Me on the O'Reilly Factor criticizing Republicans for starting yet another Benghazi investigation

A pathetic campaign fund raising ploy.

http://benghaziwatchdogs.com/

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

The very first comment to that article tells anyone how seriously they should take Hersh's claims.

Letters
Vol. 36 No. 9 · 8 May 2014

For a second time the LRB has aired Seymour Hersh’s highly shaky claim that the opposition was responsible for the chemical weapons attack on the Ghouta on 21 August 2013 (LRB, 17 April). Hersh provides only one source for the key claims in his piece: a ‘former intelligence official’. As the bloggers Eliot Higgins and Scott Lucas have shown, he entirely ignores the overwhelming balance of tangible evidence that indicates the responsibility of the regime for the Ghouta attack. The two types of munitions found at the site were the Soviet M14 and an improvised type of rocket known as ‘the Volcano’. Both have been spotted in several combat videos, always being used by regime forces and never by the opposition. Contrary to Hersh’s claims in his first article, all of the rockets used were well within range of regime-held areas (LRB, 19 December 2013). The position of the intact munitions, in particular ‘Missile 197’, indicates a firing point to the north, where the regime-held areas were. The 21 August incident involved multiple rocket attacks on the Ghouta from those directions.

A lot hinges on Hersh’s implication that the Islamist fighters arrested in Turkey in May 2013 were part of a sarin-producing operation. Indeed, the local press did report that the men were carrying two kilogrammes of sarin. The charges laid by the court did not say this: they said that the men were carrying chemicals that could have been used to produce sarin. Perhaps they intended to do so, but they would have needed much more time. At least eight ‘Volcanoes’ were fired on the Ghouta. Each warhead carries an estimated fifty litres of sarin. It took Aum Shinrikyo years, trillions of yen and a dedicated factory to come up with less than a tenth of that. Not only did the jihadists supposedly come up with the sarin in miraculously large quantities without anyone knowing about it, according to Hersh’s intelligence official they then filled perfect copies of regime munitions with the stuff, transported them to areas north of the Ghouta (unopposed by the regime forces occupying those areas) and launched them at their own side.

Hersh has dropped his arguments of December – including the claim that a secret US sensory system in Syria should have shown evidence of the attack – and wants us to take the word of a single unnamed spook instead. Likewise, the Russian Foreign Ministry initially said there had been no attack and that the YouTube footage was false, on the basis of the timestamp on the videos. When it was pointed out that this was due to the time difference between Syria and the US, where YouTube marks its timestamps, and that the actual timing was entirely consistent with reports of the attack, the idea was dropped without further ado. This is not a method of argument that inspires confidence.

Whose sarin? Assad’s, almost certainly. Why did he do it? Perhaps he thought Russian diplomatic cover would let him get away with it. That is what happened, after all.

Jamie Allinson
London NW6

And you'll have to excuse me for taking the word of a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist over that of an internet commentator.

One country selling another country's weapons to a third country while being financed through buying drugs from a fourth and selling them in a fifth country.

Corporate Insurrectionists Agency

thanks for being our voice. I might have just started yelling at the guy.

uh - "fair and balanced" - because otherwise it'll be NON-STOP GRANDSTANDING and theirs will be the ONLY talking points you see on TV. Our side at least has a chance to get soundbites on TV.

But Steve - where you were FREAKIN' BRILLIANT was the litany of cases you recited one after the other - Beirut, 9/11, the Tet Offensive, all those. The only thing you forgot was - while they're huffing and puffing over four deaths, WHY have they yet to say anything about the four-THOUSAND deaths in Iraq - that were lost to a LIE? You shrewdly reminded, though, that we're somewhere between the fifth and the eighth investigation, is this the seventh time we go back and beat that dead horse? Same witnesses, same testimony, we make fun of Italy for three Amanda Knox hearings. GREAT stuff!!! It reminded me of the Xeroxed talking point that every GOPer near a camera or microphone "they counted, they counted again, they counted a third time..." during Selection 2000. Remember how EVERY DAMN ONE OF 'EM said that same talking point? Nauseating. But I guess they do love their repetition! It "kinda catapults the propaganda," as their little phony cowbow georgie once pointed out.

When I was prepping for the segment, those litany of cases just came to me as an idea to mention at an opportune time. I had a last case I was going to throw in there for comedic effect. I was going to add at the end "if you want, you can go all the way back to Custer and the little bighorn. I'm sure General Custer missed a few things that should have told him he was heading into a situation he couldn't win. Maybe we should investigate President Rutherford B Hayes role in that disaster"

Are used to hearing. Issa was nit able to produce the results desired by the GOP, ACA is proving past information as lies so there is not much left for the GOP to run on in 2014 or 2016. I look for this new committee will try to continue through the 2013 elections.

Good post, thanks for your ability to throw sanity into this subject.

In my opinion, if the Republicans in Congress want a hearing on: "Who is responsible for water being wet!", we should bless their wasteful little hearts for doing so......while pointing it out LOUDLY to the American voter how they waste our hard earned tax dollars! If there isn't one out there already, a chart of the costs to the people of the prior Benghazi Hearings could be very useful.

Another chart charting the costs in tax dollars spent by members of Congress in repeated failed attempts to shut down the ACA could be useful too. One would think that the tax payer would be quite fed up with all the wasteful spending going on on Capital Hill. Make these bastards share the results of their wasteful spending to the American voter!

One has to wonder, had not all that money been uselessly spent, what sort of tax rebate each of us could be getting in the mail? No, of course that ain't how it works but when put to the American voter from that perspective....well, I am thinking that they will call for an end to this sort of Republican nonsense pretty quick.

You make a great argument that since it's the sixth or seventh time around, Democrats shouldn't participate in this partisan fishing expedition. I care about the economy. More jobs, better wages. Not wasting taxpayer money on more Benghazi hearings.

Well done.

Even though I donT think talking to faux news viewers makes any difference, it was a noble effort.

refuting their political grandstanding. good job. keep representing our point of view.