by Ron Unz, The Unz Review:
Our political landscape is completely flooded by a massive tide of official propaganda. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that the few visible points of surviving dissent are often found among those individuals who had previously represented the highest peaks of journalism and academic scholarship.
Seymour Hersh falls into that category. With a Pulitzer Prize and five George Polk awards, Hersh certainly ranks as one of the most renowned reporters of the last half-century, known for breaking the stories of the My Lai Massacre, the Abu Ghraib prison, and other landmarks of investigative journalism.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
A few days ago, he dropped a bombshell perhaps as big as anything in his career, reporting the inside story of how the American government had destroyed the Nord Stream energy pipelines, conduits absolutely vital to the European economy. Not only were the attacks an act of war against Germany, one of our closest NATO allies, but the explosions probably produced the greatest peacetime destruction of civilian infrastructure in the history of the world, with the value of the $30 billion pipelines being far larger than the losses inflicted by the 9/11 attacks.
- How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now
Seymour Hersh • Substack • February 8, 2023 • 5,200 Words
When the attacks occurred last September, a multitude of observers myself included noted that top Biden Administration officials had repeatedly threatened to eliminate the pipelines and then crowed when a series of mysterious underwater explosions accomplished that task.
- American Pravda: Of Pipelines and Plagues
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • October 3, 2022 • 3,900 Words
Indeed, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University reported that leading mainstream journalists had privately told him that everyone believed that America had been responsible although neither they nor their editors would ever publicly mention such a scenario. And when Sachs did so on Bloomberg TV, his interview was cut short and he was quickly yanked off the air.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs [Columbia] on Bloomberg causing chaos saying US was most likely involved in Nordstream leaks according to data & other experts 😂😂😂 “even reporters tell me …. privately of course …” and that we are on a pretty dangerous path to a nuclear conflict pic.twitter.com/U6FsC2tdp6
— Detty (@0ddette) October 3, 2022
- Jeffrey Sachs as Righteous Rogue Elephant
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • October 10, 2022 • 3,500 Words
But while there had been a great deal of informed speculation, Hersh has now provided a detailed narrative of exactly what transpired, including the allegation that the Biden Administration had employed questionable legalisms to avoid informing our Congressional Intelligence committees of the operation as was required by law. If Hersh is correct, our top government leaders may be in serious legal jeopardy.
Yet one of our greatest journalists was forced to break that enormous story with sweeping international implications on his own Substack platform rather than in the headlines of a top newspaper or magazine. After five decades, the arc of Hersh’s career has retraced its steps, and he has returned to his roots as the fiercely independent journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize covering the Vietnam War.
Glenn Greenwald, himself a formidable investigative journalist, has similarly been pushed out of the mainstream media, but his new nightly newscast System Update had become an important project of the Rumble platform, often drawing 100,000 or more views. Appropriately enough, he devoted a recent program to discussing the deep implications of Hersh’s exile from mainstream journalism and the ignorant attacks launched against him by junior reporters whose entire careers have been spent regurgitating official government propaganda.
Hersh’s situation is shocking but hardly unique. Over the last year, the mainstream and much of the alternative media have adopted near-lockstep positions on the Russia-Ukraine war, with the range of allowed opinions probably being narrower and more uniform than had even been the case in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks two decades earlier. Only the most determined and courageous voices have been able to stand against the force of this ideological hurricane.
Consider that for nearly twelve months the phrase “Russia’s unprovoked invasion” has been repeated in almost every media story and news outlet although that description is absolutely contrary to the facts. As I wrote soon after the war began:
Although FoxNews has become one of the outlets most rabidly hostile to Russia, a recent interview with one of their regular guests provided a very different perspective. Col. Douglas Macgregor had been a former top Pentagon advisor and he forcefully explained that America had spent nearly fifteen years ignoring Putin’s endless warnings that he would not tolerate NATO membership for Ukraine, nor the deployment of strategic missiles on his border. Our government had paid no heed to his explicit red-lines, so Putin was finally compelled to act, resulting in the current calamity.
Macgregor had been a finalist to succeed John Bolton as National Security Advisor and a guest on FoxNews some 60 times, but he immediately disappeared from the broadcast media.
