I read somewhere or other that this guy was making unfounded statements with no corroboration. Hersch? I think? I seem to remember that his highest ideal in life was to bugger little boys and then brag about it on the internet. I think he founded NAMBLA.

Please clean your plate, Dear
Before the folks can see ya
Don't you know people
Are starvin' in Korea
Alcohol and razorblades
Poison and needles
Kindergarden People
They used them
They need them
The over-indulgent
Machines were their children
There wasn't a way
Down on earth here to cool 'em
'Cause they looked just like humans
At Kreskys and Woolworths
But decadent brains
Were report to destroy
Rats in battalions
Were ruling the street scene
Generation landslide
Close the gap between them
And I laugh to myself
At the Man and The Lady
Who never conceived those
Billion Dollar Babies
La dot da da da
Militant mothers
Hiding in the basement
Using pots and pans
For their shields and their helmets
Molotov death bottles
And keep them in highchairs
While mothers rip and burn
Their certificate babies
Dad get his allowance
From his Son
He's a dealer
Whose tribute to the world
Was involved in highfinance
Sticking it out 'till five
Doing banker's son's hours
And she owns a Mazzeratti
That's a gift from his father
Stopped at full speed
At 100 miles per hour
The Cocaine Invisible Shield
Finally got 'em
And I laugh to myself
At the Men and The Ladies
Who never conceived those
Billion Dollar Babies
La dot da da da
Yow!----Alice Cooper 1973

What's horrifying is that I didn't immediately read this and think, "Oh, no, that can't be...."

Think of Hersh as a conduit for a certain segment of the military. I presume he wasn't undercover pretending to be a CIA assassin when he got this information. He wasn't posing as a guard at Abu Ghraib. He is given information by some segment of the establishment for some purpose.

He is protected because he's been doing this since Nixon without ending up dead or disgraced, which is what happens to real investigative reporters. Compare Hersh's career to the fellow over at the San Jose Mercury News who did that reporting on the CIA/cocaine links back in the 90s.

Hersh's work on My Lai was more of a modified limited hangout than an expose. Compare to Doug Valentine's "The Phoenix Program." In fact, if you looked at what Phoenix really was, a vast assassination/torture program across Vietnam, then this story forty years later should not be shocking at all.

Remember, at one time Bob Woodward was the shining star of investigative reporting. He was even celebrated in a movie! But he was really an inside player working for an insider newspaper with insider sources. By his own admission Deep Throat was an insider at the FBI that he met while he was working out of the Pentagon for the ONI, and I'm sure that's not half of the story. This before Woodward became a "reporter." Don't think that the structure of his insider reporting has changed over the years.

Nor has Hersh. Occasionally he'll use up some of his "progressive" chits to do a smear on John Kennedy (something needed with renewed interest of the assassination by Stone's "JFK") but mostly he's just giving us what his owners want us to know.

I suspect that this story is less than it sounds, or that someone in the power structure wants to make sure that the Bushes don't get back anywhere near power for awhile, considering how badly things have been screwed up.

There are two separate claims in Hersh's speech. One is the JSOC killing squads here, which I have no trouble whatsoever believing; it's not exactly unprecedented in U.S. history, though the scale and simultaneous global extent might be at a new high.

The other claim:

After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet.

Sadly, this is also all too plausible, though with all the other state security apparatus I wonder why the CIA would have been the ones to take that on...

Bob in Pacifica:

So you are saying that any reporter who isn't dead or disgraced is a stooge of the CIA?

Actually now that I think about it that isn't as stupid as it first sounded.

No, Seth, I'm not saying that. But thanks for asking.

It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder.

Ah, right, because... you see, it's similar to how an Iranian special forces commando killing US politicians and army men in Washington would not be considered "murderers" by anyone in his right mind, just as confused "young men" committing murders. After all, were they not well-meaning patriots who had joined the Revolutionary Guard forces to serve their country, only to be exploited by an unscrupulous rightwing government, through no moral fault of their own? Oh, it would all be VERY VERY COMPLICATED.

@Bob in Pacifica:

I had the same question reading your comment. Since being alive is not enough to disqualify someone, how can we can tell if someone is a real investigative reporter (as opposed to an establishment stooge like Sy Hersh)?

No, Seth, I'm not saying that. But thanks for asking.

Who is Hersh a stooge for, then? Your citation of "his owners" isn't specific enough.

THAT'S WHY ya join the army, is to kill somebody. And when it all boils down to bayonets, it don't really matter who.

It seems that everyone is confused about who is real and who isn't. Who can I trust and all that.

All I know is that I don't trust the founder of no NAMBLA.

You see, Syd Hersch is doing what we would normally call 'bullshitting', and that's cool and all. But if you got some evidence of some treason Syd, then come forward with it. Otherwise, please shut your filthy trap hole, and go back to releasing your filth anonymously through TMZ.

cowherder: I would hardly call making sweet sweet love buggering you jerk.

Aw shucks I didn't want to dwell about any of this in public.

Who is "Syd Hersch", and what does he have to do with NAMBLA?

When Sy Hersh was reporting on My Lai, he emphasized the individuals involved (think: Lt. Calley) and ignored/downplayed that it was part of the Phoenix Program, the CIA's assassination program in Vietnam. Mass murder is bad publicity, but mass murder as a government policy is worse. So you could look at his reporting there as a modified limited hangout.

There is a collection of essays called "The Assassinations" about the political assassinations of the sixties. (I know some people are rolling their eyes and saying "It can't happen here," but bear with me.) One section, "The Failure of the Fourth Estate," covers various angles of our media's failure in covering the assassinations. If you were around and paying attention back in the post-Watergate days you'd know that the media had hundreds of reporters directly working with the CIA, feeding leaks to the public, smearing Agency opponents, ignoring what needed to be ignored. There were similar relationships with the FBI. If you read Deborah Davis' "Katharine The Great" you'd find all sorts of interesting intelligence connections around WaPo, to include Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward. Christopher Simpson's "The Science of Coercion" surveys the incestuous relationship between the post-WWII intelligence community and the growing news media.

Within the section on "The Failure of the Fourth Estate" is an excellent essay by James DiEugenio called "The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy," and in it he demolishes a lot smears against JFK in the decades after the murder. It's pretty clear that the CIA's allies in the press were trying to destroy "Camelot" and the lingering sentimentality for JFK. The less you cared about JFK, the less you'd care about his murder. As it was, as late as when O. Stone's "JFK" came out something like nine in ten Americans didn't believe the government's version of events, as well they shouldn't.

Hersh came out with one of a wave of books trying to smear JFK. This was the typical move for a CIA operative. And he was exposed for false reporting on ABC's "20/20."

Now think about where Hersh has been getting his information regarding Iraq over the past several years, and now the information on Cheney's "death squads." Hersh didn't stand outside the kiosk in front of CIA headquarters in Langley waiting for someone to walk up and tell him the latest. Someone told him for a reason, and Hersh has gone unscathed. How come the death squad didn't come after Hersh?

We know that the NSA has been listening to reporters' phone calls, etc. In fact, it's hard to imagine that Hersh wouldn't have been blanketed for decades, legal or not, if he were operating against the system. And yet he still comes up with "scoops." It's hard for me to imagine him operating in today's world where the NSA is listening to my phone calls that they're not all over Hersh and his sources.

Which leaves us with the alternative that Hersh is operating as a conduit for some element within the government. He's been putting out stuff against Bush, against an attack on Iran. Who in the military-industrial complex would be undercutting Dubya? Dunno, but I'd suspect they are more pragmatic than the Bush/Cheney group. If I were reading tea leaves I'd look to Robert Gates and whatever group he represents. Gates spoke against bombing Iran soon after he was named to Secretary of Defense under Bush. I got the impression that he was forced on Bush. And Gates is still there. Why would Obama want Robert Gates around? I doubt that Obama had a choice in the matter. I suspect Gates represents the limits of Presidential authority in the realpolitik of today's Washington.

Gates goes back to GHW Bush and in the early nineties as DCI was active in continuing to keep critical information on the JFK assassination concealed. So that ties him with Hersh on JFK. The CIA as an institution is invested in keeping Americans from the JFK assassination because that was essentially a coup. After that the diagrams of the three branches of government all became obsolete.

I suspect that the palace intrigue in Washington is a lot more interesting than the black and white presentations we are given. There are elements in the corridors of power that align and realign, sometimes for business reasons, sometimes for personal power, sometimes because they may not be democratic but they don't want the whole thing to come crashing down. And you'll see damned little of it on the news.

If Hersh ends up like Gary Webb, fired, scorned, suicided, then I'll go back and reexamine Hersh's bona fides, but he seems to be making a living and doing just fine.

That's what I mean.

Cheney is all set to take the BIG fall for Bush, Rove, and Rummy.

"It's hard for me to imagine him operating in today's world where the NSA is listening to my phone calls that they're not all over Hersh and his sources."

Seems to me that it's only hard if you can't imagine someone contacting Hersch by writing a letter and subsequently both parties using disposable cellphones.

Hersh came out with one of a wave of books trying to smear JFK. This was the typical move for a CIA operative. And he was exposed for false reporting on ABC's "20/20."

Okay, let me see. If 'trying to smear JFK' was 'the typical move for a CIA operative,' then Noam Chomsky must also be a CIA operative. (But then, he refuses to see the proof that Bush was behind 9/11, so I guess that was obvious.) And ABC's "20/20" 'exposed [Hersh] for false reporting' (or was that false reporting on 20/20?) -- this shows that the Establishment and their tame media are behind someone like Hersh, right? Sometimes I have trouble keeping track of the labyrinthine, Laocoon-like snarls of the plots and intrigues.

What's near astonishing to me is the way all but the most paranoid consipiraphiles refuse to do the childishly easy logical jump.
If these bloodsucking demons will do that shit, with impunity, that far outside their home boundaries, what would they not do at home?

Well, the Mossad is certainly an executive assassination ring that reports directly to the prime minister, there is no oversight of any kind, and it’s been going on and on and on.

That's, probably, where they got the idea.

Man...I appreciate Bob In Pacifica's logic that anyone who reveals secrets about the government and isn't dead must be on the payroll of the government, but there are just too many people I respect who seem to be exceptions to that rule, so I don't believe it.

Its just the same old GREED&STUPIDITY, teched up, no need for ANY conspiracy theories.

I only know
Hell is getting hotter
Devil's getting smarter
All the time.---Alice Cooper.

Es-tonea-pesta: Inflating what I said doesn't make what I actually said not true. And no, writing in the comments section here does not fully cover Seymour Hersh's career. I've referred to a number of essays and books. Read them or stay uninformed on the subject.

Duncan: Noam Chomsky's at the very least bad analysis of JFK, his administration and his death in regard to the Vietnam War should be an embarrassment for his acolytes. I'd suggest you pick up a copy of Peter Dale Scott's DEEP POLITICS. Michael Parenti also went into detail on Chomsky's frequent failure to "contrast" in one of his books. JFK was not LBJ was not Nixon was not Ford was not Carter. If they were then there's no point talking about politics. Regarding those JFK smears, I advise you to read DiEugenio's essay. He dissects Hersh's work. You can see the company the smear artists keep.

Robz, do you truly think that military personnel doing top-secret dirty work are contacting Hersh without any consequences? Pretty easy to figure out, you know. And that no one would be tailing Hersh? Remember, the NSA was/is screening all cell phone calls. This isn't "The Wire" and this isn't the Baltimore Police.

I don't necessarily say that this time Hersh is giving bad information (although he has in the past, and has often given incomplete and slanted information). I'm saying that at a certain point most of us stopped believing in the tooth fairy, and forty years of getting top secret scoops and stepping on toes and surviving without some kind of protection is more than remarkable. It's unbelievable.

If these bloodsucking demons will do that shit, with impunity, that far outside their home boundaries, what would they not do at home?

That's a ridiculously obvious non-sequitur, roy.

I love the empire-rehabilitation-failures of those who are criticizing Bob in Pacifica's well-reasoned comments.

As Bob said, read the relevant materials, or stay uninformed and make uninformed comments.

The uninformed comments merely reveal to what extent the commenter is afraid to question his fundamental precepts on what the American federal government actually is, and how it actually conducts operations domestically and abroad.

Hersh = limited hangout apprentice
Chomsky = limited hangout master

Hersh and Chomsky BOTH make a good living selling YOU their brand of cereal.

Is it obvious?
What's near astonishing to me is the way all but the most paranoid conspiraphiles refuse to do the easy logical jump.
If these bloodsucking demons can do those things - have done them - that far outside their home boundaries, with impunity and resources and approval from above - what would they not be allowed to do at home? What wouldn't they be told to do here?
For the same reasons, to the same ends.
Here.
What would they not do here, where what they do out there has the center of its justification?
They're doing those heinous things to protect the interests of their masters, who live and who have families in the US.
Wouldn't the intensity of that protection increase the closer it got to the objects of its service?
How far back does this go?
Starting at least in the 1950's the US population was massively analyzed and cataloged, the data was being generated and collected everywhere, but especially in the public schools, and out of that data profiles were derived, and acted on.
Children with natural leadership especially marked out, and if they began to fit the wrong profile...
No Che, no Fidel, no Mao, no Garibaldi, no Bolivar, no Spartacus, no Luxemberg, no Villa, no Zapata, no Ghandi, no Wallace, no Jesus, no Luther, no Lorca, and ultimately, especially now when they're most needed, no Jefferson no Washington no Adams no Franklin no Paine.
The same attrition, but done cleaner and with fewer traces, before the problem arose.
Profiles mapped onto the up and coming and the full arsenal applied. And what an arsenal it is. So much easier to nip it in the bud than wait for the turmoil, and risk creating martyrs.
Martyrs last.

Is it obvious?
What's near astonishing to me is the way all but the most paranoid conspiraphiles refuse to do the easy logical jump.
If these bloodsucking demons can do those things - have done them - that far outside their home boundaries, with impunity and resources and approval from above - what would they not be allowed to do at home? What wouldn't they be told to do here?
For the same reasons, to the same ends.
Here.
What would they not do here, where what they do out there has the center of its justification?
They're doing those heinous things to protect the interests of their masters, who live and who have families in the US.
Wouldn't the intensity of that protection increase the closer it got to the objects of its service?
How far back does this go?
Starting at least in the 1950's the US population was massively analyzed and cataloged, the data was being generated and collected everywhere, but especially in the public schools, and out of that data profiles were derived, and acted on.
Children with natural leadership especially marked out, and if they began to fit the wrong profile...
No Che, no Fidel, no Mao, no Garibaldi, no Bolivar, no Spartacus, no Luxemberg, no Villa, no Zapata, no Ghandi, no Wallace, no Jesus, no Luther, no Lorca, and ultimately, especially now when they're most needed, no Jefferson no Washington no Adams no Franklin no Paine.
The same attrition, but done cleaner and with fewer traces, before the problem arose.
Profiles mapped onto the up and coming and the full arsenal applied. And what an arsenal it is. So much easier to nip it in the bud than wait for the turmoil, and risk creating martyrs.
Martyrs last.

When did ATR become tinfoil hat central? Christ.

What's a "paranoid conspiraphile"?

Prosecutors who investigate criminal conspiracies are conspiracy theorists. Perhaps there should have been more conspiracy theorists overseeing Wall Street over the last decade when Clinton/Bush regulators wore happy faces. Or over the S&L collapse in the 80s.

If you have an inquisitive mind you see something, you consider how this something came about, and then you put your theory to the test.

People do work together in illegal and immoral ways to commit crimes, folks. It's like the old saw about religion. Everyone's an atheist except for their own religion. So what criminal conspiracies are you willing to believe?

Let's start here: Why would anyone overthrow a foreign government? To make money. So if the CIA spent the last half century overthowing governments around the world, for example, to make money for the interests that they represent in the military-industrial complex, why would they stop their killing ways at the border when the big money is made here in the USA? And if they did overthrow a President who was suggesting that the CIA be torn up into a thousand pieces, after they did that deed would they just "go back into their barracks" and let democracy take its course?

The town cryer did not make his living badmouthing the authorities. From the beginning of history those in power have always tried to censor and control the news. Go back and read George Seldes' 1943 book FACTS AND FASCISM to find out how the news media in the US was in WWII. And it's gone downhill since then. Read THE SCIENCE OF COERCION to see how the intelligence community and the post-war US media worked and grew together. Think of all the think tanks who churn out conventional wisdom for our plates every day. Geez, even the National Enquirer was created by an "ex" CIA propagandist (Generoso Pope). Then read a few articles about the widespread effect of all those reporters with CIA ties who were exposed during the post-Watergate Congressional investigations.

If you are part of the coup and your currency is secrecy and disinformation how do you deal with liberals/progressives in a post-assassination world? First, you tell them that to believe in conspiracies is "paranoid." And that "conspiracy theorists" are reactionaries. You conflate believing in little green men with believing in assassination plots. You see, believing that powerful interests murder is akin to discarding the laws of physics and the speed of light. There, liberals can now be assured that believing in conspiracies is both a mental disease and bad politics and something to laugh at and make fun of, and liberals are too smart and sane to believe that.

Except that people will still believe in conspiracies, so you tailor your message to each group on the political spectrum. And you get leaders and spokespeople and reporters to target each slivver of the political spectrum. Get a Gloria Steinem from your propaganda mill and set her loose with a brand of feminism that is divisive to liberal coalitions, for ex. And it always works like a charm. Divide and conquer. It works in Guatemala. It works in the USA.

If you refuse to consider that Hersh may just be another propaganda tool then maybe you're not cynical enough. And that would be something here at ATR.

Things I learned from reading Bob's comments on ATR

1 - There are no atheists.

2 - You are an ignorant boob if you haven't read everything Bob has read.

3 - Powerful world-spanning interests are desperately afraid of "liberals/progressives." Especially those who leave comments on blogs.

4 - Hersh, Chomsky and other writers who don't support what Bob supports are government disinformation CIA stooges.

5 - The only way you can be sure an investigative reporter is on the level is if s/he has been assassinated by government black ops special forces using alien technology gleaned from crashed saucers and Bigfoot.

Bob in Pacifica: The difference between U&I is what YOU see as conspiracy, I see as the natural order of human civilization. All the pushing, shoving, lies, lack of satisfaction with what they have, the scratching and grabbing for what is foolish, all normal. Perhaps YOU don't see YOUR OWN hand in the matter so it appears to YOU as someone elses conspiracy, the work of some all knowing master planner. In reality its just a group of stupid people exercising their greed and lies upon the greed of other stupid people. WE are ALL prone to the same actions, its the natural order of the human condition. There is no master plan. If there were, WE would ALREADY know the Master Planner and the plan would have been completed long ago. WE ALL spew some form of propaganda because our lies to ourselves say WE will benefit some how from our greed.

Mike Meyer --

1) where did Bob in Pacifica talk about "conspiracy"?

2) why do you use "conspiracy" as a term of denigration? most team sports are played with a conspiratorial perspective. does that make the teams' players equal to tinfoil hat moonbats?

3) if federal RICO legislation endorses the notion of "conspiracy" and even provides punishment for it, what is to denigrate in the concept of "conspiracy"?

++++++++++++++

Since "Alan Smithee" is a pseudonym used by movie people who don't want to be personally identified with a project they don't approve of, it seems that the "Alan Smithee" here isn't offering much worth considering.

++++++++++++++

The other comments of those who seek to deify The Barockstar Obamiracle and deny the reality that unfolds before the inquisitive and curious (those who bother researching what we're told by the infotainment media)... well, they're just more Alan Smithee-ism. Amusing, but for the wrong reasons... and pitiable in their wrongness.

I was going to read those books, Bob, but then I couldn't figure why I should trust anything more professional than a mimeographed sheet of paper being handed out in front of an anarchist collective. Besides, have those authors all been assassinated? Otherwise, they're probably just government stooges.

I suspect that flaming assholes like micah make fun of my name so they won't have to deal with it when I call them on their bullshit.

OTOH, it's entirely possible that micah is just a flaming asshole.

The flaming asshole is among the most severe proctological disorders, beating out anal fissures and rectovaginal fistula. Surprisingly, Google Images does retrieve a result for "flaming asshole."

of course there's nothing to say in response to me or Bob but a deflection formed from failed proto-humor. of course. this was expected. I know. you trade on Schwarz's humor, coat-tail style, and in doing so assume you possess his comic gift.

swell.

I don't understand where there's this dynamic disagreement between myself and alleged "anti-conspiracy" theorists here. I mean, people here actually think that people get together and do bad things, right? You know, conspiracies.

Has the CIA and the military used the media to promote its point of view and spread disinformation? Really, anyone disagree with that?

Has the CIA overthrown governments and put regimes into power that have favored American corporate interests? A show of hands, please.

So what are we arguing about here? If it's whether or not to trust Hersh, well, I guess that's up to each of us. I see things in his career that suggest that he's got friends in high places leaking to him and that his work seems to be helping the interests of a segment of the ruling class. Where is he getting this information? If you think that he's always right on target and gets his information only from disgruntled underlings and he isn't representing interests within the government, then I'm happy for you. My 83 year-old mother swears by FOX News. We all need something to believe in.

Twenty or thirty years ago people swore by Jack Anderson. Really. And every power broker in Washington, DC was feeding him information so that he'd repeat it and their POV was out there in the public.

How about Bob Woodward? After Watergate he was the personification of investigative reporting. He seems pretty cozy in the corridors of power now. How surprising to find out that he first met Deep Throat when he was working out of the Pentagon for the Office of Naval Intelligence. Or that his hard-hitting editor Ben Bradlee worked out of the CIA office in Paris spreading propaganda to sell the Rosenbergs' execution to Europeans. Maybe if his history were known then finding Woodward sitting in Bush's lap at the invasion of Iraq would have been more easily graphed. Just saying. But that would have required you to have Deborah Davis' book to know that.

Mike, I'm not sure that conspiracy is not part of the "natural order of human civilization." Isn't every civilization, every government, at some level a con game to divide the resources unequally? When the Pharoah and his inner circle spear carriers had people live and die dragging rocks to build pyramids was there not some big lie presented to the hoi polloi to engender their cooperation? Big lies have always been part of civilization. At the beginning of this country all men were created equal. Are we there yet? Are we any closer?

Upside Down Flag, I never said all all truthtellers have been assassinated. You exaggerate and then pin me with your exaggeration. A lot of good investigative reporters have been marginalized, though. You have heard of George Seldes, right? Christopher Simpson? No? Maybe they were marginalized to the point where you haven't heard of them.

AlanSmithee, I am an atheist, so you misunderstood what I wrote there. If you haven't read what I suggested you aren't necessarily an ignorant boob. But if you question what I say and you refuse to look at my sources, then why argue with me? Isn't that proclaiming that you insist on being uninformed?

I'm not sure what all the hostility is here is all about. Theory is theory. The JFK assassination? Bob Gates admitted to Congress in 1992 that someone was impersonating Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City seven weeks before JFK's assassination. Pretty fascinating for a nothing loner to be impersonated in another country, eh? On the same day there was an Oswald in the Dallas area and yet a third Oswald in New Orleans. Never mind that there were two stateside Lee Harvey Oswalds, why was someone pretending to be a violent Communist LH Oswald in Mexico City trying to get in touch with the Cubans and Soviets seven weeks before the assassination? And what kind of intellect would not question that? Tell me, if you own that intellect. And what do you do after that information? Just go back to saying that everything in Washington would just turn around if we got a Nader in the White House? What kind of belief system is that?

You're playing chess with parcheesi rules, folks.

I was just trying to lighten things up. And I didn't post the fistula pictures.

A fact for which we are all profoundly grateful.

Bob & micah: Just to be Biblical, ever since Nimrod and The Tower of Babel there has been some sort of "Conquer The World Club" somewhere on planet earth. As of St. Patrick's Day, 2009, the whole several thousand year effort looks, shall WE be blunt, pretty shitty and half assed. SURE, I'll agree that STUPID&GREEDY people 'conspire', plan their stupid plans in the hopes of satisfying their endless greed, but as of Tuesday, to me, they just look STUPID, they just look GREEDY. NONE look like world conquers. (latest examples---George Bush, Dick Cheney, et.al.)

You're abso-tootly-ootly right, Bob! How could ANYONE know ANYTHING about Bad Back Jack's assassination unless they've seen Oliver Stone's JFK at least five times? There's no possible way! And there's no possibility of intelligently discussing cooking unless one had read the Betty Crocker Easy Microwave Cookbook. That should be obvious to everyone! And people who talk about the stock market are ignoramuses unless they've seen Trading Places. It would be silly. Obviously.

AlanSmithee, again you set up a straw man to knock down. I didn't say you had to see "JFK" at all. My only reference to the movie, way back up in this thread, was that a wave of anti-JFK books came out after the JFK movie, and that many of the authors, according to the James DiEugenio essay "The Failure Of The Fourth Estate", used CIA sources or were CIA assets and that this wave of books put out a lot of disinformation. Within that wave was Hersh's book. Surely if you took the time to read what I wrote you understood what I said. So your response here is disingenuous.

Let me state this one more time: Someone was impersonating Lee Harvey Oswald seven weeks before the assassination. This was confirmed by DCI Robert Gates in 1992 in explaining why he was withholding documents from Congress about the assassination. There are photos of the impersonator. He doesn't look anything like LHO. I bet you can google it. The CIA had the photos in their possession when it happened. Another Lee Harvey Oswald was in Texas visiting the daughter of an anti-Castro leader. A third Oswald was with his wife in New Orleans. All on the same day in September 1963.

Now we all know that you are making a conscious decision that you do not want to know why there are so many people trying to impersonate a nobody who happens to kill a President two months later. That's what you're telling us. You don't want to know. But I want to know. I want to know how come you want to remain ignorant. You sound suspiciously like someone who doesn't want to hear about dinosaurs because it conflicts with his understanding of the Bible. Or Alexander Cockburn or Noam Chomsky or the editorial page of the New York Times, in whatever direction you genuflect.

It threatens your belief system.

Mike, I'm not sure what kind of response there is to that. Yes, I agree that people have been trying to conquer the world for a long time and that it's greedy and while I wouldn't necessarily call them stupid I think that whatever their ultimate goal is that they expect to reach in conquering that they won't get there. However, they and their loved ones will probably stay in better hotels along their highway to hell.

In any case, if there was a coup in the removal of JFK, you know, sort of like what was tried early on in FDR's Presidency only more violent, then much of the last fifty years would be explained in a different light. Now the sameness of the outcomes of Democratic and Republican administrations would be better explained. There would be a more direct route to our military adventurism.

And if the CIA continued to have lots of people doing their work in the media over the last fifty years even after they were exposed in Congressional hearings in the 1970s, well then it might explain Hersh's career path.

But if we're all so comfortable with how things are, then why should we care to look?

+++

Suggested reading: Flannery O'Connor's short story, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

Bob in Pacifica: I believe the BILLY SOL ESTES Theory. That Billy Sol, a Lyndon Johnson Contributor and possible business partner, fearing Federal Investigation and involving LBJ over fraudlently morgaged Anhydrous Ammonia Tanks, hired Oswald and a Max Williams (grassy knoll) as shooters, and Ruby for cleanup. Just like YOU I don't have a stitch of PROOF.

Oh noes! Bob is threatening all my cherished beliefs with his cool radical JFK assassination theory! (BTW, you forgot the one in Mexico City the CIA said was LHO that didn't even look like LHO.)

But then, you're abso-tootly-ootly right in all ways and forms Bob. There's just no point in discussing the topic until we've all read everything you've read and interpret it the way you interpret it and then, I dunno, you become King of the Wicker People or something. Whatev.

Ah, but Mike, I have logic on my side. Why would Billy Sol Estes hire two other Oswalds to frame the guy who he hired to do such an amazing shooting job? And what was Oswald's motivation? Was he a corrupt Texas hitman or a crazy Commie like the guy impersonating him in Mexico? But go ahead and keep that head in the sand. It seems important to stay away from the possibility of a coup in 1963. That's why the CIA keeps fighting to keep its files on the case from the public eye. Must be those strong ties with Billy Sol.

AlanSmithee, you seem to be backing down from discussing this, and it's reasonable because you are uninformed on the subject. If you want a list of books to read, feel free to ask. But I suspect you are determined to remain ignorant on the subject. You feel safer that way.

There's nothing particularly "cool" about discussing the JFK assassination. For the last forty-five years the media have uniformly ridiculed the idea that Kennedy's murder was an inside job. Some people have absorbed the message and just love to spit it out at every opportunity. It's not cool at all. But I was alive and cognizant when it happened. It's a murder mystery with consequences. I have a curious mind. I want to know what happened to myh country.

Your clownish responses are defense mechanisms. Your are suddenly on unfamiliar turf, you find you have a strong belief against something and yet find yourself with few facts to back it up. So you attack by acting the fool. Whatever, indeed.

Well Bob, by way of a clownish response, let me just suggest that you take all the books on the sixteen page bibliography, stack them all end to end, and ram them right up your smug, self-righteous, paranoid ass. Alphabetically, if you prefer.

Galileo once said, you cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

It'd be nice if trolls were receptive to being a little educated... but that's not why they troll.

Bob, I think Alan made it perfectly clear that he prefer his delusions. Don't waste your time.