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2006-07-03 Home Front: WoT
Seymour Hersch Declares US Airstrikes on Iran Impotent (retitled)
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Posted by FOTSGreg 2006-07-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Hersch is a prolific fiction writer
Posted by Captain America 2006-07-03 01:00||   2006-07-03 01:00|| Front Page Top

#2 You can't go back to the 60's Seymour.
Posted by ed 2006-07-03 01:02||   2006-07-03 01:02|| Front Page Top

#3 A surgical, Osiraq style, strike will not work. A few thousands sorties targeting infrastracture, on the other hand...
Posted by gromgoru 2006-07-03 07:01||   2006-07-03 07:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Sy is a favorite leak point for a lot of long-time Washingtonians, and he probably does have real, informed, sources for this article. In fact, I would be shocked if there were not a substantial number of State and Intelligence people who believe an air attack on Iran will not work - it certainly MIGHT not work, and that contingency has to be on the table.
That said, it still has to be a serious concern to both the Administration and to 'thinking' Americans that State secrets just can't seem to be kept SECRET.
Posted by glenmore">glenmore  2006-07-03 07:58||   2006-07-03 07:58|| Front Page Top

#5 Not one single identified source for the accusations. Not one.

In other words, a typical Hersch column.
Posted by Raj 2006-07-03 08:12||   2006-07-03 08:12|| Front Page Top

#6 What a maroon. Nobody ever knows the outcome of anything before the fact.
Posted by wxjames 2006-07-03 08:21||   2006-07-03 08:21|| Front Page Top

#7 heh- if I was in charge, I'd think that hersch is a perfect conduit to put out any misinformation I'd want to get out there. I'd get joy out of it too. The thought of the little tool excitedly writing exactly what I want him to write in the belief that he was a rebel and renegade would give me evil joy.

But then, sigh, that's why I'd NEVER want to be involved in that clandestine world of cross/triple cross/quadruple cross. Nah, the simple life for me. But I can dream, can't I.
Posted by 2b 2006-07-03 08:44||   2006-07-03 08:44|| Front Page Top

#8 Apparently James Dunnigan of Strategypage.com, who's hardly a moonbat, has the same view, so I wouldn't get too harsh on Hersch quite yet.
Posted by Ernest Brown 2006-07-03 09:11||   2006-07-03 09:11|| Front Page Top

#9 Hersh was on the Today program about day three of the Afghan operation describing it as a disaster. His 'sources' said that everything was going wrong. Today, any rational person recognizes otherwise. Even the lefties don’t talk Afghanistan anymore. Why do they keep bringing up the same old journalistic failures. One decent shot and then living for decades on it, does not a pretty sight make. If MSM had to meet the same standards of purity in reporting that food processors have to make in what they sell us, the’d been put out of business a long time ago.
Posted by Hupinemble Flaiger2203 2006-07-03 09:23||   2006-07-03 09:23|| Front Page Top

#10 Hersh is an empty suit - an echo chamber.

To get the job done in Iran will require some actions on the ground at some sites.

If we don;t care about civil society (and want to shut off all near-term possibility of a revolt against the mullah-ocracy) we can simply take down the power grid. Hit the main plants and power distribution centers with guided munitions, and the local neighborhoods and transmimssion lines with mylar to short them out. Every time they restart one, we blast it.

Welcome Iran back to the 1880's and gaslights.

Problems: civilian populaiton and refugees coming into Iraq. Disrupting oil production that the Euros depend on disrupting world supplies. And many other smaller concerns.

However, ALL of that can be planned for if we can properly prep a "revolution" and uprising against the central government - there are ethnic lines that can be exploited to fracture Iran, as well as political and economic ones. And targeting all the governmental and military command nodes weould be highly effective at destabilizing ht e regiem and allowing such opponents to act.

Hersh simply emphasizes all the negative that he can wring out of his sources, and ignores any positive.


Posted by Oldspook 2006-07-03 09:35||   2006-07-03 09:35|| Front Page Top

#11 I'm beginning to think Bush has never intended to take kinetic military action against Iran. Instead,in a delicious irony, we are going to use the oil weapon. Have the UN impose sanctions that cut off gasoline imports. Oh, and former regime elements from Iraq may be captured after what little refining capacity Iran has is destroyed with IEDs.

It would be nice to see Iran break apart so that the Mideast political map could be reasssembled on a more rational basis.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-07-03 09:46||   2006-07-03 09:46|| Front Page Top

#12 My favorite Hersh moment came when he wrote a piece about the first Ranger raid on an airfield in Afghanistan in Oct 2001 and claimed we had 16 AC-130s up at the same time but it was still not enough to handle the Lions of Islam the Rangers encountered on the ground and the SOF teams ran into at Mullah Omar's crib. Anybody fact checking this guy would realize there is no way we have basically 1/2 of our AC-130s in the same place at the same time. Subsequent accounts revealed he got most of the other details wrong too. But nobody fact checks him since he won a Pulitzer.

Apparantly W refers to him as a "f---ing liar." Sounds about right to me.

Posted by JAB 2006-07-03 11:09||   2006-07-03 11:09|| Front Page Top

#13 lol, JAB! That "cowboy" sure does talk rough about our enlightened, suave, nuanced Mr. Hersh, does he not. One of the reasons I love our Prez...he says what he means and means what he says (unfortunately, that's led me to disagree with him a lot lately...spending, illegal immigration, not smacking-down Iran/N. Korea already, etc.). I know though, that their time will come.
Posted by BA 2006-07-03 11:24||   2006-07-03 11:24|| Front Page Top

#14 Yeah, that Pulitzer's makes life easy.
Posted by Walter D Esq. 2006-07-03 13:32||   2006-07-03 13:32|| Front Page Top

#15 Besides turning off the juice in Iran, shut down their gas refiner/y/ies and make the entire country a no-fly zone (except for birdies). Tell them we'll ease the pressure when they get rid of the mullahs, renounce nuclear weapons, have their government apologize for seizing our territory in 1979, and pay the US a very substantial penalty for so doing. Otherwise let the whole country pound sand indefinitely. The ensuing oil crisis would be nothing like the crisis that would happen after the mullocracy uses its nukes for the first time. In any case, we will either pay now or pay later.
Posted by Hupatch Flomolet2475 2006-07-03 17:01||   2006-07-03 17:01|| Front Page Top

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