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| Fifth Column |
| DoD Slaps the Beast (Seymour Hersh covert-ops betrayal) |
| 2005-01-17 |
| Re: Hersh's New Yorker article exposing alleged covert ops in Iran. Statement from Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence DiRita on Latest Seymour Hersh Article The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars." Mr. Hersh's article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed. Mr. Hersh's source(s) feed him with rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist, and statements by officials that were never made. A sampling from this article alone includes: The post-election meeting he describes between the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not happen. The only civilians in the chain-of-command are the President and the Secretary of Defense, despite Mr. Hersh's confident assertion that the chain of command now includes two Department policy officials. His assertion is outrageous, and constitutionally specious. Arrangements Mr. Hersh alleges between Under Secretary Douglas Feith and Israel, government or non-government, do not exist. Here, Mr. Hersh is building on links created by the soft bigotry of some conspiracy theorists. This reflects poorly on Mr. Hersh and the New Yorker. Mr. Hersh cannot even keep track of his own wanderings. At one point in his article, he makes the outlandish assertion that the military operations he describes are so secret that the operations are being kept secret even from U.S. military Combatant Commanders. Mr. Hersh later states, though, that the locus of this super-secret activity is at the U.S. Central Command headquarters, evidently without the knowledge of the commander if Mr. Hersh is to be believed. By his own admission, Mr. Hersh evidently is working on an "alternative history" novel. He is well along in that work, given the high quality of "alternative present" that he has developed in several recent articles. Mr. Hersh's preference for single, anonymous, unofficial sources for his most fantastic claims makes it difficult to parse his discussion of Defense Department operations. Finally, the views and policies Mr. Hersh ascribes to Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, Under Secretary Feith, and other Department of Defense officials do not reflect their public or private comments or administration policy. It isn't news that the Pentagon would deny Hersh's claims. What is news is the unprecedented degree of harshness and personal confrontation in this release. It appears that DoD is finally fed up with hostile media and their Vietnam-era license for treason and is beginning to stand up to them. This could very well be a result of recent declines in media credibility, and a consequent reduction in their powers of intimidation. Their 40 year reign of terror is coming to an end. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #20 Ohhh, Mrs. D! How creative! How eeeevillll! I love it! I genuflect respectfully at the feet of genius! |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2005-01-17 5:31:52 PM |
| #19 Chuck Graner for a cellmate. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-01-17 4:51:59 PM |
| #18 Amen to that .com baby! I'd like to see a whole buncha those folks in prison for their seditious/treasonous activities, along with their sources, with John F. Kerry at the head of the line. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-17 4:43:04 PM |
| #17 Sure, Sy. Heard of Bubba? He's that 320 pound tatooed lifer over there who can't wait for you to join him. Here's to that day. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-17 4:38:28 PM |
| #16 C'mon, guys...just trying to make a buck here. Hasn't this DiRita guy heard of "embellishment"? |
| Posted by: Sy Hersh 2005-01-17 4:35:48 PM |
| #15 jackal - Can you imagine the staff meeting where this response was drawn up? Probably much like watching an SNL production meeting, but with everyone's evil Republican twin attending, heh. Or, ruminating further along that track, it's probably like a peek into PJ O'Rourke's mind ala Being John Malkovich, lol! |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-17 4:35:31 PM |
| #14 Kudos to Mr. DiRita. It's so rare that anyone in a bureaucracy will actually have the balls to say something straight out like that. |
| Posted by: jackal 2005-01-17 4:30:45 PM |
| #13 doc - ROFLMAO!!! I've only made it to #4 and have to stop to wipe the tears out of my eyes! Bravo! |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-17 4:30:12 PM |
| #12 OTHER military secrets intelligence officials have recently entrusted to Seymour Hersh 1. By 2009, Syria will be âa super big Wal-Martâ with âsome really great deals on chick peas" 2. Once the US has puppet control over Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, the next move is to instigate a velvet revolution in Pakistanâculminating in a pro-Democratic Islamic country that will gratefully change its name to âMargaritaville" 3. Israelâs so-called âatomic capabilitiesâ? Nothing but lava lamps wrapped in tin foil 4. âNatural" disasters in the coastal areas of Southern California and New York will ensure Republican control of the White House and Congress for at least a generation. Trust us on this 5. Todd Beamer? A CIA plant. âLetâs Rollâ? Code for âscramble the fighter jets and shoot this puppy down. But make it look like we did it, okay?" 6. Usama bin Laden has been dead for years, his remains kept in a shoebox at Langley; his recent âappearancesâ were actually staged using an actor whose previous credits included âGoofyâ and âHillbilly Bearâ at Disney World, Orlando 7. "John Ashcroftâ is actually an animatronic unit completed in 1983 by Lockheed Martin; modeled after âThe Robot Gunslingerâ character in Michael Crichtonâs Westworld, âAshcroftâ was modified to fit then-President Reaganâs request to âmake the thing more Christiany" 8. Ayman Al Zarqawiâs birth name is actually Schlomo Edelstein, born Yonkers, NY, 1963, and up until 1991 a social studies teacher in Fairlawn, New Jersey. 9. The real reason for the breakup of Ellen Degeneres and Anne Heche? Two words: Condi Rice Posted by Jeff Goldstein http://www.celluloid-wisdom.com/pw/index.php?/weblog/entry/17684/ |
| Posted by: doc 2005-01-17 4:25:17 PM |
| #11 I sent this to Hugh Hewitt a - I hope to hell he mentions it, has the Blogs validate. If all of this were proven BS - it would be another serious blow to the MSM. Rantburg and blogs like them will save this country via grassroots. |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2005-01-17 4:11:50 PM |
| #10 Sy is one fantasic fiction writer. And I bet you all thought he was writing non-fiction. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-17 3:46:35 PM |
| #9 I hope this is a sign of more-- and worse-- to come for Hersh and his traitorous ilk. These people need to be spanked. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-01-17 3:45:05 PM |
| #8 It appears that DoD is finally fed up with hostile media and their Vietnam-era license for treason and is beginning to stand up to them. I sure as hell would be. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-17 3:28:32 PM |
| #7 This has been my biggest complaints against the military that they don't deal strongly or effectively enough with the fifth column press. However in this instance it has and it is long overdue |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-17 3:05:39 PM |
| #6 He might consider collaborating with Dan Rather on the novel since it is fiction. |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2005-01-17 2:47:13 PM |
| #5 By his own admission, Mr. Hersh evidently is working on an âalternative historyâ novel. He is well along in that work, given the high quality of âalternative presentâ that he has developed in several recent articles. That's gonna leave a mark. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-17 2:44:06 PM |
| #4 I hope this is a sign of things to come. It's about time these conspiracy theories get nipped in the bud. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2005-01-17 2:41:53 PM |
| #3 AC - Utterly agree - that is the most direct, unmitigated, catgorical smackdown I've ever seen issued by any US Gov't entity. In this regard, alone, Hersh has finally achieved something of note in his worthless existence. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-17 2:35:01 PM |
| #2 Has Hersh produced ANYTHING worthwhile in the last thirty years, or is he still coasting on his Boomer, anti-Vietnam record? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-01-17 2:16:58 PM |
| #1 I really hope that we are conducting recon into Iran. If not whay the hell not? They are a threat to Iraq, the U.S. , and part of the axis of evil. With due respect to Mr. Hersh, we are spying on a lot more countries beside Iran...BFD. Saying that we have boots on the ground might endanger those people on covert ops. Wasn't that the big brew haha about Plame? Here is a guy giving more information than was disclosed on Plame and I don't see the LLL crying for a full investigation and criminal charges. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2005-01-17 1:53:52 PM |