← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 20836 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2005-11-01
2005-11-01 15:58 | User Profile
The Washington gadfly Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is no longer a lone voice in the wilderness Monday, October 31, 2005 Posted at 5:16 AM EST
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Seymour Hersh, one of journalism's crankier bulldogs, was in an upbeat mood. At least for him. A confidential, well-placed source had told him that U.S. special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's 22-month inquiry into the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, wife of ex-diplomat Joseph Wilson IV, would go further than anyone had heretofore thought.
"He's going to save America," Hersh predicted, on the phone from his home in Washington, just days before Fitzgerald announced indictments against I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on Friday.
"Because it's not just about Wilson," maintained Hersh, who, as a New York Times reporter in the late 1960s, first blew the lid off the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and, more recently, exposed abuses at Abu Ghraib, the prison west of Baghdad where U.S. forces engaged in torture and humiliation of prisoners. He appears in Toronto tomorrow to speak to the group Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
"Fitzgerald's going deep. He may just unravel the whole conspiracy," continues Hersh, who might be proven right. While Libby resigned after being indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements, Fitzgerald continues to investigate Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's influential deputy chief of staff.
All this to determine whether senior White House operatives leaked Valerie Plame's name to select reporters in order to discredit her husband, Wilson. Wilson had previously been dispatched by the Bush administration to Africa to verify reports that Saddam Hussein was buying nuclear technology from Niger, but had found no evidence to support those allegations. In a subsequent op-ed piece in The New York Times, he questioned the legitimacy of America's war in Iraq.
But Hersh said last week that the Plame/Wilson affair was only part of the saga. At its heart, the whole conspiracy ââ¬â in the minds of blue-state Americans that revile the George Bush presidency ââ¬â encompasses the notion that the Iraq war was planned and orchestrated long before the administration began to build its case for regime change; and that the case it attempted to build, as laid out by former secretary of state Colin Powell to the United Nations, was essentially a fraud (and known to be a fraud).
Two thousand U.S. military personnel and tens of thousands of Iraqis have since died in what many would thus consider an illegal war. In Hersh's eyes, anything that might hasten the departure of its chief architects, the hated neocons, would be welcome.
"We're so out of control," he says of the United States. "We have a colossus out of control. It's the end of the world, brought to you by the neocons."
Hersh recently got hold of a copy of the United Nations interim report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The document cited "converging evidence" that senior levels of the Syrian government were involved in the murder.
But according to Hersh, the Mehlis report is built on the same anemic foundations as Powell's UN presentation in February, 2003. "He is relying on intercepts of an unnamed source inside the Iranian air force, someone without inside stuff. It's not empirical." On the basis of this thin evidence, he says, the Bush administration is campaigning at the UN for sanctions on Syria.
But what seems to gall him even more is the behaviour of the American press, not excluding his alma mater, the Times ââ¬â Hersh now writes mainly for The New Yorker. "The problems there go way beyond Judith Miller," he says, referring to the Times reporter jailed for 85 days for refusing to disclose the name of the White House source who is alleged to have leaked Valerie Plame's name.
She was released only after one of her sources, Lewis Libby, signed a personal waiver allowing her to discuss their conversations with prosecutor Fitzgerald. The Miller affair has caused a serious internal rift at the Times and, says Hersh, damaged its reputation.
"It's still the most important newspaper in America," he says. "But it was the standard bearer, and I don't get that sense now." Meanwhile, about to sign a contract for a new book on Iraq, Hersh is pleased to find that he's no longer a lonely voice on the issues. "I'm almost superfluous," he says. "A lot of stuff I was writing about, everybody is now writing about. So I'm just sitting back collecting notes for the book."
Still, he thinks his colleagues in the press are missing something in Iraq. The so-called insurgency isn't rooted, he maintains, in "Jihadism." It's about the Sunnis making a stand against the Shia. "Ninety per cent of the Arab world is Sunni. They do not want another Shia society and Shia government that dominates the oil. That's the real issue."
America's current troubles in Iraq might be less severe, he says, if Al Gore had won the election. But Hersh is under no illusions. Even before Bush, "the Clinton administration had made it repeatedly clear that it was interested in only one thing in Iraq ââ¬â regime change. And Al Gore was part of that policy."
Although Bush is sometimes seen as a political marionette, manipulated by unseen masters, Hersh isn't so sure. He recalls a Saturday Night Live skit from the Reagan years that portrayed the then-president as a doddering fool who, once the cameras were off and the doors closed, calls a National Security council meeting, starts speaking Chinese and gives a detailed assessment of strategic threats.
"So sometimes I wonder," says Hersh. In Toronto, he says, he will talk about responsibility and war crimes and "make the case that gets Bush in the middle of it. There is a case for the President's direct participation. It's not something that happened without his acquiescence. I'd like to think he knows what's going on."
In the meantime (Hersh is waiting to see if Fitzgerald drops more indictment bombs), "he's the sleeper, a true unassailable. The White House calls him Eliot Ness [the Prohibition-era federal agent whose team of 'Untouchables' helped bring down mobster Al Capone], not with affection, so I've heard."
Hersh predicts that "every day will get worse in Iraq. Another 30,000 Iraqis will die if we keep going. Fewer will die if we get out. There are only two options, as I see it: Pull out now or pull out tomorrow."
Seymour Hersh speaks at the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Gala tomorrow, at the Arcadian Court in Toronto (416-515-9622, ext. 226). [url]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051031.wxhersh31/BNStory/Entertainment/[/url]
2005-11-02 02:04 | User Profile
[quote=Sertorius]The Washington gadfly Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is no longer a lone voice in the wilderness Monday, October 31, 2005 Posted at 5:16 AM EST ==snip==
Hersh predicts that "every day will get worse in Iraq. Another 30,000 Iraqis will die if we keep going. Fewer will die if we get out. There are only two options, as I see it: Pull out now or pull out tomorrow." ==snip== Seymour Hersh speaks at the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Gala tomorrow, at the Arcadian Court in Toronto (416-515-9622, ext. 226). [URL="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051031.wxhersh31/BNStory/Entertainment/"]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051031.wxhersh31/BNStory/Entertainment/[/URL]
Excellent article, but on this he is DEAD wrong. As soon as we leave, the civil war that will break Iraq into three (or more) parts will begin its second phase, of which the current "insurgency" (which is really a civil war with a bit of a US Marine/Soldier lid on it) is phase one.
Take that too the bank, if you are a betting man. Bet the over on blood, iron, and anarchy before things settle into three or four bits and pieces, sort of like the Yugoslavia devolution, but with oil rights as the prize.
And watch Iran find subtle ways to intervene, as Syria did in Lebanon, in the interests of "regional stability."
The question that I don't know the answer to is: which way does the King of Saudi Arabia swing? He's no fan of the Islamic revolution, but without a buffer of Iraq between him and Iran . . . what the hell does he do?
AE
2005-11-02 03:27 | User Profile
AE,
Civil war? I'm afraid you are correct. Too bad about all that oil that will be off the market. Amazing as it is the Bush Administration has taken a region that was already screwed up and made it worse. I told people before this debacle occured that the best thing we could do is leave Hussein the hell alone. He was the only person that was holding the country together. Like Tito. [QUOTE]The question that I don't know the answer to is: which way does the King of Saudi Arabia swing? He's no fan of the Islamic revolution, but without a buffer of Iraq between him and Iran . . . what the hell does he do?[/QUOTE] That's a good question. Too bad our "leaders" didn't think about that, but that is what happens when you don't plan for the worst case scenario [B]and[/B] you base things on ideology instead of cold blooded realism. So much for the "faith based administration".
What does Turkey do? Most of the idiots who are in the media have never heard of the [url=http://www.broadleft.org/communis.htm]KKP.[/url]
2005-11-02 04:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]The question that I don't know the answer to is: which way does the King of Saudi Arabia swing? He's no fan of the Islamic revolution, but without a buffer of Iraq between him and Iran . . . what the hell does he do? [/QUOTE]
He accepts his fate as the strategic pivot in the big play for "American" hegemony, unless he [I]quick[/I] learns really good Kurdish...
[url]http://www.slate.com/?id=2069119[/url]
The PowerPoint That Rocked the Pentagon The LaRouchie defector who's advising the defense establishment on Saudi Arabia. By Jack Shafer Posted Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002, at 7:49 PM ET
Diplomatic china rattled in Washington and cracked in Riyadh yesterday when the Washington Post published a story about a briefing given to a Pentagon advisory group last month. The briefing declared Saudi Arabia an enemy of the United States and advocated that the United States invade the country, seize its oil fields, and confiscate its financial assets unless the Saudis stop supporting the anti-Western terror network.
The Page One story, by Thomas E. Ricks ("Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies: Ultimatum Urged To Pentagon Board," Aug. 6), described a 24-slide presentation given by Rand Corp. analyst Laurent Murawiec on July 10, 2002, to the Defense Policy Board, a committee of foreign policy wonks and former government officials that advises the Pentagon on defense issues. Murawiec's PowerPoint scenario, which is reproduced for the first time below, makes him sound like an aspiring Dr. Strangelove.
Just who the hell is Laurent Murawiec? The Post story and its follow-up, also by Ricks, do not explain. The Pentagon and the administration insist that the presentation does not reflect their views in any way. The Rand Corp. acknowledges its association with Murawiec, but likewise disavows any connection with the briefing. (Neither Murawiec nor Rand received money for the briefing, Rand says.) According to Newsday, Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard N. Perle, a former Pentagon official and full-time invade-Iraq hawk, invited Murawiec to brief the group, so Perle can't exactly distance himself from the presentation. But he can do the next best thing—duck reporters' questions. Murawiec also declined reporters' inquiries, including one from Slate.
The first half of Murawiec's presentation reads calmly enough, echoing Fareed Zakaria's Oct. 15, 2001, Newsweek essay about why the Arab world hates the United States. Its tribal, despotic regimes bottle up domestic dissent but indulge the exportation of political anger; intellectually, its people are trapped in the Middle Ages; its institutions lack the tools to deal with 21st-century problems; yadda yadda yadda.
But then Murawiec lights out for the extreme foreign policy territory, recommending that we threaten Medina and Mecca, home to Islam's most holy places, if they don't see it our way. Ultimately, he champions a takeover of Saudi Arabia. The last slide in the deck, titled "Grand strategy for the Middle East," abandons the outrageous for the incomprehensible. It reads:
Iraq is the tactical pivot Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot Egypt the prize Egypt the prize?
Because none of the Defense Policy Board attendees are talking candidly about the session, it's hard to divine what "Egypt the prize" means or if Murawiec's briefing put it into any context. It sounds a tad loopy, even by Dr. Strangelove standards. The Post report does mention a "talking point" attached to the 24-page PowerPoint deck that describes Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East. That's extreme talk even by the standards of the anti-Saudi editorialists at the Weekly Standard and the rest of the invade-Iraq fellowship.
Who is Laurent Murawiec, and where did he learn to write like this? The George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs' Web site lists him as a faculty member, but it lists no current or future classes by him. The site's biographical page adds that he's a graduate of the Sorbonne University, that he worked as "A foreign correspondent for a major French business weekly in Germany" (isn't that kind of vague?) and is the co-founder of GeoPol Services SA, "a consulting company in Geneva, Switzerland, which advised major multinational corporations and banks." It also lists him as a former adviser to the French ministry of defense and the translator (into French) of Clausewitz's On War.
A sweep of the Web shows that he lectured on Islamic terrorism in Toronto on March 11, 2002, under the aegis of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies. He wrote an article titled "The Wacky World of French Intellectuals" in the Middle East Quarterly, co-edited a Rand Corp. book, and made these comments at a Nautilus Institute conference. When he spoke on panel with Richard Perle at the American Enterprise Institute on Dec. 1, 1999, Murawiec was introduced as having just moved to the United States after "a dozen years" of working as managing director of GeoPol in Geneva, "a service that supplies advice to European clients, similar to what Kissinger Associates offers from New York, except without the accent." That is a bit of an overstatement. A Google search of "Murawiec and GeoPol" produces 12 hits. Compare that to the 10,300 hits on Google for "Kissinger Associates."
Murawiec's résumé would predict many Nexis hits, but a search of his name reveals just five bylines: Twice already this year, Murawiec has contributed to the neocon publication the National Interest, on the subject of Russia. [Correction: Murawiec wrote for the National Interest once in 2000 and once in 2002. The topic both times was Russia.] In 1999 he wrote for the Post's "Outlook" section on "internationalism," and in 1996 he contributed a piece to the Journal of Commerce on Russia. His only other Nexis-able byline is a dusty one from the Jan. 23, 1985, edition of the Financial Times, which describes Murawiec as "the European Economics Editor of the New York-based Executive Intelligence Review weekly magazine."
Executive Intelligence Review, as scholars of parapolitics know, is a publication of the political fantasist, convicted felon, and perpetual presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. It's not clear exactly when Murawiec left the LaRouche orbit. An article by LaRouche that appeared last year in Executive Intelligence Review calls Murawiec "a real-life 'Beetlebaum' of the legendary mythical horse-race, and a hand-me-down political carcass, currently in the possession of institutions of a peculiar odor." In 1997, LaRouche's wife Helga Zupp LaRouche wrote in Executive Intelligence Review (republished in the LaRouche-affiliated AboutSudan.com Web site) that Murawiec "was once part of our organization and is now on the side of organized crime." The truth value of that statement surely ranks up there with LaRouche's claim that the Queen of England controls the crack trade. To say, zero.
When Murawiec departed LaRouche's company is unclear, but Dennis King, author of 1989's Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, thinks it came when many followers split as LaRouche's legal problems grew and climaxed with a 1988 conviction for conspiracy and mail fraud. "[Murawiec] was not a political leader," says King, "but a follower who did intelligence-gathering."
Now that Murawiec has assumed such a vocal place in the policy debate, the man who gave him the lectern owes us the complete back-story. Over to you, Richard Perle.
Laurent Murawiec's 24-slide presentation to the Defense Policy Board was obtained by Slate and is presented here in type-treatment that approximates the original.
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Taking Saudi Out of Arabia