If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.
Wouldn't it just be written off as a conspiracy theory that provides little to no evidence for its claims?
If the only thing that gets this on HN is Seymour Hersh's reputation (which has lately become somewhat questionable) then you might want to reconsider. Plus, the quality of the comments has not been very good so far.
Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for counterargument.
p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting. If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to already know (or feel one knows) the answer—and this is a site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of view.
It makes it less surprising to me. Back in 2006 I believed Hersh when he reported that the U.S. had troops inside Iran laying the groundwork for an imminent American attack. This was also based on anonymous sources. After the attack failed to materialize, I learned to take such reporting with a large grain of salt.
He used to be credible. Then unfortunately a lot of shady people learned they could manipulate him and get away with it, and so they've done. He can publish something like this and when anyone says, "prove it" he can't. Because Top Secret.