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THE MIDDLE KINGDOM MAKES A POINT ABOUT THE MEDIOCRITY OF THE EXCEPTIONALIST

By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with [1]

If China’s journalists, foreign intelligence analysts, and People’s Navy staff have needed an opportunity to demonstrate, if not to the Middle Kingdom audience,  then to the US exceptionalist public how peripheral and how mediocre American legends have become, Seymour Hersh has provided it in an interview Hersh (lead image, right) recorded with China’s state broadcaster CGTN on Saturday.

For the first time since Hersh’s earlier interviews with American, British, German, and Russian reporters, Hersh faced skepticism and cross-examination of the account he published [2]  on February 8 of what he claimed then, and insists still, was a joint US and Norwegian operation to destroy the Nord Stream gas pipelines on September 26, 2022.

According to Hersh,  the operation was directed by the White House and ordered by President Joseph Biden, with the reluctant support of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In his 28-minute interview with Liu Xin (left), Hersh repeats his original claims;  makes fresh mistakes of fact; discloses new source information.

Hersh also reveals he is so confident of the seniority and veracity of his  US intelligence ageny source – make that the CIA – he is not reading nor understanding the fresh evidence which has been published in the German mainstream media, the international internet, the US alt-media, and the New York Times. Dismissing it all, while revealing he has analyzed none of it, Hersh told Beijing television: “they are trying to divert attention from the story I wrote.”

Hersh also reveals that for verification of his story,  he employed fact-checkers from the New Yorker, the most virulently anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian magazine in New York.

Listen and watch Liu’s interview with Hersh aired on March 10 [3].   Read CGTN’s partial English transcript here [4].  For background on China’s legendary journalist, click to read [5].  For background on the legendary Hersh story, read this from February 10 [6]  and then this sequel on February 19 [7].   

These are the dozen news-breaking points made by China’s CGTN:

This is the Rauma, one of only two Alta-class minesweepers still in the Norwegian Navy’s active fleet. First built in the mid-1990s, three of the five original vessels in the class have beeN scrapped or sold. Open-source analyst Joe Galvin has reported that another Norwegian vessel of another class,  "the M343 Hinnoy (MMSI: 259019000), did track near the sites of the blasts as reported by @DMA_SFS  in June, but its track does not match up to what you'd expect (holding position over the sites for a period of time so the divers could deploy”. Galvin explicitly challenged Hersh’s reporting on February 23. Hersh has either ignored Galvin’s report [14] of the tracking evidence, or he is ignorant of it.

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ [16]
Note that when Scholz was asked to comment on Biden’s threat against Nord Stream, he gave an unqualified endorsement. “And possibly this is a good idea to say to our American friends: We will be united, we will act together, and we will take all the necessary steps.  And all the necessary steps will be done by all of us together. [Q]   And will you commit today — will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2?  You didn’t mention it, and you haven’t mentioned it. CHANCELLOR SCHOLZ:  As I’ve already said, we are acting together, we are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different steps.  We will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand.”

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ [16]