previously reported that the JSOC was set up by former Vice President Cheney as something of an "executive assassination squad" that operated outside of congressional authority.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who resigned after Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings quoted him mocking the US civilian command, led JSOC before taking command of America's war effort in Afghanistan.
In an email to the military's Stars and Stripes publication, McChrystal's spokesman, David Bolger, panned Hersh's claim.
“The allegations recently made by Seymour Hersh relating to General McChrystal’s involvement with an organization called The Knights of Malta are completely false and without basis in fact,” he reportedly wrote. “General McChrystal is not and has never been a member of that organization.”
The religious indoctrination of US soldiers has been in headlines in recent weeks as soldiers who "failed" the "spiritual fitness" portion of the "comprehensive soldier fitness" test claimed they were forced to attend Christian ceremonies and become "born again" by professing love for the Christian deity.
Similarly, GQ magazine uncovered last year a series of top-secret military briefings prepared by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that included passages from the Bible.
Trijicon Inc., a defense contractor, was also discovered last Janurary to have been for years placing scriptural references on gun sights used by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their actions revealed, Trijicon was forced to provide the Pentagon with kits to remove the codes.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/highranking-members-military-part-kni...
NEW YORK, September 29, 2013 — Forget about whether Al Qaeda is actually on the run—Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Seymour (“Sy”) Hersh does not even believe that American Forces killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011.
According to Hersh, “not one thing is true” about the White House narrative concerning Osama bin Laden and his fateful end. Think how many people are at grave risk if Hersh actually proves his allegations.
Reaching well beyond the specifics concerning what happened at Abbottabad in Pakistan, Hersh also sucker-punches the self-reinforcing filter that the American media uses to display President Obama to the public.
Count on whispers that Hersh, at 76, may now actually be a bit daft. However, even President Obama’s media wranglers will have trouble arguing Sy Hersh is leader, in secret, of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Would President Obama and his team manufacture a false narrative and sell it to the entire world starting on May 2, 2011?
Some Reasons the Administration Should Truly be Worried
Even Senator Diane Feinstein will concede that Sy Hersh has a valid “license” to investigate and then share his findings.
Looking at the body of his work, one finds that he is a thorough man who skillfully navigated his way through numerous controversies, ceaselessly uncovering solid evidence that shapes his assertions.
Reading published accounts of his recent remarks, we learn that Hersh has long been at work on a book and that the raid allegations may only occupy one chapter. Think of the kind of evidence Hersh must already have.
For example, numerous Obama Administration members and confidantes use email—some likely have personal accounts while others may also have alias accounts. Would Hersh reach out to Edward Snowden, to Julian Assange, or perhaps to disgruntled individuals with access to helpful documents? In the simple words of one steadfast Obama critic: “you betcha”.
Before making his stunning claims, would Hersh prepare his ground? One imagines he is aware of ways in which the Obama Administration and allies disparage and harass “enemies”. One also expects that Hersh and others rising to challenge the Obama Administration have much more to reveal.
What Actually Happened in Abbottabad, Pakistan?
President Obama and his team are not the only ones with serious problems. On August 8, 2011, The New Yorker published an extensive piece entitled “Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad”, written by Nicholas Schmidle.
In crisp and vivid terms, Schmidle describes planning, execution and aftermath of the mission, lacing his account with numerous quotes and insights from various Obama Administration officials and military personnel.
Back in 2011, others quickly questioned Schmidle’s reporting.
Now the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick cannot have it both ways. Either Hersh or Schmidle are bonkers—and the public absolutely has a right to know where reality bites.
Related Issues Posed by a 60 Minutes Episode in 2012
Other media organizations appear to join the Administration in having massive credibility issues, thanks to Hersh’s outbursts.
On September 9, 2012, just 3 days following conclusion of the Democrat National Convention, an unidentified Seal Team member described on 60 Minutes what he says happened on May 2, 2011 in thrilling detail. For Hersh to be correct, this entire story would have to be “inoperative”.
Ordinary mortals learn that getting the 60 Minutes team to concentrate upon a story is no easy matter—senior executives and journalists at CBS generally do their homework carefully.
Given Hersh’s claims and In view of the fact that Ben Rhodes worked directly for President Obama while his brother served as President of CBS News, a responsible chief executive officer at CBS must swiftly conduct a thorough and credible investigation.
We shall see whether Les Moonves rises to the challenge.
Getting Back to Benghazi
Re-evaluating the Obama Administration’s record inevitably takes one to Libya. The trouble that erupted in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 did not start that day or in that place.
As awful as the tragedy became, Benghazi was likely just one stop along a disturbing trail where powerful Americans inside the Obama Administration mounted clandestine efforts that do not serve the national interest.
Well before the 2012 Democrat Convention, Mohamed Morsi was acting as President of Egypt in ways that the Obama Administration cannot have welcomed.
On June 29, 2012, Morsi again demanded that we release Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” in a move highly unlikely to convince American voters that substituting Morsi for Hosni Mubarak was inspired statecraft.
Thereafter, President Morsi stoked tensions inside Egypt that finally erupted on September 11, 2012, 3 days following airing on local television of a movie trailer that offended Muslims around the world.
To date, no renowned reporter with mainstream credentials has succeeded in pulling pieces along the trail of deceit where America, surprisingly, found ourselves arming and financing the Muslim Brotherhood.
John Batchelor on WABC radio, multiple reporters at Fox News, and Sharyl Attkinson at CBS are among those who have worked tirelessly to unravel the truth about what likely happened in Benghazi, in Egypt and in producing a false narrative concerning the Arab “Spring”.
If Sy Hersh does not buy the Abbottabad story, he certainly will not end up accepting the wider story line running through Benghazi.
Placing Phony Scandals in Appropriate Context
Perhaps President Obama is right to characterize investigations into Benghazi, IRS abuses, and government surveillance inside the United States as “phony scandals”.
But if Sy Hersh is correct about the 2011 raid, the President and all those who helped sell this narrative pulled off crimes that make Watergate look like child’s play.
Forget Vladimir Putin’s humiliating ascent on world stage, forget America’s failure to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and forget all the dysfunction we watch now in Washington, DC. The President and a team that lulled the mainstream media and public to sleep are getting a tumultuous lesson in the power of the press.
President Obama’s string of luck is breaking bad—even he must finally know it.
