The
reader is swept up by the words and the ideas of Seymour M. Hersh.
Their density is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Can
this be true? Is it the rantings of a man so convulsed by American
conspiracies that he spews complexity and travesty to such an extent
that what he writes could not possibly be the case?
And
yet what makes Seymour M. Hersh's words chime is the very ring of
truth they have been sounding since his shocking 1969 revelations
about the My Lai massacres in Viet Nam. He has sources inside the
military, political and secret service institutions of the most
powerful country on the planet, the United States of America. He
writes forcefully and compellingly. He grips.
In
the first 2016 edition of The London Review of Books (Volume
38, Number 1, 7th January) Hersh writes about a source, a close
adviser to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A
former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document
was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from
signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the
Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm
the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been
conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia
and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of
Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria.
But
the military chiefs felt that the politicians in Washington were
fixated on getting rid of Assad, in the classic 'regime change'
strategy that led to the chaos the peoples of Iraq and Libya endure.
They felt this would lead to another disaster, for the US. So they
embarked on a subterfuge, circumventing political direction and
supplying intelligence to Assad via allies, including Germany, Israel
and even the Russians.
It
was clear that Assad needed better tactical intelligence and
operational advice. The JCS concluded that if those needs were met,
the overall fight against Islamist terrorism would be enhanced. Obama
didn’t know, but Obama doesn’t know what the JCS does in every
circumstance and that’s true of all presidents.
The
reader is mesmerised. Is this the back story of a Hollywood
Middle-East political drama? Then, the reader enters the sewers of
rendition torture chambers.
Later
that year, Syrian intelligence foiled an attack by al-Qaida on the
headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and Assad
agreed to provide the CIA with the name of a vital al-Qaida
informant. In violation of this agreement, the CIA contacted the
informant directly; he rejected the approach, and broke off relations
with his Syrian handlers. Assad also secretly turned over to the US
relatives of Saddam Hussein who had sought refuge in Syria, and –
like America’s allies in Jordan, Egypt, Thailand and elsewhere –
tortured suspected terrorists for the CIA in a Damascus prison.
Can
this all be true? And can it make sense of the dead boy on the beach,
of the thousands fleeing by sea, drowning in the Mare Nostrum
(Our Sea) of the Roman Empire, in today's 21st Century
battle of the Empires? This is Star Wars written on our own broken,
blue planet.
Seymour
M. Hersh's sources cross the planet. He writes of unlikely allies and
macro-alliances, played out above the heads of citizens.
A
senior adviser to the Kremlin on Middle East affairs told me that in
late 2012, after suffering a series of battlefield setbacks and
military defections, Assad had approached Israel via a contact in
Moscow and offered to reopen the talks on the Golan Heights. The
Israelis had rejected the offer. ‘They said, “Assad is
finished,”' the Russian official told me. ‘“He’s close to the
end.”’ He said the Turks had told Moscow the same thing. By
mid-2013, however, the Syrians believed the worst was behind them,
and wanted assurances that the Americans and others were serious
about their offers of help.
The
reader is not surprised but is nonetheless forcefully struck by
Hersh's assertions regarding the relations between the militaries in
the regimes in the US and Russia. Is this a background paper to a
John Le Carré novel? See how, supposedly neutral, Ireland gets drawn
in?
In
August, a few weeks before his retirement as chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, Dempsey made a farewell visit to the headquarters of the
Irish Defence Forces in Dublin and told his audience there that he
had made a point while in office to keep in touch with the chief of
the Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. ‘I’ve
actually suggested to him that we not end our careers as we began
them,’ Dempsey said – one a tank commander in West Germany, the
other in the East.
Yet
again, this is not a surprise. Hersh writes what many people know to
be the case.
One
of the constants in US affairs since the fall of the Soviet Union has
been a military-to-military relationship with Russia.
Hersh
writes about macro-events, amidst the political/military and secret
service elites. He cites US militarist amazement at the Obama
Administration’s support of the Erdogan regime in Turkey. He offers
no explanation of the US political administration's much-criticised
insistence on 'moderates' in Syria, and the support offered by the
regime in Turkey.
Dempsey
and his associates remain mystified by Obama’s continued public
defence of Erdoğan, given the American intelligence community’s
strong case against him – and the evidence that Obama, in private,
accepts that case.
As
a journalist who writes on such heated matters, with access to named
and unnamed sources in very critical circumstances, Hersh attracts
praise and criticism in fair measure.
The
reader listens to oud players while reading.
Is
there more to be gleaned about the lives of peoples in the region
from the music?
Read
Seymour M. Hersh yourself. Listen for the chimes of truth that you
may hear. And listen to the oud players, for the human heart of it
all.
All
good wishes to the peoples of Syria for 2016.
Le
Trio Joubran on France 2 TV
www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter
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