A New Yorker fact-checker told me that they put Hersh through the wringer on his pieces. The magazine, already notorious for the rigor of its routine checking, goes into high gear for his stuff. How are a
couple of bloggers in a position to make claims like this?
...............................
Well, to be fair, Dr. Lewis isn't just a blogger in the way we usually mean when that label is employed - a person with little knowledge bloviating about any and everything as if they have a lot of knowledge.
His bio is here:
<http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/?s=about>
Like Juan Cole, Lewis is a subject matter expert who happens to have a blog about the subject he's mastered.
So his opinions are informed, even if there are points of disagreement.
However...
Lewis completely misses the point of Hersh's article which, as Tim pointed out, is the perceived *political* usefulness to the Bush admin of using, or proposing to use, nuclear weapons.
Hersh is talking about the psychological and philosophical leanings of the Bushites - which is towards a sort of well presented madness - and not Lewis' focus: the wonky, tactical details of whether or not it makes sense, from a strategist's point of view, to use atomics against Iranian facilities.
To answer Hersh's essay, as Lewis does, with a discussion of the penetrating power and yields of atomic ordinance and the architectural details (from a demolition POV) of Iranian targets is like saying 'orange juice' when someone asks you for the time.
In a way, Lewis' essay is part of that continuum of oh-so-reasonable pooh poohing - backed up by common sense and detailed arguments - which convinced many three years ago Bush's talk about invading Iraq was mere 'saber rattling'.
Of course we now bitterly know how wrong these assurances were.
In the White House, we are not dealing with people who're smart geopoliticians or clever military strategists; they've left the building.
This makes all sorts of bad plans and bad outcomes possible the sensible can't imagine happening.
.d.
--------- "If human beings had more of a sene of humor, things might have turned out differently."
Stanislav Lem