Seymour Hersh on North Korea, Syria, and Proliferation
Speaking of Syria and what the hell actually happened there, there’s a detailed new piece of investigative journalism that prints out to eight pages, and which will do virtually nothing to answer that question but does pick at the scabs of the various theories articulated in this factual vacuum (Here’s a run-down of those theories; here’s one more). I will tell you up front that I have some major problems with this piece:
2. Its main criticism is that David Albright — yes, you heard me right — hyped the intelligence (satellite photos of the site). As delicious an irony as that may be, anyone familiar with Albright’s work knows that his default position is to question any suspicion of North Korean perfidy. Now, I haven’t examined the photos behind Albright’s inculpatory claim — which he still pronounces to be no deal-breaker — and there are plenty of reasons to question his exculpatory claims. But charging David Albight with war-mongering neo-connery climbs as steep a logical slope as a paternity suit against Richard Simmons.
3. The stuff about the movements of that mysterious ship that docked in Tartus — unpersuasive. I wish I could find the New York Times link I’m remembering, but the job of tracking a ship that can easily change flags and identities in a crowded sea of moving specks is much harder than Hersh makes it sound. [Update: Never did find that link, but I did find this one and this one, and thanks to the reader who helpfully offered this as well.]
4. Hersh has assembled a fine collection of contradictory Syrian statements, including the claim that it was actually — psst — a chemical weapons plant. This must be the guiltiest denial I’ve ever heard.
5. In the end, Hersh can’t even get any of the Israelis, or anyone else, to go on record saying what was really there. The Israelis insist that it was real, whatever it was. The only thing Hersh seems to concede is that there were a lot of North Koreans working on something mysterious in the Syrian desert. That would be enough for me to launch an air strike, which is why you should thank your creator that I’m just a blogger.