This article was amended on 1 October 2013. The original text stated that Hersh sold a story about the My Lai massacre to the New York Times for $5,000 when in fact it was the Times of London. Hersh has pointed out that he was in no way suggesting that Osama bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan, as reported, upon the president's authority: he was saying that it was in the aftermath that the lying began. Finally, the interview took place in the month of July, 2013.
So now one wonders what Hersh was suggesting?
UPDATE: Given JDB's comment that essentially says that Hersh's suggestion was rather innocuous, I thought I should reprint the relevant part of the interview:
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 [see footnote].
Now perhaps all Hersh was saying was that the execution of bin Laden was unlawful, but that certainly was a very strange way to say it.
HT: Huffington Post.
18 comments:
The reports were widely criticized at and shortly after the time for dramatizing the events in various movie-like ways, glossing over the fact that it amounted to an unlawful execution, and so on. But there was never a massive media campaign of self-correction, the same way there was a massive media campaign of glorifying the president and reporting press releases as news. Presumably this is what Hersh has in mind. It would have been quite surprising and uncharacteristic for Hersh, a careful investigative journalist with a respected track record, to suggest that bin Laden hadn't been killed in Pakistan.
Original Hersh quotation:
"... 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."
Strange thing to say if all he meant was, "The execution was unlawful." But hey, who am I to question substituting incredibly excessive hyperbole for something that can be said so much simpler?
Especially when it's said by a "careful investigative journalist with a respected track record."
I guess that should be "much more simply."
Your comments don't respond meaningfully to my comment, because I did not say that "all he meant" was "The execution was unlawful."
To repeat and elaborate, criticism of the reporting was all over dissident press at the time, made its way into mainstream press, crucially, after the fact, and dealt with virtually all aspects of the initial accounts. But because there was never a massive media campaign of self-correction, the public seems to have taken the initial, president-glorifying reports as canonical.
Wait a minute... I just noticed your "update," too. I also didn't say that Hersh's suggestion was "rather innocuous." And, in fact, the media worshiping the president, uncritically reporting press releases and "anonymous sources" from the administration, failing to inquire into unlawful executions and incursions into sovereign nations, etc., is objectively non-innocuous.
If you want to understand what Hersh was talking about, or what I was referring to, and can't bring yourself to (i) trust me or even (ii) to straightforwardly read the few sentences I write, then here's what I recommend, although it takes a while, because it's a form of research, the sort that would be required for writing, say, a paper on this subject: read the initial NYT articles on the bin Laden raid. Notice how they are a form of stenographic journalism, to begin with. Then, read follow-up reports and criticism, in more critical places like The Guardian. Then read more straightforward dissident literature on the topic, like transcripts from Democracy Now or people on independent websites like Znet. Then - to get a sense of how the media correction campaign wasn't as intense as the media Obama -worship campaign, as I said - read later reports in mainstream places like the NYT.
Because I do recognize that this might take too much time in the context of wanting to pontificate on the blogosphere asap, a second-best shortcut would be to look up criticism of the related film, Zero Dark Thirty. A lot of the problems Hersh is referring to come up in debates about that film (for an obvious reason, widely reported and understood: the same "sources" that provided for initial reports in the NYT also provided the basis for that film).
Finally, I have a negative recommendation, which comes up from time to time in our discussions: in general I think it's very unwise - it would certainly be marked down on an academic paper, for example - to use as canonical sources for someone's position on a subject remarks they make in an interview (and then reported second- or third-hand by someone else). Crucially, this is true unless you can find that view corroborated elsewhere.
Hi JDB,
So are you denying that Hersh said what the Guardian said that he said?
No, that's the statement I've been commenting on and explaining, suggesting how you might inquire into the relevant background. Hersh himself seems to agree with me about my interpretation of Hersh, unsurprisingly.
How you got me denying the claim Hersh said what they said he said, from phrases like, "If you want to understand what Hersh was talking about...", which presupposes that the quote was accurate, is beyond me.
JDB: " Hersh himself seems to agree with me about my interpretation of Hersh, unsurprisingly."
You mean what Hersh said in the Guardian correction? The uncorraborated view of what Hersh said, where they do not bother to quote him directly? I guess I'll have to mark you down for that.
JDB: "How you got me denying the claim Hersh said what they said he said, from phrases like, "If you want to understand what Hersh was talking about...", which presupposes that the quote was accurate, is beyond me."
No I got it from the phrase:
"...to use as canonical sources for someone's position on a subject remarks they make in an interview (and then reported second- or third-hand by someone else). Crucially, this is true unless you can find that view corroborated elsewhere."
That phrase casts doubt on the reliability of the Guardian's accuracy in quoting Hersh. Do you really wish to do that?
"You mean what Hersh said in the Guardian correction?"
The Guardian reported - very, very minimally - that Hersh specified one particular thing he wasn't saying. This was consistent with what was initially quoted - but people on the Internet, e.g. Bilbo, had been writing as if he was saying that particular thing. Because the initial quote didn't have the meaning you attribute to it, and because the correction corroborates that it doesn't have this meaning, and because the quote's having this meaning would be inconsistent with the nature of Hersh's other work, and because the meaning people like Hersh and I attribute to Hersh's quote obviously makes sense in the context in which I've been explaining, neither the quote nor the correction give us any reason to doubt my interpretation.
That being said, right - I prefer not to discuss and comment on people's views when my information is based solely on some quote from some interview, unless I can make sense of the quote in a wider context, which involves doing various forms of research, some of which I've done for you, e.g. via email.
Finally, no one has suggested - neither me nor Hersh, that the quote itself was inaccurate. What was inaccurate was what some people took to be the quote's implication or suggestion. And this I would blame on the Guardian, whose editors and writers should have known what the Internet is like, and made sure to ask Hersh to elaborate on the quote.
What other work of Hersh's would be inconsistent with the interpretation people on the internet have been giving to Hersh's original quotation: "One big lie"?
What I had in mind in the single phrase you elect to respond to is that Hersh has a long track record of making well-documented, non-circumstantial claims (hence my reference to the "nature" and not the content of his work), and it would therefore be highly uncharitable to attribute to him the thesis that bin Laden was not actually killed, a thesis believed by, as far as I know, no one of Hersh's proven integrity and caliber.
This was all I intended, but one might also wonder: has Hersh spoken on the bin Laden raid since it happened over two years ago? This would be the sort of thing one is morally and intellectually obligated to research before giving an uncharitable interpretation as you (and many others) gave of his remarks.
Now, interestingly, this is a case study in something I constantly complain about. Because the Internet is so awful and people just constantly repeat and misinterpret quotes our of context and without any research into a person's related views, finding anything other than this one quote is actually somewhat tricky via Google. But with enough sophistication - i.e. limiting the search results to before the Guardian interview - you can get the sort of evidence required. Here's a particularly clear case, but I'm sure there are others:
"I do think that the White House really wanted the bin Laden raid, about which I’ve been doing a lot of work. There’s always — things are always more interesting than they seem. I’m not suggesting he wasn’t killed or anything like that, but just more interesting."
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/3/seymour_hersh_on_the_arab_spring
Yes, it's the "more interesting" part that seems to be behind his "one big lie" comment, which is why I ask, what is Hersh suggesting?
If not that bin Laden wasn't killed, then what is more interesting?
"which is why I ask, what is Hersh suggesting?"
The comment arises in the context of the widespread, thorough, complicated criticism of the original NYT report, easy to find in all sorts of sources, a small sample of which I sent you. So it's highly probable Hersh has that sort of stuff in mind.
But more particularly, he is evidently publishing a book with a chapter on the bin Laden raid - so if one wants to know what his particular take on the story is, that will be the canonical source for it.
By the way, why would it be "highly uncharitable to attribute to him the thesis that bin Laden was not actually killed"?
If there is no dead body, but plenty of false stories about how he was killed, and plenty of motive for saying he was killed, I would think doubting that he was killed would be a very reasonable thing to do. Especially since the 25 Navy Seals who were the only surviving eyewitnesses to the event may now be dead themselves.
I noticed your comment after I published my second comment to you. Yes, looking forward to seeing his canonical view of the affair.
I wasn't aware of the upcoming Hersh book, by the way. But now I am - thanks to Bilbo's Blog.
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