Seymour Hersh's Other Reality

The American Thinker ^ | November 3rd, 2006 | Ray Robison

[shoptalk]

Seymour Hersh reportedly has claimed at a recent speaking event in Montreal that,

“In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation,” he said. “It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you – there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.”

To make his point he, tells of an incident regarding US forces under an IED attack, a common accordance in Iraq. Only this time according to Hersh, the soldiers got out of the vehicles and started mowing down innocents on a soccer field:

He described one video in which American soldiers massacre a group of people playing soccer.

“Three U.S. armed vehicles, eight soldiers in each, are driving through a village, passing candy out to kids,” he began. “Suddenly the first vehicle explodes, and there are soldiers screaming. Sixteen soldiers come out of the other vehicles, and they do what they’re told to do, which is look for running people.”

“Never mind that the bomb was detonated by remote control,” Hersh continued. “[The soldiers] open up fire; [the] cameras show it was a soccer game.”

“About ten minutes later, [the soldiers] begin dragging bodies together, and they drop weapons there. It was reported as 20 or 30 insurgents killed that day,” he said.

Now in researching his other recent allegations about our soldiers in the stylistic vain of John Murtha, I stumbled upon another description of this event by Hersh. In a New York Magazine profile subtitled “Sy Hersh’s Loose Relationship with the Literal Truth,” Hersh describes his writing ethics versus his public speaking ethics.

“Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people,” Hersh told me. “I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”

And

“I find that totally not inconsistent with anything I do professionally. I’m just communicating another reality that I know, that for a lot of reasons having to do with, basically, someone else’s ass, I’m not writing about it.”

I must say he certainly can fudge what he says. For in this same article he describes the same soccer field incident as he did Wednesday in Montreal.

He tells me a long tale of the ghastly killing of some Iraqi civilians by U.S. soldiers. He frames his account as a hypothetical set piece,

“You’re a soldier on a patrol . . . and you see people running, and you open fire, okay? . . . Maybe they were bad guys, but then they run into a soccer game.” He gradually modulates the story to its climax: “You’re a bunch of young kids. And so maybe you pull the bodies together and you drop RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and you take some photographs about it because you’re afraid you’re gonna be investigated. And maybe somebody there tells me about what happened.”

Now let’s compare the two stories both centered on a soccer field atrocity and accompanied by the planting of weapons, obviously the same incident unless soccer players are just staggeringly unlucky in Iraq.

[alloysteel]

Parallel universes DO exist.

What puzzles me, is how Seymour Hersh steps back and forth between them so easily.

If we had access to THAT technology, think of the possibilities that would be opened up.

[kublia khan]

Hersh has been a leader in the tin foil hat mafia for years. He is nothing more then comic relief to those who are over qualified for John Carry's army.

[JimSEA]

“In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation,” he said. “It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you – there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.”

This is exactly what Democrats like Kennedy, Kerry, Murtha and company actually think of our troops. Hersh lead the liberal charge on the Vietnam vets just as he is leading the charge today. Today there are far fewer Democrats who might disagree with Hersh. VOTE to stop the Democrats.

[Williams]

First, I doubt our soldiers are taught to shoot everyone who is running after a terror bomb goes off. Second, I think that after an explosion soccer players are not running around playing soccer, they are diving for cover. The Seymour Hersh story sounded bizarre and I would like to know where he got it from, where is the documentation.

And even after it sounding like a made up, exaggerated story, he is describing the immediate aftermath of a terror attack in which a US vehicle is blown up. How would that scenario prove our troops have become evil murderers? And why wouldn't one blame the terrorists?

[hsalaw]

Set aside the fact Hersh is clearly unhinged, why does he we're so unhinged as to believe that right after the detonation of an explosive device, all the bystanders are suddenly? still? once again? playing soccer? Why wouldn't they be taking cover? Why wouldn't they at least pay attention to the explosion? What color is the sky on Hersh's planet?

[Redbob]

Seymour is just trying to distract folks from Kerry's horrendously stupid remarks.

[Swiss]

I have seen troops attack people playing soccer, it was in the movie "Michael Collins".

I think Hersh has confused the movies with reality.

[Night Hides Not]

Morpheus must have let Hersh out of "The Matrix".

[RJL]

I’m just communicating another reality that I know, that for a lot of reasons having to do with, basically, someone else’s ass, I’m not writing about it.”

No doubt Seymour Hersh saves the "other reality" stories for when he has to protect our enemies.

[aculeus]

Hersh is the bottom of the barrel.

[Steve_Seattle]

What we're doing in Iraq is more violent than dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or fire-bombing Dresden? Hersh is nuts. But as long as what you say is anti-Bush, the MSM let's you skate. Its vaunted "critical spirit" is nowhere in evidence.

[Steve_Seattle]

" . . . over-qualified for John Carry's army."

I do believe it's Jon Carry.