[A-List] Petras on Hersh

[Stan Goff]

An Exposé of an Exposé: 

Seymour Hersh and the Missing Zionist-Israeli Connection
James Petras    

            As I read Hersh’s highly publicized and influential reports
in the New Yorker Magazine on torture in US occupied Iraq (1), it became
increasingly apparent that this was not a thoroughly researched exposé
of the higher ups responsible for the policy of torture. 

Hersh’s reportage was a selective account guided by selected question
about selected officials.  As one reads through Hersh’s version of
events with increasing incredulity it is clear that Hersh hangs his
whole argument and exposé of US officials involved in the use of torture
on one person – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - (important to be
sure) and not on the other top Defense officials who were extremely
influential and responsible for war policy, establishing intelligence
agencies and co-coordinating strategy and tactics during the occupation.
 Rumsfeld was part of an elite, which sanctioned and promoted torture.
Throughout his exposé Hersh deliberately omits the role of the Zionists
(Wolfowitz, Feith – numbers 2 and 3 in the Pentagon) who supported and
promoted the war, torture-interrogation and particularly Israeli experts
who led seminars teaching the US Military Intelligence their
torture-interrogation techniques of Arab prisoners based on their
half-century of practice.

            In looking for documentary sources of torture interrogation
Hersh relies on academic texts and 20 year old CIA manuals, not Israeli
practice widely disseminated by the Mossad and Shin Bet advisers
presently involved in torture in neighboring Palestine and Iraq today.

            Hersh is presented in the mass media as an iconoclastic,
investigative journalist, a role which gives his reportages and exposés
a great deal of credibility.  Yet it was Seymour Hersh who publicly
defended torture of suspects and their family members as a method of
interrogation, citing the Israeli examples in the wake of September 11,
justifying torture in the same way as the Pentagon now justifies the
torture of Iraqi suspects.  Instead of citing an obscure professor at
the University of Chicago, Hersh should have cited the influential tract
defending torture by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (a fellow
Zionist) widely read by the ‘civilian militarists’ who run the Pentagon,
and direct the chain of command leading to interrogation through
torture.

            Hersch’s account fails to provide a political context in the
Pentagon and in the Middle East for the systematic use of torture. To
understand the issue of the US practice of torture and violent abuse of
Iraqi prisoners and civilians requires an examination of the ideological
demonization of the Iraqi population – “the Arabs” and the US
unconditional political and military support for the state of Israel,
the principal long-term large-scale practitioner of torture against
Arabs.  The most vitriolic systematic denigration of Arabs and Muslims
in the Middle East is found in the writings an speeches of influential
US-based Zionist ideologues, like the Pipes (father and son), the
Kristols (senior and junior), the Kagans, Cohens, Goldhagens and others.
 The first step toward justifying torture is to “dehumanize’ the victim,
to label them as ‘untermensch’ (congenitally violent savages). The
Zionists in the US were merely following the pronouncements of their
ideological mentors in Israel who not infrequently proclaimed that “the
only thing the Arab understands is force” (Sharon, Golda Meier, Dayan,
Rabin etc
).  The Zionist ideologues in the Pentagon were influential in
arousing hatred of “Arabs” in several ways.  First in their defense of
Israel they deliberately distorted the nature of  Israel’s colonial war,
blaming the Palestinian victims for the systematic violence which Israel
inflicted on them.  The ideologues defended every Israeli violent
action: the massacre in Jenin, new Jewish settlements in the West Bank,
the murderous assault on Rafah, the killing of UN aid workers and peace
activists, the monstrous wall ghettoizing a whole people, the mass
murder of hundreds of Palestinians and destructions of thousands of
homes in Gaza.  Israeli violence against Palestinians made a deep
impression on US Zionists who generalized and deepened their animus to
Arab Muslims throughout the Middle East, but particularly in Iraq where
they were in a position to implement their policies.
The Zionists and Torture in Iraq
           The Pentagon’s main source of “intelligence” and propaganda
for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was in part derived from the
Office of Specials Plans (OSP) and Counter-terrorism Evaluation Group
established by ultra-Zionist Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense
(third in the Pentagon hierarchy) with strong support from Wolfowitz,
Abrams and Rumsfeld.  Feith put fellow Zionist, Abram Shulsky in charge
of OSP.  The Special Group bypassed normal CIA and military intelligence
agencies and secured its own intelligence prior to the war and was
involved in securing intelligence during the first stages of the
occupation (before it was dismantled).  As the Iraqi resistance
increased its effectiveness and the US justification for the war
(weapons of mass destruction) was proven to be a total fabrication of
the Special Group, the top echelon of the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and the
Zionists grew desperate – they collectively passed the orders to
intensify and extend torture to all Iraqi suspects in all the prisons.
 It is a gross simplification to say that the line of command was
limited to Rumsfeld, when Wolfowitz, Feith and Abrams were also
intimately involved in everyday policies prosecuting the war, defending
the occupation and controlling intelligence.

            Even more than Rumsfeld, the Zionist zealots in the Pentagon
were the most ardent promoters of introducing Israeli methods of
torturing and humiliating Arab suspects, lauding Israeli “successes” in
dealing with the “Arabs”.  They, not military intelligence, promoted the
use of Israeli ‘experts’ in interrogation; they encouraged Israeli led
seminars in urban warfare and interrogation techniques for the US
military intelligence officers and private contractors. 

            Nothing about the responsibility of the Pentagon Zionists in
the torture of Iraqis appears in Hersh’s “expose”.  The glaring
omissions are deliberate – as they are obvious – form a systematic
pattern and serve the purpose of exonerating the Pentagon Zionists and
Israel and hanging the entire responsibility for war crimes on Rumsfeld.

A Close Look at Hersh’s Method

            A close reading of Hersh’s series of articles in the New
Yorker reveals his premises and political perspectives, none of which
have anything to do with democratic values or concern with human rights.

            Hersh’s principal concern is that Rumsfeld’s blanket order
to use torture disrupted the operations of an elite group made up of
professional commandos involved in a secret “special access program”
designed to murder, kidnap, torture “terror suspects” throughout the
world.  In other words by involving thousands of everyday US soldiers
(referred to by one of Hersh’s sources as “hillbillies”) as torturers in
Iraq Rumsfeld was endangering the operation of professional killers
throughout the world. Hersh’s second major concern was that the
discovery of the torture would “hurt America’s (sic) prospects in the
war on terror” – in other words a tactic he attributed (solely and
wrongfully) to Rumsfeld was endangering the US empire-building capacity.
 Hersh’s empire-centric view refuses to recognize the elementary rights
of self-determination and international law. Hersh’s third apparent
concern is with Rumsfeld’s bypassing the CIA and other intelligence
agencies and attempt to monopolize intelligence.  This is a bit
ingenuous.  Wolfowitz and Feith set up the special intelluigence agency
that fed Rumsfeld the fabricated intelligence, they promoted Chalabi
(known throughout Washington intelligence circles as totally unreliable)
as an impeccable source of “inside information”, in Saddams’
non-existent weapons of mass destruction knowing in advance that they
were passing phony “data”.  As Wolfowitz latter cynically admitted the
decision to launch the US invasion over banned weapons was because it
was the only issue they could agree upon. 

            Hersh is not stupid, he knows what everyone else in
Washington and out of government knows: the Zionists in the Pentagon
were pushing for war with Iraq before 9/11 (even before they took office
in Washington and were working with the Israeli state) and were intent
on having the US destroy Iraq, at any price including the loss of
American lives, budget busting deficits, imperiling oil interests and
jeopardizing US global imperial interests.

            They launched the invasion bypassing the military central
command by deliberately falsifying the response of the conquered Iraqi
people (“they will welcome us as liberators” – Wolfowitz and Perle) and
intent on destroying civil and state structures (the so-called
de-Baathification purges) in order to forever undermine Iraq’s capacity
to challenge Israel’s domination of the Middle East.

            None of Hersh’s questions explore these well known facts
about who is responsible for the atrocities against Iraqis. He didn’t
have to cite unnamed intelligence or Pentagon sources – General Anthony
Zinni and many non-Zionists insiders, as well as the CIA and Central
Command knew about the Zionist promoters, plans and moreover knew the
role Feith played in pushing for harsher interrogation techniques.  But
Hersh ignored these questions, those Zionists and their ideological
supporters and advisers who did everything possible to undermine any
Iraqi economic recovery and capacity to run their own education, health
and electoral systems. De-Baathification was meant to turn Iraq into a
backward tribal, divided desert country run by their protégé Chalabi,
the only “candidate” who would recognize Israel, supply it with oil and
support Mid-East “integration” under Israeli hegemony.  The Zionist
Pentagonistas succeeded in securing the war, they succeeded in
destroying basic Iraqi social services, they destroyed the state
(courts, military, civil services).  However in their blind subservience
to Israel they overlooked the fact that the disbanded professional
soldiers and purged civil leaders and professionals would become part of
an experienced armed resistance, that Iraq would become ungovernable,
that US rule would crumble, that the US would become bogged down in a
politically lost war, that its puppet regime would have neither
legitimacy nor popular support.  The Zionist did what they thought was
best for Israel, even if it provoked greater opposition world-wide,
including in the US, where a majority have turned against the occupation
by May 2004.  Only the Israeli transmission belt, AIPAC would cheer Bush
and his continuation of the occupation and pledge allegiance to the
Israeli war against Palestinians.  When their self-serving “prediction”
of an Iraqi welcoming committee turned into a valiant popular
anti-colonial war, Feith and his underlings called for greater use of
more forceful interrogation methods – Rumsfeld and Feith encouraged
Israeli type torture to “humiliate the Arabs”.  Meanwhile Kagan’s call
to “bomb the Arab street” was tried and failed to intimidate the Iraqi
resistance.

            Hersh’s exposé of Rumsfeld as the only top culprit turns up
at a convenient moment: when US policy has failed and most knowledgeable
officials are moving closer to identifying the role of the Pentagon
Zionists.  It was clever by half: Rumsfeld was universally despised in
Congress, among the professional military and a host of others for his
policies and arrogant public face.  Even in “exposing” Rumsfeld however
Hersh is careful to do so in a fashion that allows his Zionist
colleagues to continue in office unscathed.  

Hersh justifies some of Rumsfeld’s acts of illegal terror by describing
“legalistic obstacles” to eliminating terrorists.  Hersh’s support for
Rumsfeld’s resort to unaccountable commandos engaging in assassination,
kidnapping and torture of suspects around the world is in effect a way
to condone those tactics after Rumsfeld leaves office.  If Rumsfeld
resigns, torture will continue under colleagues Feith and Wolfowitz.
 Hersh drags in a fifth level functionary working under Feith, Stephan
Cambone, who he tells us “was deeply involved” in the torture of
prisoners – more involved than his Zionist superiors?  We might ask the
peerless investigatory journalist: How is it that Hersh blames those
above above (Rumsfeld) and those below (Cambone) but never focuses on
Feith and Wolfowitz who designed and directed policy?  

            In setting up Cambone for the exposé, Hersh profiles Cambome
in terms that fit with greater pertinence the Zionists: He advocated war
with Iraq (following Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle and Abrams); he disdained
the CIA who the Pentagon Zionists viewed as “too cautious”; he attacked
the CIA for not finding WMD.  Since Cambone functioned under Wolfowitz
and Feith he was simply repeating what his bosses wanted to hear and
perhaps that’s why they entrusted him with the relevant dirty tasks of
extracting ‘intelligence’ via torture.

            Hersh tries to link Cambone with the extension of the
torture practiced “selectively” by the Special Agency Program.  SAP was
already operative before Cambone took office and its operations were
under the direction of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and Abrams.  Hersh’s
dating of the torture in August 2003 with Cambone and  Major General
Miller (from Guantanamo) assignment is false.  It started earlier under
the SAP and with Israeli trained interrogators.  Moreover the Pentagon
headed by the same three (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith)  ordered
Miller’s use of torture on “suspects” at Guantanamo – who moved him to
Iraq as a reward for exemplary work.  Hersh does not explore Miller’s
links with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith before going to Iraq.  He
simply aborts the analysis – looks at the middle and lower levels of
power: Cambone, Miller, interrogators, and enlisted soldiers. Out of
this framework Hersh comes up with a detailed piece of selective
investigatory journalism. Hersh exposes some but covers up for those
most actively involved in invoking the war and directing it in a way
that served Israeli interests.  The cost in US lives and the degradation
of young US servicemen forced to assume the role of torturers is of
little concern to the Pentagon Zionists.  Even after all the exposés of
torture, killings and rapes, major Zionist ideologues like Kristol,
Krauthammer, Rubin, Perle, Kagan and Frum have launched attacks on Bush
for “backing off from the war.”

            The Pentagon’s Zionists are under attack. In the face of the
US debacle in Iraq, the anti-Zionist coalition found in the State
Department, the Military, the CIA and elsewhere have launched a
counter-offensive.  Marine General Anthony Zinni, Senator Fritz Hollings
and other prominent political, diplomatic and military leaders have
openly identified the role of the Pentagon Zionists in launching and
directing the war to favor Israel.   The most recent and visible move
was the marginalization of the pro-Israel Chalabi – the protégé of
Wolfowitz, Feith and Abrams.  The raid on his house and the carting off
of his records, ostensibly to investigate financial irregularities is a
symbolic setback. So is the US abstention in the Security Council on
Israel’s rape of Rafah – much to the chagrin of the Israel First crowd
at the AIPAC convention.  In response all the major Jewish organizations
and publications from the Forward, Anti-Defamation League, AJC and
others have denounced the critics of the Pentagon Zionists.

            Hersh attempts to head off the anti-Zionist headhunting
coalition by focusing on the two Goyim – Rumsfeld and Cambone –has been
to no avail.  The knives are drawn.  Because of Zionist power in and out
of the government, the anti-Zionist coalition and their supporters use
code words, the most common of which is “neo-conservative”, which
everyone now knows means Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams and other Zionists in
and out of the government.  AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and other
Israel Firsters sensing the danger to their co-thinkers have turned to
labeling critics of the neo-conservative militarists “anti-Semites” and
arousing Congress members, the media and their propaganda machine into
silencing the coalition into submission..

            But the Coalition is gaining influence – Bush is insisting
on handing over symbolic power to Iraqi Shias in a subtle game of
cooption promoted by the State Department.  Already the Zionists led by
Kagan and Kristol have all but called Bush a traitor and coward for
“retreating.”  

            The photos of torture, which have discredited the war
policy, threaten to isolate the Zionist zealots.  Faced with the
indignation of the whole civilized world at the war crimes, the
‘progressive’ Zionist apologists, like Hersh, take to isolating blame on
Cambone and Rumsfeld and minimizing the responsibility to “a few
soldiers in a cell block”,  as did Senator Lieberman while the AIPAC
elite cheer Bush on with the war ignoring the muck and blood of torture.


            Rumsfeld has shrewdly tied his future to his Zionist
partners in the Pentagon and outside, counting on riding on their coat
tails and reaping the support of the powerful Jewish lobby and their
leaders in the Israeli state, who stand behind them.  He has few other
influential allies.
Conclusion
In the final analysis even if Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Rubin, Libby and
the current crop of Zionist Pentagonistas are forced to resign it will
only be a temporary setback.  The Zionist political organizations remain
intact, their influence over Congress remains overwhelming and they have
pledges from both major presidential candidates that “Israel’s cause is
America’s cause” (Bush and Kerry). The Zionist juggernaut grinds on,
securing sanctions against Syria and calling for the bombing of Iran’s
supposed nuclear facilities.  If you can’t find a real threat to the US
maybe the next crop of Zionists in power will cook up another
 “consensual pretext”.  Holbrooke and Sandy Berger can tutor the US on
multi-lateral wars of aggression.  

Meantime among those who still deny Zionist power in US foreign policy,
one only has to read the accounts of the AIPAC conference in Washington
in May 2004.  At a time when Israel was killing children in the streets
of Rafah and destroying hundreds of homes under the horrified eyes of
the entire civilized world, when an indignant UN Security Council
finally rose to its feet and unanimously condemned Israel, US
Congressional leaders and the two major Presidential candidates pledged
unconditional support to Israel, evoking the bloodthirsty cheers of
investment brokers, dentists, doctors, lawyers – the cream of the cream
of American Jewish society.  “The cause of Israel is the cause of
America” rings out from the mouth of every candidate as the Israelis
bulldoze homes and snipers shoot small girls on their way to buy candy.
 Its almost as if Sharon wanted to demonstrate the power of the Zionists
in the US, timing the vile destruction of Rafah to coincide with the
AIPAC convention and the disgusting appearance of the spineless American
politicians supporting ongoing crimes against humanity.  Not one voice
was raised in even meek protest.  To those who claim that the Zionist
are just one of a number of “influential lobbies” – try explaining the
unconditional support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people by
the most powerful politicians in the US.

            It is almost a perverse pleasure to watch Sharon smear the
muck and gore of Rafah on the groveling faces of US politicians – they
deserve each other.  But for those of us who support a democratic
anti-imperialist foreign policy this is one of the most humiliating
moments in US history.  Something we won’t read in the exposés of Hersh
or the erudite Zionist treatises in defense of endless wars.

(1) Seymour Hersh, Torture at Abu Ghraib: American soldiers brutalized
Iraqis. How far does responsibility go?, New Yorker, May 10, 2004;  The
Gray Zone: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, New Yorker,
May 25, 2004, and Mixed Messages: Why the government didn’t know what it
knew, New Yorker, June 3, 2004.