AN expose seemed to indicate a glaring error on United States President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Syria recently in response to allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian military.
The difference this time is that the revelation was published by a foreign news outlet with the writer being a famous American journalist, who previously faced no problems getting his story out in the local media. His story was published by the German newspaper Die Welt.
I’m talking about Seymour Hersh, a news titan who came to prominence after reporting the My Lai massacre, where a group of American soldiers went on a rampage, killing about 500 unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War in 1968.
Years later, in 2004, Hersh again provoked an outcry after exposing US military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison — a case of new jailors repeating old policies.
The question is why the American mainstream media, including The New York Times which employed Hersh in its Washington bureau from 1972 to 1975, declined to publish his latest expose about the White House action after Syria’s widely-reported sarin attack against civilians.
Are they scared of being accused of peddling fake news by Trump, and so, do not get special access to the White House, or are they simply okay with the decision to bomb other countries without enough evidence, again?
Or, are they actually running scared after CNN accepted the resignations of three journalists involved in a story about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting involving a Trump associate with the head of a Russian investment fund?
Perhaps, the American news media outlets are trying to avoid being a target of Trump’s tweet.
It is no secret that Trump loves to tweet and in his response to the CNN decision, he wrote: “Wow, CNN had to retract big story on ‘Russia’, with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!”
Later, he added: “Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing phony Russian stories. Ratings way down!”
The president also continued his attack, tweeting: “So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC? What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost? They are all Fake News!”
The fake news industry came about when Trump first uttered those two words early in his presidency. In his opinion, the media is unfairly insinuating that something is “not kosher” with him having close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So far, no tweet about Hersh’s expose, yet.
Hersh reported that the alleged chemical attack in Idlib, Syria, in March was not perpetrated by the Syrian military as the White House claimed, quoting from a high-level adviser to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA).
Hersh shredded the official narrative of the chemical attack by reporting that the Syrian army bombing had actually targeted a senior jihadists’ meeting using conventional munitions.
Syria, via Russia, also warned the US government before the strike, which hit a facility that may have stored chemicals, including chlorine and fertiliser, that produced a deadly cloud as well as symptoms in victims which could be mistaken as a sarin attack.
I doubt anybody will press the present Oval Office occupant to admit that he should not have resorted to launching 59 missiles at Syria in response to the alleged Idlib “chemical attack”, despite Hersh revealing the circumstances by quoting US military officials and others in the intelligence community, who believe it was not a chemical attack by the Syrian government.
“Terror”, “terrorism” and “terrorists” are three favourite words since 9/11, given as excuse for equally-violent counter responses. Yet, with all the billions spent tackling the menace, spearheaded by the world’s sole superpower, we are no closer to ending it.
Instead, we are faced with more conflicts. For years and years, Fisk has warned Western countries, especially the US, that there will be consequences if they continue their interventionist foreign policies.
His warning hit home when violence erupted in Boston, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, London, Manchester, Stockholm, Berlin and Nice, if counting the last four years. It does not matter that Osama bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda no longer influential.
The rise of Daesh only shows that groups evolve and become a new threat.
Substituting Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, together with tension brewing among Gulf nations, and war zones erupting across Arab countries, the world is gripped by uncertainty.
Is the era of the peacemakers over? There seems to be a paralysis of sorts when it comes to peacemaking efforts.
Hersh’s latest expose do not bode well in that respect.
The writer is BH features & op-ed editor