Ritter, Russia, and Hersh

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/01/23/scott-ritter-getting-it-wrong-on-russia/

Seymour Hersh has been on my mind as of late. I was able to watch the 2025 documentary Cover-Up, directed by Laura Poitras. It traced and highlighted aspects of career and offered some interesting and candid moments.

Hersh is a giant in terms of getting scoops. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, Hersh has been involved in a lot of big stories. Many have forgotten that while Woodward and Bernstein broke many of the big Watergate stories, Hersh was just as much a critical journalistic figure in the unfolding of that saga. The Nixon White House knew Hersh's name quite well and by some accounts his reporting revealed more and did more damage to them than anyone else.

Hersh has always been adversarial and as such hasn't always gotten along with everyone. There have been some stumbles along the way - every critical article about him will bring up his book on Kennedy's Camelot. It didn't paint a very pretty picture of the Kennedys and offended a lot of people. It certainly was not his best work and yet he also punched a lot of holes in the Camelot mythology.

But things took a bad turn for Hersh in the 2010's. He was all but blacklisted due to his challenge to the official narrative regarding the death of Osama bin Laden. Further, he was critical of Washington's Syrian Civil War narrative and while I think it's safe to say he's no fan of Donald Trump, Hersh angered the DNC with regard to his reporting during the 2016 campaign and the scandal surrounding Wikileaks and the charges of Russian interference and Trump campaign collusion. At that point he was out and for the past decade has been largely reduced to online publishing and a few presses in Europe.

Hersh is 88 years old and yet comes across as still sharp in the documentary. He continues to impress and yet clearly he's nearing the end of the road.

Scott Ritter (a name that was well known in 2002-2003) has his own baggage and personal issues and yet when it comes to issues like WMD, his credibility remains very high. Ritter is also an expert on Russia and his commentary has more or less blacklisted him as well. In fact, one wonders if he wasn't (at least in part) set up for a fall by those who wish to silence him. He was charged with soliciting a minor online who turned out to be an undercover police officer. He ended up doing over two years in prison.

In something of a rare episode, we see Ritter take Hersh to task over recent reporting on Russia. Hersh famously relies on his clandestine (and sometimes not so clandestine) sources. This has given him a tremendous edge when it comes to some stories and yet in a handful of episodes - he has clearly been misled. Ritter argues that's the case here. He insists that Hersh is wrong on Russia and is being played.

I suppose one of the frustrating things about wrestling with Russia, Ukraine, and all that is happening is one must take in a larger sweep of events going back to the end of the Cold War. Additionally, words don't always match up with deeds. The West is quick to point this out when it comes to Putin - but then they consistently misrepresent what is actually said by his government. The West claims one thing but then acts in a very different way - which in turns leads Moscow to respond. Because the public is unaware and in other cases misled by Western spin, it is (consequently) rather easy to manipulate and spin the actions of the Putin regime which are always painted as unprovoked aggression. This is all further complicated by the fact that Putin is indeed an evil man and his regime is certainly corrupt and anti-democratic. That said, his actions are rational and more often than not in reaction to Western moves - aggressive moves as the Russians see it. Further his moves directly parallel the pre-emptive arguments used by Bush in order to invade Iraq. And with regard to Crimea, there's little difference between what Putin did and Washington's policy to create an independent Kosovo. But such analogies and arguments from equivalence are forbidden by the Western Establishment and its media.

For some the anti-democratic element is alone sufficient reason to reject Putin's government and call for his overthrow - a position I do not accept as I do not believe democracy to be God-ordained, moral, or even in all cases preferred. It's a deeply flawed and sometimes evil system that is also easily manipulated by power players and the elite. In some cases it is to be preferred - but not on ideological grounds. It's purely pragmatism in terms of what kind of state allows the Church to function. That said, overall I would say democracy has actually proved to be a net negative for the Church of Jesus Christ and far more subversive to its thinking and testimony than examples of its existence in conditions that are unfriendly. Actively hostile situations can prove very difficult but overall I would say the Church is probably served best in situations where there is no confusion with regard to the culture and politics of the nation. It allows the Church to keep focused and live as pilgrims.

Ritter insists the US continues to pursue a larger regime change strategy against Moscow and that even the coverage of the war, the way it's being reported, the figures being given and the like are all part of a larger scheme within the diplomatic community and the media. It's not as if (in all cases) they're receiving direct orders and the plans are being outlined. It doesn't work that way. It's more of a culture or ethos and there are boundaries and self-censorship - a narrative-embrace that must be reinforced no matter what evidence is presented.

A great deal could be said about Ukraine as well as US interests and Washington's mini-Cold War waged against Moscow for control of Ukraine since the 1990's. But Ritter focuses on Russia and in particular the specific programme for regime change that emerged under Obama.

I've written numerous times about the transformation that took place in the early 2000's. The fallout from 9/11 is obvious but there was another angle to this. In the 1990's, China was emerging but had not yet entered the top-tier in terms of global economics and geopolitics. Russia was a broken nation on its knees. The US had largely subjugated it and was in the process of looting its treasury and (evidence suggests) planning for its dismemberment.

Yeltsin exited the scene and handed off the government to Putin at the end of 1999. For Americans the year 2000 was consumed by the presidential election and the Dot-com crash. Then the following year was marked by the attacks on New York and Washington and Bush's launch of the Orwellian 'War on Terror'. This led to not only sweeping cultural changes within the United States but the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. As readers surely know, these did not go as planned and by the mid-2000's the US was bogged down by insurgencies and a series of scandals. The American culture war heated up, the economy took a massive hit in 2007-2008 and the US was reeling.

At this time a couple of things happened that shook the corridors of power. One was the war between Russia and Georgia. The situation is complicated and there are still arguments in reference to its origin - some blaming Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia, others blaming the erratic and reckless Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili - who has also stuck his oar into Ukrainian political waters. Regardless, the Russians quickly defeated Georgia. This, combined with Russia's final victory in Chechnya (after a disastrous first war in the 1990's), and Putin's geopolitical posturing - set off alarm bells. Putin seemed aggressive though a more careful read of his statements reveals he was alarmed by and reacting to the expansion of NATO which had taken place in the late 1990's and early 2000's - effectively gobbling up not only all the former Warsaw Pact states but also elements of the former USSR - and attempting to extend this to nations like Ukraine and Georgia. The United States was also active (at that time) in Central Asia. Russia was being encircled.

But even more alarming to American strategists was the rise of China - the reality of this was on full (if symbolic) display during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China had clearly arrived and yet was unstable - a fact that gave many in the West some hope. There were clearly designs of toppling the CCP and it was hoped the stunning and unprecedented economic growth and social standing of the new middle class would play a role in this.

But instead the CCP reacted by installing Xi Jinping, who quickly took an authoritarian posture and consolidated power, instigating a massive clampdown on internal dissent. This was in conjunction with the Belt and Road Initiative which not only created new markets for Chinese investment - these projects allowed Beijing to project its power around the globe.

This sparked a debate within US geo-strategic circles. Some argued that China was the primary and acute threat and should be dealt with first. Others, extended this argument by suggesting Russia could be 'flipped' and was in fact a natural ally in the 'Clash of Civilizations' model advocated by the likes of Samuel Huntington. Thus Russia could be utilized to fight China in the future.

But the larger section (including many of the Neo-Conservative architects of the Bush policy and Iraq War) insisted that Russia was the more immediate threat, and that it would be prudent to break Moscow first - and deal with China in the long term.

This debate has overshadowed the political schism in the United States with the DNC bringing this directly into their campaign against Trump and their attempts to take him down on the basis of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign - as well as the first impeachment connected to Ukraine. This is ongoing. Though the Democrats have largely been defeated by Trump when it comes to these questions, they continue to push for the extension of the Ukraine War - hoping to force Trump's hand or even outlast him. This continues to shape how the media frames coverage, the 'experts' they turn to, as well as questions of blacklisting and censorship.

The Alternative Media has been split. Some outlets are democratic absolutists and thus are intrinsically and intuitively anti-Putin. Some have embraced Western Establishment narratives to greater and lesser degrees. It's very complicated - hopelessly so in some respects.

Ritter's article cannot untangle these knots but it helps and provides considerable insight and opportunities for both further investigation and reflection. Like Ritter, I appreciate Hersh's reporting and believe him to be one of the most important figures of the past fifty years.

In this case I'm not sure I agree with everything Ritter says either. But for those who are interested in these questions and how this all plays out in terms of culture, politics, society, and the Church - the Ritter piece is worth consideration. Though but a piece of a larger puzzle, it is nevertheless helpful.