A few observations of mine, based on various posts by others, and comments at said posts, in reaction to his Nord Stream fan fiction. Much of what follows has been edited and expanded from my original take on Sy's piece.
Much of this comes from Mark Ames' Radio War Nerd interview with Sy. And, that's where I'll start.
• Ames himself? I have for some time said that I don't consider him a
Russian agent. He's criticized Russian war operations in Ukraine
enough, and Moscow leadership at least somewhat. But, his own
contrarianism or whatever on Skripal? Him and Yasha Levine laughing over US names
for Russian SVR operations like "Cozy Bear" and "Fancy Bear," even when
the operations themselves were real (even if low budget, etc)? "Useful
idiots" isn't the right word for people like him, and "fellow travelers"
isn't, either. Maybe we need to use a phrase like "sympathetic flacks."
Or, "slippery," as one of his commenters called Hersh.
But, whatever the phrase, I'm tightening up again
on the amount of slack I'll give him. Another way of putting it? He's
not Matt Taibbi. But, he is, as I've said before, in the same general
vein as an Aaron Maté: reflexive anti-Americanism on foreign policy that
itself becomes twosidered.
Ames' reaction on Twitter to the recent DOE statement about a possible COVID lab leak at Wuhan Institute of Virology underscores that. I quote-tweeted him "back" noting that actual leftists like Sam Husseini also believe in the reality of a lab leak; ain't just mainstream media.
On Hersh, he probably won't interview St. Clair, as I suggested on RWN, in response to another comment of mine:
Seriously,
this is what the whole "omg Hersh was a Seth Rich sucker" thing is
about? Some guy talking to Hersh, claiming he heard a mountain where
hersh said it was a molehill, and that's supposed to affect Hersh's
credibility as a journalist? Bad faith twaddle. If it's not clear
already, Hersh talking is a lot wilder and pinball-minded than Hersh in
print, which is what he should be judged by. Here is what St Clair's
article hyperlinks to as proof Hersh was some kind of Seth Rich truther:
https://www.cpr.org/2017/08/01/behind-fox-news-baseless-seth-rich-story-the-untold-tale/
OK, Mark. And, re Radio War Nerd invites? You follow John Helmer on Twitter; if you don't want St. Clair, have HELMER on. (That's not happening either, I know; "follow" not only doesn't mean "agree on most" but also doesn't mean "agree on some.") That's the John Helmer who, from the independent left, called out Hersh early on.
And,
OK to commenters who are going to try to spin this, and are going to
cite the likes of Gateway Pundit in doing so. I also told him that he
was welcome to interview St. Clair himself and that I had already said
that in another comment.
But, while we're here, let's remember that the RNC as well as DNC was hacked and that Congresscritter Mike McCaul, not just the likes of Comey, said so,
before the RNC told him to shut up. Let's also note that McCaul,
pre-Congress, was counterterrorism prosecutor for the DOJ. I'll confess
to not thinking about that enough at the time.
Ames wasn't the only person cutting blank checks to Seth Rich, or close to it, by any means, though.
• Let's take this from Magic Mikey:
Craig
Murray sacrificed his career to expose his own governments involvement
in the use of torture during the war on terror. He's nobodies flunky.
Sorry, or "sorry." First, Murray did indeed do that, before
he hooked up with early-era Assange, but he's continued to defend
Assange lock, stock and barrel since Julian went far beyond being a
journalist (if he ever was) to being Putin's flunky. Second, lots of
people destroy their careers for bad reasons. Note: I've engaged with
Murray on Twitter before; he has in the past "tailed off" when I brought up Seth Rich. Per that link, no, I don't think Assange is a journo. Murray has also indicated,
indirectly, that Assange knew the provenance of the DNC emails by the
end of 2016. I do think, per what I said above about Ames, that Murray
IS a "useful idiot" even if not getting paid to be one.
• And, another "fun" comment at RWN, this from Stephen Jones:
I
can't speak to anyone else's thoughts on Seth Rich, but I'm a total
"sucker" for the idea that there's something fishy about an unsolved
murder of a DNC staffer in the midst of high-powered deception about who
stole what from servers. A situation so frought that the most
illustrious media, academic, and government institutions and celebrities
created a Russiagate fraud and crisis of confidence that has led
Americans to crippling pathological paranoia... and the world to the
brink of nuclear annihilation.
I gave him my blog post with the RNC/McCaul info, noting the RNC being hacked was a big counterargument to this.
•
Mohamed Dalmer claims "data discrepancies." I told him I'd been down
the Forensicator/Patrick Lawrence road and spoken with Duncan Campbell.
As in this long piece also refudiating the Bill Binneys that Craig Murray said I should talk to, but talking to the Thomas Drakes.
• But, it wasn't just Radio War Nerd that I read. The first hot take I saw on Hersh was from a (Danish? Danish-American?) Nat-Sec Nutsack or fellow traveler, Oliver Alexander. Helmer, three weeks later, calls him "The Danish offshoot of Bellingcat." And, rightly so. His claim that Russian subs "did it" is even stupider (and, more contradicted by facts) than Hersh's piece.
I haven't even mentioned Taibbi, who I haven't seen peddling Sy on Twitter, or Aaron Maté, whom I have, and who I reminded yesterday was hauled around by the nose a couple of years ago in Syria by some of Bashar al-Assad's minders, as reported by Ken Silverstein and others. As for Maté's claims that US journos were afraid to ask German Chancellor Olaf Scholz anything when he was with Warmonger Joe in DC, there's no NEED to ask him anything. Helmer has the goods on that, too.
•
If I thought Oliver Alexander was a Nat-Sec Nutsack, one of the commenters on
his site, Andrew Benjamin, is so in spades on his own Substack, where he
dives into an empty pool to smear Hersh. As I told him:
You've
got your whole body coated in Nat-Sec Nutsacks oil. Talk about a hit
job piece. Calling Hersh a "Marxist" is the piece of cake. You're
in-credible, whatever you may say in follow-up. Your claim that "Views
Askew is the IDEOLOGY-FREE ZONE" is laughable bullshit. No, it's not
even laughable. It's just bullshit.
What else is there to say?
That Benjamin is an even bigger mouth-breather. He called me this:
Cute
for a Tuckerite cultist to call serious people with serious creds, or
even myself who is on the scene, "laughable BS." Hey Socrates, have you
ever been in the area? Have you photographed the Russian navy preparing
to invade Ukraine as I have? I don't think anyone who refers to
conspiracist, anantisemitic and pro-Jihadist websites such as Mondoweiss
has any business lecturing people who live in the real world. I assume
you also don't like Jews much, do you? On your front page. Mondoweiss My
diagnosis is PTSD: Fida Jiryis and our ongoing Nakba
My
brief response included asking him if Phil Weiss is a self-hating Jew,
the obligatory "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism," and accusing him
back of Bullshit self-Derangement Syndrome. BDS!
And, with his reply, linking to a piece that talks in depth about the self-hating Jew and with the phrase "Jew Flu," just wow.
Beyond that? I find this person scary in some ways, and definitely "rabid."
•
I got four comments at RWN from one dude, nameless with a cat icon. He
said I was full of shit, asked why anybody would want St. Clair's
opinion while also saying Counterpunch has gone downhill and most its
content is "syndicated" elsewhere, and called Craig Murray an alcoholic.
My
thoughts? In answering him, I said on full of shit, maybe he was
infamous Catturd. On St. Clair, I noted that he, re Assange and the Seth
Rich conspiracy theory, had three-plus years ago talked about "the more credulous precincts of the left." Beyond that? On Craig Murray, per Murray's own website, he's probably right — Murray sounds like an alcoholic in huge denial.
Given his history of depression, suicidal thoughts and physical health
ailments, most if not all of which probably tie to the sauce, he needs
to get his ass out of denial. Per his Wikipedia page,
which I had never checked before, he was reportedly drunk on the job
while British ambassador to Uzbekistan, which, unlike the diplomatic
issues, he apparently has never contested. He also is officially a Seth
Rich conspiracy theorist. And, Counterpunch has long co-published stuff
from other sites; it's the way smaller opinion journals of the left —
and also often the right — work.
He later apologized for
being intemperate, and I've apologized for calling him Catturd in
response, because the real Catturd would never apologize. I also said
that I don't totally agree with everything at Counterpunch.
• Another commenter at RWN, a Joshua Davies suggested that Ty Clevenger had some new bombshell re Seth Rich, posting a Twitter link. I sent back my, not one (his "origin story"), not two, but three
most relevant blog posts about Ty, noting his broader dishonesty, not
just on this. Seriously? Believing Clevenger and suggesting him to me is
a grade-A way to lose.
• On Twitter, not muted as not a #NAFO, but muted conversation about these issues with a guy named Naphta.
British non-skeptical leftists seen as thick as American ones. He's
interesting otherwise, looking at his feed, so not muted period, just
the conversation.
• That said, people like him are why I'm a
skeptical leftist, as noted in the header. And, if you're skeptical of
"them" but not "us," you're not really skeptical, and you're a
contributor to twosiderism and tribalism. Per the words of St. Clair a
few years ago, in re the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, things like this
make me glad I am NOT part of "the more credulous precincts of the left."
•
Speaking of, and re Sy himself, is he actually engaged in deliberate
disinformation, ie, pro-Russia angles? Beyond Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ making
that claim, via Dick Tofel, so does Natalia Antelava
of "Disinfo Matters," a vertical of Coda Story. That said, she's
arguably guilty of disinfo herself, as I told her on Twitter. Saying the
story was "spread by ... American leftists" and linking to Max
Blumenthal without a "some" in front of "American leftists"? And, given
that Coda Story gets money from the National Endowment for Democracy? AND, that she founded it? Homie don't play that game. Actually, she's at least a "fellow traveler" herself.
• Finally, there's Hersh himself. He went on to double down, among other things with a new piece called "The Crap on the Wall."
How much crap, whose crap, and how widely apportioned it should be,
probably are in the eye of the beholder, or believer, and their degree
of tribalism, or non-tribalism.
Sy is also doubling down on the
dinero, as that's a subscriber-only piece, and everything past his
journalistic scene-setting intro, per John Helmer, is behind the paywall
screen. All subsequent articles are also paywalled, and hit the screen no more than halfway in. On one, he cites a letter from Lincoln scholar David Herbert Donald that he says is relevant to his latest, facts-light or facts tangential pieces. No doubt sort-of editor Matt Taibbi is walking him through the
details of Substack.
I don't think Sy is a "useful idiot." But I do think, like Ames et al, that he's fallen into a reflexive anti-Americanism on foreign policy that makes him a tribal twosider.
Let's not forget that Hersh DID take a bite of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory apple, then, when Butowsky tried to run with that, pushed back with something that wasn't much more than the "just asking questions" level of claim. If that. Let's look back at the original conversation.
• Speaking of Hersh's subscribers, if there's any "Crap on the Wall," per his latest piece as of Feb. 19, that would really be many of his subscribers.
I have no doubt more are continuing to come out, and if even 12-15 percent of them are all that are paid subscribers, offering him a potential $100,000 a year in income already. And, it appears that he's writing just to this end. Per John Helmer, his later pieces all have the factoids all lined up on each one, then just when you're about at the alleged meat of a piece, the paywall hits.