Seymour ‘Cassandra’ Hersh, 4 Months Ahead of NYT

[babylonsister]

Seymour ‘Cassandra’ Hersh, 4 Months Ahead of NYT
by Rachel Sklar and Zeke Turner | 10:25 am, July 16th, 2009




Why does everyone ignore Seymour Hersh? That’s what NYU Local publisher Cody Brown wants to know, asking furiously on Twitter: “Why did the NYT omit mention of Seymour Hersh from the CIA story?”

Hersh, the longtime New Yorker investigative reporter, was months ahead of the New York Times on their bombshell CIA stories linking former Vice President Dick Cheney to secret CIA programs targeting Al Qaeda leaders, both on Saturday (”Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project” by Scott Shane) and Monday’s front page (”C.I.A. Had Plans to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders” by Shane and Mark Mazzetti). In a speech at the University of Minnesota four months ago, Hersh said:

“Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

And Hersh has been on the scent of under-the-radar cross-border teams operating in Iran for over a year.

Brown makes a good point: Where is Hersh in the crediting? And, more to the point, why didn’t anyone listen to Hersh months ago? Why didn’t anyone care? Hersh doesn’t even get any credit under the CIA Times Topics other coverage bar (Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004), however does get a mention) .

New York Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis dismissed the question of crediting, saying in an e-mail, “Our story said the plan never led to any missions; that no such missions were carried out. That’s quite different.”

Leaving the similarities between the two stories aside, there seems to be more here than just a newsroom’s reluctance to credit. Four months is a long time to pick up a story — but Hersh’s only went as far as the minor leagues, with pickup from a few places but no larger breakthrough (he did attract some skeptics, though). Hersh also spoke at length about Cheney on NPR shortly after the Minnesota speech, suggesting that Cheney had left “stay-behinds” in the Obama administration, including in the NSA — allies who would keep him in the loop and through whom he could potentially influence policy. Again, his remarks got picked up in smaller outlets but failed to make a larger dent.

more...

http://www.mediaite.com/print/seymour-cassandra-hersh-4-months-ahead-of-nyt/

[aquart]

1. Oh, I believed him.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Indeed. Me too.

[jakeXT]

3. Hersh even quoted the NYT back then in his reply

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring

[SteveM]

4. Reason MSM ignores him? They're in the process of "Chomsky-izing" him (nt)

[Dr.Phool]

5. K&R He's always ahead of the pack.

And he's damn near always right. He's got to have some incredible sources.

[kimmerspixelated]

6. On one hand, Hersh is a friggin hero!

On the other hand, how many bodyguards does he have???I hope many!! He's dealing with some nasty stuff!

[bobthedrummer]

7. He is always worth paying attention to-I wonder what he's done with the evidence of children being

raped and tortured by Bush/Cheney loyalists (both in and out of uniform) to develop information about "terrorists" in Iraq and elsewhere???

[bobthedrummer]

8. "Taguba Saw 'Video of Male Soldier Sodomizing Female Detainee'" by Jason Leopold (5-29-09 Truthout)

http://www.truthout.org/052909R

Jason Leopold referenced Gen. Taguba relating that to Seymour Hersh.

"The Man Who Knew Cheney's Secret" by Benjamin Sarlin (7-14-09 The Daily Beast)

" The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick cheney's secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-14/the-man-who-knew-cheneys-secret/

[katty]

9. Hersh track record reporting: credibility

[Doctor_J]

10. Let's face facts - the US is a 3rd world country

complete with death squads, state-run media, and the ruling oligarchy. Anything that doesn't fit with Big Media's view doesn't get any attention at all.

[KakistocracyHater]

11. because it isn't the 70s anymore & the nyt is crap!

.