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Potent Images
Still, whether credible or not, these social-media images had a potent propaganda effect. Hersh writes that within hours of watching the gruesome photos on TV -- and before he had received any U.S. intelligence corroboration -- Trump told his national security aides to plan retaliation against Syria. According to Hersh, it was an evidence-free decision, except for what Trump had seen on the TV shows.
The photograph released by the White House of President Trump meeting with his advisers at his estate in Mar-a-Lago on April 6, 2017, regarding his decision to launch missile strikes against Syria.
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Hersh quotes one U.S. officer who, upon learning of the White House decision to "retaliate" against Syria, remarked: "We KNOW that there was no chemical attack ... the Russians are furious -- claiming we have the real intel and know the truth..."
A similar event had occurred on Aug. 21, 2013, outside Damascus -- and although the available evidence now points to a "false-flag" provocation pulled off by the jihadists to trick the West into mounting a full-fledged assault on Assad's military, Western media still blames that incident on Assad, too.
In the Aug. 21, 2013 case, social media also proved crucial in creating and pushing the Assad-did-it narrative. On Aug. 30, 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry pinned the responsibility on Assad no fewer than 35 times, even though earlier that week National Intelligence Director James Clapper had warned President Obama privately that Assad's culpability was "not a slam dunk."
Kerry was fond of describing social media as an "extraordinarily useful tool," and it sure did come in handy in supporting Kerry's repeated but unproven charges against Assad, especially since the U.S. government had invested heavily in training and equipping Syrian "activists" to dramatize their cause. (The mainstream media also has ignored evidence that the jihadists staged at least one chlorine gas attack. And, as you may recall, President George W. Bush also spoke glowingly about the value of "catapulting the propaganda.")
Implications for U.S.-Russia
To the extent Hersh's account finds its way into Western corporate media, most likely it will be dismissed out of hand simply because it dovetails with Moscow's version of what happened and thus is, ipso facto, "wrong."
Russian President Vladimir Putin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 10, 2015, at the Kremlin.
(Image by (Photo from Russian government)) Details DMCA
But the Russians (and the Syrians) know what did happen -- and if there really was no sarin bombing -- they recognize Trump's reckless resort to Tomahawks and the subsequent attempts to cover up for the President. All this will have repercussions.
This is as tense a time in U.S-Russian relations as I can remember from my five decades of experience watching Russian defense and foreign policy. It is left to the Russians to figure out which is worse: a President controlled by "his generals" or one who is so out of control that "his generals" are the ones who must restrain him.
With Russia reiterating its threat to target any unannounced aircraft flying in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates, Russian President Putin could authorize his own generals to shoot first and ask questions later. Then, hold onto your hat.
As of this writing, there is no sign in "mainstream media" of any reporting on Hersh's groundbreaking piece. It is a commentary on the conformist nature of today's Western media that an alternative analysis challenging the conventional wisdom -- even when produced by a prominent journalist like Sy Hersh -- faces such trouble finding a place to publish.
The mainstream hatred of Assad and Putin has reached such extraordinary levels that pretty much anything can be said or written about them with few if any politicians or journalists daring to express doubts regardless of how shaky the evidence is.
Even the London Review of Books, which published Hersh's earlier debunking of the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin-gas incident, wouldn't go off onto the limb this time despite having paid for his investigation.
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