Uncle Seymour Tries to Make a Picnic

... but, speaking from Dubai last week, Hersh was at least one sandwich short.

Recently, New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, speaking in Minnesota, claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney had been in charge of a "secret assassination squad," and that since the change of administration this unit has been "leaderless"... like "ronin," presumably, those samurai who've lost their master... and we all know from Japanese legend how dangerous ronin can be.

Hersh was, in his clumsy and irresponsible way, trying to refer to Joint Special Operations Command, a military group tasked with hunting al Qaeda particularly in inaccessible areas of Afghanistan. The leader of the unit from 2003 to 2008 was Stanley A. McChrystal, recently named by President Obama to be commander of NATO's Af-Pak operations. The JSOC unit of course is now commanded by Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, reports to the Secretary of Defense, and (as pointed out by Bill Roggio) is subject to Congressional Oversight... so is, for one thing, not "leaderless" at all.

In Dubai, at the Arab Media Forum last week, Hersh repeated his strange allegation of a "special death squad," doubled down, and claimed that during the Bush era the American Press became irresponsible "cheerleaders."

In South Asia reports have appeared that Hersh claimed "Cheney's death squad" killed Benazir Bhutto. In Dubai, he contradicted this notion (see link below). We're relieved.

When asked whether "Cheney's death squad," meaning presumably JSOC, then under command of McChrystal, could have killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Hersh said "I can't verify [that]," only later going on to discount this.

Would someone please bring this man home? I understand his address is pinned to his jacket.

Links:

Dubai's Gulf News, here and here.

Qatar's Gulf Times.

Bill Roggio on Hersh's earlier left-field fly HERE.

UPDATE - further dis-info and counter-dis-info at these links:

The Dawn (PK)
Daily Times (Pk)
The Nation (Pk)