Why, Sy? Playing a parlor game with Seymour Hersh on ax-grinding

Per Jeff St. Clair's Roaming Charges a week ago, as linked in my piece about Seymour Hersh's story about how the Nord Stream 1, and half of Nord Stream 2, pipes were blown?

It seems reasonable that just maybe Sy is doing some ax-grinding. Or, one or more of his sources are.

But who's the target?

Based on his last big piece, his alt-history about the killing of Osama bin Laden — which was the first big piece after Abu Ghraib that NObody in conventional media would touch — I have a theory.

The Navy SEALs.

Think about it.

Who gets basically written out of Hersh's bin Laden alt history? Yes, they're still there, but removed, highly removed, from the solo starring role.

Who gets pushed aside as the logical group to blow up the pipelines, if the US indeed did it and Sy has the big picture partially correct even if the details are all wrong, on the dubious claim that using them would invoke Congressional disclosure to the "Gang of Eight" and other things?

The SEALs.

Now, whether this is Hersh, a source, or both, grinding an ax, I don't know.

And, per good journalism, and good well-examined living in general, if my speculation is correct, I don't know WHY.

People with more "connections" than I have are welcome to make suggestions.

Related and also interesting? In his "welcome/here I am" first piece on Substack, Hersh mentions he was attacked over the Abu Ghraib piece; he never mentions the bin Laden, or anything else he did after Abu Ghraib. Oh, he also has comments there, but has them turned off on the Nord Stream main piece. And (natch) only paid subscribers can comment on the "welcome" piece. Per my original piece, Mark Ames at Radio War Nerd and Amy Goodman and the gang at Democracy Now also pass over the bin Laden piece in silence. 

"Interesting."

Meanwhile, there's possibly another person who may be involved with ax-grinding.

Many of us who ARE, per Jeff St. Clair, in the more skeptical, not less skeptical, precincts of the left, have thought that part of why Hersh is on Substack is like Glenn Greenwald and others — no editors, just fun!

Confirming Jeff's note that Hersh (like Glenn Greenwald) doesn't want to be edited? Sy's own "welcome" piece:

The story you will read today is the truth as I worked for three months to find, with no pressure from a publisher, editors or peers to make it hew to certain lines of thought—or pare it back to assuage their fears. Substack simply means reporting is back . . . unfiltered and unprogrammed—just the way I like it.

There you are!

Then, on Radio War Nerd, after Jeff's original musings, Sy claimed he had a sort of editor. Per John Helmer, to whom St. Clair had linked, Matt Taibbi said Hersh had "talked to him." In Sy's world, I'm sure that would make him a sort of editor. It would also explain how and why Hersh landed on Substack. And, it would be Taibbi's way of ax-grinding against the MSM, especially in the wake of the Twitter Files, about which he's been getting more and more defensive on Twitter. You have, Matt; shut up. And, given many things, including no MSM outlet publishing the bin Laden, Sy has his own axes to grind there.

• Another bit of ax-grinding by Hersh? Per his the original conversation with Butowsky over Seth Rich, and his fan fiction over bin Laden, he might have some ax to grind against Dear Leader. And, since Warmonger Joe was his No. 2?

I mean, Hersh was largely radio silent during the Trump years, other than his early Seth Rich foray.