In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce an American investigative journalist and political writer, Seymour "Sy" Hersh. His recent article suggested that the Nord Stream bombing is connected to the US, Sweden and Norway and that it was ordered by no other than Joe Biden.
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Let's begin with the obvious: Hersh is an accomplished journalist whose reporting is widely known around the world. His first big story was exposing the 1969 My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War.
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In the 70s, he covered the Watergate scandal and in 2004 he reported on the torture and abuse of prisoners taking place in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. He's won 5 George Polk awards, a Pulitzer price and two National Magazine Awards.
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But, then there's the other stuff. The kind of journalism that doesn't bear scrutiny.
In Sep, 2013, Hersh said in an interview that the death of Osama Bin Laden was "one big lie, not one word of it is true". In 2015 he published his own take on what happened in an ...
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... article called "The Killing of Osama bin Laden". He suggested that Pakistan had detained Bin Laden and both the Pakistani and the US governments knew about the attack beforehand. It was widely criticized by reporters, media commentators, academics and US official.
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In Dec, 2013,London Review of Books published Hersh's article "Whose Sarin?".The article was previously rejected by both New Yorker & Washington Post. In his story,Seymour claimed that the US had used "cherry picked intel" to justify military attacks on pro-al-Assad troops.
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Various chemical weapons experts were critical at the time, and latest OPCW report concluded that the "reasonable grounds" exist to believe that the Syrian Government was behind these attacks.
In 2017, Welt am Sonntag published Sy's article "Trump's Red Line"...
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..., which suggested that the US intel had not informed President Trump that "it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon". Bellingcat called Hersh's reporting "sloppy" as he based the case on tiny number of anonymous sources.
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Regarding 9/11, Hersh has said in an interview that he doesn't "necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11." Then he continued: "We really don't have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. ...
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... We don't know anything empirical about who did what."
Seymour's also been skeptical of the Skripal poisoning, saying that "the story of novichok poisoning has not held up very well. He [Skripal] was most likely talking to British intelligence services about Russian...
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... organised crime". He suggested that the poisoning was coming from organized crime rather than being state-sponsored.
Hersh is known for often using anonymous sources. He's also been criticized for this, and for example investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein and...
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... activist Amir Taheri have said that he is "over-reliant" on them. Taheri said that "by my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government".
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In his story on Bin Laden, Hersh referred a 55 times to an "anonymous retired senior intelligence official". Vox's Max Fisher have stated that "Hersh has appeared increasingly to have gone off the rails. His stories, often alleging vast and shadowy conspiracies, ...
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... have made startling-& often internally inconsistent- accusations,based on little or no proof beyond a handful of anonymous 'officials'".Slate's James Kirchick stated that "Hersh's problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoever toward what his crank sources tell him"14/20
Hersh has defended his style of reporting, and has said that he may change details when he's giving speeches: "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people. I can't fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."
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Hersh "fudged" facts in his 2004 speech about the Abu Ghraib scandal, where he alleged that American troops had sodomized young boys and that the whole thing was recorded. In a later interview, he said that his statement "wasn't that inaccurate, but it was misstated".
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I have read Hersh's article on Nord Stream. It's a highly detailed blog post, describing the planning and the execution of the operation in detail.
Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) has researched Hersh's story on the Nord Stream bombing.
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Based on him and the OSINT evidence he's gathered, the story is full of holes and inaccuracies. One example:Hersh stated that a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter was used in the operation, but in reality the Alta hasn't been used since 2012 and was being scrapped at the time.18/20
The reasons why Hersh has resorted to sloppy journalism can only be guessed. Maybe he wants to stay relevant? Maybe it's the money?
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Either way, he should realize that his pieces riddled with dis- and misinformation are used as propaganda tools - On 15th of Feb, 2023, TASS reported that Russia requests UNSC meeting over the Nord Stream sabotage. Hersh has no plans to speak at the event if it occurs.
Addendum: Amir Taheri whom I referred in the report seems to be mixed in several controversial cases, too. The whole case seems to be a kind of "the pot calling the kettle black" scenario. I would disregard Taheri's comments on this matter.
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In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Wagner Group, its founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, and the mutiny they started on 23 Jun 2023. The event marked the climax of the Wagner Group–Russian MoD conflict, and finally led to the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin.
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Wagner has been used in many conflicts around the world, but they came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in 2014-2015. Wagnerites helped the Donbas separatists fight against the Ukrainians during the conflict, which helped Putin to “outsource” the insurrection.
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The group doesn’t have any central ideology, but many of its members and leaders have ties to various neo—Nazi movements in Russia. For example, Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin had several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo—nazi group Rusich has also fights as part of Wagner.
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In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Amsterdam-based propaganda channel, Bonanza Media (@bonanzamedia2). It’s best-known for producing & spreading online pro-Kremlin propaganda videos while closely coordinating & collaborating with the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
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Russian intelligence has been extremely active in the Netherlands for a long time. For example in 2018, four GRU agents were caught while trying to hack into OPCW,an organization that monitors the use of chemical weapons. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
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…and the MH17 investigation have become targets for the Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. These operations are often complemented with “investigative journalism” media outlets, that often echo the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.
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But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.
Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
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In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss a specific propaganda/disinformation that the Kremlin likes to use – antisemitism. I also talk about how the Russian society itself has become riddled with antisemitism & how this has led to a decrease in Jewish population in the country.
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Russian antisemitism works on many levels, and their narratives vary depending whether they’re targeting a local audience or people in Europe and the US. For example for the latter, Russia attempts to create a false narrative of Ukraine being an antisemitic “Nazi state”.
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But before diving deeper, let’s look at a survey data of Russians in 2023: Nearly 30 million Russians harbour antisemitic attitudes, and 15% of those surveyed believed that “Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% think that the Jews have...
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian media personality and propagandist, Diana Panchenko (@Panchenko_X). She’s best-known for betraying her own country by peddling anti-Zelenskyy and anti-Ukraine propaganda and disinformation for the Kremlin.
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Panchenko was born in 1988 in the Mykolaev Oblast in Ukrainian SSR in 1988. She studied publishing and editing at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in law.
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After graduating, Diana worked briefly for the news site . Between 2010 and 2015, Panchenko was a presenter for KyivTV, but she found her true calling as a pro-Kremlin propagandist after she was hired by a national “news channel” called NewsOne.