TYT: Seymour Hersh Talks Treason And Syria

[WhoIsNumberNone]

Legendary journalist Seymour Hersh has published a new story on how the US government has dealt with ISIS. The story has some very interesting revelations. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"Journalist Seymour Hersh's new report on contradictions between President Obama and the US military regarding rebels in Syria was a bombshell. Hersh spoke with RT about the US military's view of Syria's Bashar Assad and Obama's relationship with Turkey.

Writing for the London Review of Books, Hersh reported that, in a classified document from Summer 2013, the highest echelons of the US military establishment outlined their opposition to the Obama administration’s strategy of arming so-called "moderate" rebels to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. From 2013 to September 2015, in an effort to truly counter extremists in Syria, US military leaders fed US intelligence to Russia, Germany, and Israel, which then sent it to Assad, he reported.”*

Read more here: https://www.rt.com/usa/327386-hersh-interview-syria-rebels/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Good analysis by Cenk....

I wonder how many of those rogue generals are being advised on the side by the PNAC crowd.

No doubt some of them could even be birthers.

[Unknown Beatle]

2. Spitfire, that's one of my fears.

That we have high ranking radical extremists running the pentagon, and we already know that's true about both houses of congress.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. The idiot pundits are no doubt using the MacArthur comparison....

Firing Douglas MacArthur caused Truman's approval rating to plummet to the lowest ever recorded.

What they will fail to recognize is people don't give a crap about these Bozos.

[Blue_Tires]

4. So I guess Hersh's bullshit chemical weapons story

is down the memory hole?? Nobody is allowed to ask him about that or any of the other outrageous fairytales he's been spinning?

Funny how that happens....

[jamzrockz]

5. Wait a minute

If all this started as a result of US govt attempt to regime change, does it mean that the stories of the protest that started all this being violent from the start is true? does it mean that the Syria govt did not go around killing Saudi sponsored peaceniks who just wanted democracy and instead were killing hardcore jihadists who went about killing policemen, burning police stations and terrorizing civilians?

Oh well, thank God that there are some people in govt who still have courage to defy a criminal order, Sad but what Cenk is saying is that people should always follow orders made by govts in a democracy.

Btw, if anyone follows the coverage from liveleak, they would know that it has been public for a long time now that the US govt was sending weapons to Al Qaeda and ISIS. Finally, hope this is more proof that the war in Syria has nothing to do with climate change no matter what the people at the pentagon and the CIA says it is. This was a planned takeover of a country just like it was done in Libya.

[redgreenandblue]

6. Treason? Maybe. Maybe not.

Here is the thing: If it is treason then it is upon the president to make that case. He was the one who was betrayed
after all.

If, as it is pointed out in the video, he is unwilling to do so because he fears that he cannot "win" this in the public forum, then too bad.

If an elected official gives an order, and the order is disobeyed, and the elected official is unwilling to follow up by invoking the channels for dealing with this, out of fear that the public who elected him might also disagree with the order, then perhaps the order should not have been followed.

I think this is as much a part of democracy as the chain of command. The generals took a great risk in doing this, but if the president is afraid to take this issue to the public then they have the right of it. That's how the game is played.

[geek tragedy]

7. You don't understand how democracy works.

Generals usurping power from the elected government is the worst thing that can happen to a democracy.

Fortunately, this never happened as Hersh is a fiction writer not a journalist.

[redgreenandblue]

8. Even if it did not happen, as a hypothetical it is interesting.

My understanding is that in a democracy "the power of the governing derives from the consent of the governed" and yadda yadda. In other words, the president is elected to represent the will of the public.

The case referred to in the OP aside (I believe you that it did not happen), lets assume some president makes a decision which, while technically legal, is so out of line with the will of the public, that he knows he will get shredded in the public forum if it comes to a debate. Let's assume it is something so severe that it will likely lead to impeachment.

And now assume that generals refuse to act in accordance with said decision. Technically it is treason, or at least insubordination, depending on the details.

The question is who failed at their job in this case.

As far as I am concerned, if said president, under no physical threat whatsoever and in full control of all the mechanisms to remove these generals from their positions after the fact and to bring forward charges against them, fears the public forum so much that he is afraid to come forward with treason charges, then treason did not happen. In such a case, the president has strayed so far from his purpose that the actions of the generals represented the will of the public much more closely.

[geek tragedy]

9. How would you separate a case of a president being afraid to call out treason for public relations

reasons vs one afraid to cross a politically activist military that sees itself as above the law?