Seymour “Ratboy” Hersh Crosses the Redline of Credibility – Frames Erdoğan for CW Attack on Behalf of EU

Scott Creighton (archive from April 2014)

A sad day indeed.

Seymour “Ratboy” Hersh has sold out. He has joined the ranks of the fake-left Vichy press personified by the likes of Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill and Chris Mathews.

Based on reports from unnamed “former administration officials”, he has crafted what is essentially a complete white-wash of the Obama administration’s involvement in the chemical weapons attack in Syria while simultaneously attempting to set a new “red-line” narrative for a regime change operation in Turkey, a country where the current ruling party just won 48% of the vote in regional elections. It just so happens that Turkey is moving away from E.U. membership. A country that the E.U. is demanding makes structural reforms to their economy and constitution in order to bring them more in line with the way the E.U. does business.

“The financial crisis, the global crisis, the Arab Spring and the events in Syria and Egypt show that the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey does the EU,” Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan, February 2014

After nearly eight months of talks, MEPs (Member of European Parliament) in the foreign affairs committee on Monday (3 March) voted on a resolution on Turkey’s progress towards EU accession.

The carefully scripted document, drafted by Dutch centre-right MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, describes Turkey as a “strategic partner” but also says it must initiate urgent reforms and promote political dialogue. EU Observer, April 3, 2014

I wonder what it cost to get Seymour Hersh to do an about face and start carrying water for the Obama administration under cover of his previous agitator reputation that had been well deserved up until this point, in my opinion.

The fact that he is clearly attempting to white-wash the Obama administration’s involvement in the chemical weapons attack in Syria is obvious. The fact that he’s attempting to finger Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan for that attack at a time when (as COINCIDENCE would have it) Turkey is gradually moving away from a partnership with the EU is less obvious but just as disingenuous.

“The foreign policy expert (unnamed source) told me that the account he heard originated with Donilon. (It was later corroborated by a former US official (another unnamed source), who learned of it from a senior Turkish diplomat.) According to the expert, Erdoğan had sought the meeting to demonstrate to Obama that the red line had been crossed, and had brought Fidan along to state the case. When Erdoğan tried to draw Fidan into the conversation, and Fidan began speaking, Obama cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ Erdoğan tried to bring Fidan in a second time, and Obama again cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ At that point, an exasperated Erdoğan said, ‘But your red line has been crossed!’ and, the expert told me, ‘Donilon said Erdoğan “fucking waved his finger at the president inside the White House”.’ Obama then pointed at Fidan and said: ‘We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria.’ (Donilon, who joined the Council on Foreign Relations last July, didn’t respond to questions about this story. The Turkish Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to questions about the dinner. A spokesperson for the National Security Council confirmed that the dinner took place and provided a photograph showing Obama, Kerry, Donilon, Erdoğan, Fidan and Davutoglu sitting at a table. ‘Beyond that,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to read out the details of their discussions.’)” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Seymour Hersh had an article published yesterday at the London Review of Books, The Red Line and the Rat Line, which utilizes a well established tactic of providing disinformation to the public dressed up with a little truth for credibility’s sake.

In this case, the disinformation is that the Obama administration and U.S. intelligence had nothing to do with the use of chemical weapons in Syria targeting civilians. The attack was committed in order to provide a false flag type event designed to provide Obama’s “red line” pretext to the Shock and Awe type attack they had been planning for months just prior to the event.

“Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed. ‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’ The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

The little truth that Hersh dresses his disinfo up with is that the CIA consulate in Benghazi had one purpose and one purpose only and that was to ship weapons via a “rat line” into Syria, to those very same terrorists we are now talking about arming with “manpads” (shoulder launched heat seeking rockets which the terrorists will undoubtedly use on civilian aircrafts). Those same terrorists who have been backed by the Obama administration since we started the destabilization campaign three years ago. Those same terrorists visited by high ranking U.S. officials. Those same terrorists who used sarin gas on a civilian population so that Obama could attempt to justify another Iraq styled Shock and Awe in Syria.

‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official (yet another unnamed source), who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’ Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Of course the CIA has a political role in countries that they destabilize and neoliberalize on behalf of the masters of the universe. That’s the whole point of the CIA. This statement, as regurgitated by Ratboy Hersh, would be laughable coming from any CNN hack. From Hersh, it’s damn near tragic.

Hersh goes on to suggest that after the Benghazi attack, the U.S. inexplicably, gave up on the “rat line”, shipping illegal weapons to our terrorist destabilization campaign in Syria. This of course absolves President Peace Prize of any culpability in the chemical weapons false flag attack.

Washington abruptly ended the CIA’s role in the transfer of arms from Libya after the attack on the consulate, but the rat line kept going. ‘The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists,’ the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels. Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

With the narrative set and “Terror Tuesday” Obama absolved of all sin, Ratboy goes in for the kill; it’s all Erdoğan’s fault.

By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. ‘Erdoğan was pissed,’ the former intelligence official said, ‘and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the cut-off was seen as a betrayal.’ In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. ‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond in March and April.’ Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Notice how Ratboy also clears the Saudis with the same brush-stroke of disinfo provided by yet another unnamed “former intelligence official”.

Mr. Hersh’s effort includes a rather stark and unapologetic review of the purpose behind the CIA consulate in Banghazi without really delving into the particulars of how and more importantly, why, it was attacked. This is supposed to show that Mr. Hersh is being completely forthcoming in his article with the facts, even the painful ones, regarding the Obama administration’s destabilization campaign in Syria.

But that information, that the Benghazi office’s sole purpose was to transfer undocumented weapons to our mercenary terrorists in Syria, was already well established even if it isn’t entirely true (when we neoliberalize a nation via violent means, many times our CIA has to have a presence on the ground helping the illegal regime round up any dissidents or business and political opposition leaders who might make our “structural reforms” more difficult. Assassinations, black-bag ops, disappearances, all of these nifty little “democratic” tricks are part of bringing “stability” to the region and more than likely the Benghazi hub was more than simply a way station for black market weapons being shipped into the next targeted nation.)

So Mr. Hersh wasn’t really offering up any new incriminating evidence.

What he did offer up was a rather unique version of the story of the Syrian chemical weapons false flag attack that completely absolves the Obama administration and even makes the case that the reason they backed off of their plans to Shock and Awe the country back to the stone ages like Bush did to Iraq on similar false claims, was because they came to realize in the nick of time, that it was Erdoğan who was responsible and not Assad.

According to Mr. Hersh, once the Brits discovered that the chemical make-up of the Sarin gas didn’t fit Syria’s they informed the U.S. and steps were taken to stop the brutal Shock and Awe plan of attack, which Mr. Hersh also takes pains to assert would ONLY have targeted military infrastructure.

Ratboy Hersh fails to mention the fact that the same thing was said about Shock and Awe Iraq and Libya while tens of thousands of civilians died. Millions suffered in the aftermath of being “bombed back into the stone ages” due to false claims of WMDs and attacks on their own civilian populations which never happened.

Hersh’s effort is part on an ongoing campaign to destabilize Turkey and make it ready for a regime change operation on behalf of the European Union. Hersh, of course, fails to mention any of the context of that developing story in his blatant propaganda piece.

A month ago, at a time right after Erdoğan openly expressed his disgust with the E.U. in a public statement, suddenly a recording surfaced which purported to prove he had planned a false flag event in Syria. Ratboy did make mention of that recording in the second to the last paragraph of his Judith Milleresque “news” report:

Turkey’s willingness to manipulate events in Syria to its own purposes seemed to be demonstrated late last month, a few days before a round of local elections, when a recording, allegedly of Erdoğan and his associates, was posted to YouTube. It included discussion of a false-flag operation that would justify an incursion by the Turkish military in Syria. Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

“Turkey’s willingness to manipulate events in Syria”? Are you kidding me? Did Turkey spend $5 billion manipulating events in Syria like the U.S. did?

A key clue into Ratboy’s inclination and his lack of intellectual honesty regarding the Syrian destabilization campaign being run by the Obama administration is found in the very last paragraph. It makes it clear that Mr. Sy Hersh can now be afforded the same credibility as Scaghill and Goodman:

Barring a major change in policy by Obama, Turkey’s meddling in the Syrian civil war is likely to go on. ‘I asked my colleagues if there was any way to stop Erdoğan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The answer was: “We’re screwed.” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

While apparently calling for some kind of military intervention, either in Syria or Turkey, Ratboy refers to the destabilization campaign in Syria as a ‘civil war”

It is anything but a civil war. It is a terrorist destabilization effort funded by the U.S. and Saudis, armed by nearly every complicit nation and NGO there is and staffed by a collection of mercenary thugs rounded up by intelligence agencies from the CIA to MI6.

Sy Hersh is certainly aware of that fact. Whomever the creature is who wrote this disinformation screed, he certainly isn’t the old Sy Hersh we came to respect over the decades. It reads like it was written by someone else, full of undisclosed sources and administration talking points.

It’s a sad day in the ever shrinking world of legitimate journalism when Ratboy Hersh starts running regime change propaganda as if it were news while giving the real terrorists a pass.

A sad day indeed.