It has seemed to me that Hersh has spent much of the past 35 years trying, with little success and much embarrassment, to recreate his Mai Lai reporting. Sadly, his Pulitzer lends a credence to his nutty accussations that they would otherwise never receive. He should have retired in '71.

I guess blaming Jews is so old hat it doesn't get you in the spotlight. So Hersh sees if blaming Catholics can get any traction.

What is really demoralizing is the high percentage of supporters in the comment section.

One would hope that a website such as foreignpolicy.com would have a better grounded, less credulous audience. But apparently not.

The 'Sy' link is to Blake Hounsell’s account of a recent speech in which Mr. Hersh refers to religious influence in the upper reaches of the US military.

It’s worth reading Mr. Hounsell article and accompanying comments, many of which point out that he mocks but doesn’t refute anything that Hersh said.

(Remember the doings at the Air Force Academy, and Gen. Boykin’s “My God is bigger than his”?)

Hersh broke the Mai Lai massacre. Hersh broke organized torture by US forces at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. I think the smears on Hersh are a little premature.

His speech contains accusations of a conspiratorial nature, sure. The original "Tea Parties" in our own revolution were organized and carried out by Masons from a Masonic lodge. According to the MSM, the attacks of 9/11 were carried out by an obscure Jihadist organization known as Al Queda. In the 50's Hoover denied the existence of the "Mafia".

We all witnessed the 9/11 attacks, after which we attacked Iraq. Cheney can be found on multiple videos insinuating that Iraq had Al Queda. Conspiratorial?

Hersh has more credibility than any of this disinformation propaganda posing as journalism. He is not infallible, but compared to this windbag rag? FP has a track record of what? What giant stories has it broken?

Many pundits derided the reports of Abu Ghraib, till the photos came out.
Somehow the Hersh smears may be to soon.

The IQ drop at Foreign Policy in response to Hersh's latest well-grounded remarks has been precipitous and alarming. Sy seems to have struck a raw nerve of some kind. The snark and sarcasm is simply pathetic.

You see, there is this thing called Google which one can use to turn up in seconds hundreds of solid documents and facts on the very topics that Hersh has raised. Hounshell and Ricks should learn how to use some of these new-fangled information tools to get a handle on the role of Christian militants in contemporary American politics.

The US military has been infected with religious fanaticism. Just go the the website of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. If you can't, just remember Gen. Boykin and his "my god is greater than your god" speech. Boykin came up through Special Forces.

Some of you need to leave your aluminum foil hats at the door...

No need to smear Sy, but being right about My Lai or having the the Taguba Report leaked to him (worth remembering the Army was investigating itself prior to his "breaking" the story) does not grant him freedom from proof on a couple of points.

The leaps of logic that the conspiracy-morons on this blog make are astounding and I'd love to smear many of you...Sy Hersh says JSOC is invested with Opus Dei zealots on a crusade -- well, the Army has Christians in it, the Air Force has fundamental Christians and LTG Boykin (RET) held some pretty strong views and he was SF, Sara Palin has a reality show that is beloved by right-wing Christians...THEREFORE JSOC is on a crusade and led by Knights of Malta followers.

The fact I think he is right that Pakistani Elites don't think much of their own people or that the CIA will lie -- does not enhance his JSOC screed or his Petreaus vs. Islamabad COS story. He's gotta show me where he got that from and he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. Like all newsies he gets used by the people who leak him stuff.

Seriously hope some of you aren't breeding.

Mr. Ricks, can you provide links or documentation to back this up (preferably from Georgetown itself)? The matter is so unusual that I would prefer to see strong evidence and the web so far hasn't been of much help. That said, I am disappointed that people are automatically commenting to support or attack this (sometimes with clearly no understanding of the U.S military) when they haven't bothered trying to find out what happened themselves.

I find the snarkiness unpleasant and uncalled for.

Tom - Hersh has made his mistakes; so have you. You yourself have commented on the somewhat inappropriate injection of right wing fundamentalist Christianity into the armed forces so it's unclear to me why the immature nastiness on your part.

You know, in the US the Freemasons are considered just another lofge, like the Moose or Knights of Columbus, etc. But in the UK there have been several well documented where masons, especially in various police departments across the UK have colluded in various ways to the detriment of people who are not members.

My point is, it may be just silly stuff - the Knights of Malta and all that - or there may be something to it. One way or the other, Sy Hersh is not a crackpot or a tinfoil hat wearer. And he has the Pulitzer to prove it, along with a number of other real, actual, meaningful scoops. What if this allegation turns out to be true? Methinks Tom has jumped the gun a little bit.

Sometimes this blog - usually one of the more serious and thoughtful ones on the Internet - gets childish and nasty for no reason. It's unhelpful.

The former reporter Mr. Ricks participates in the usual Two Minutes of Hate against the enemies of his captors.

The big difference is the fact that Mr. Hersh is no moral coward.

When the coin thing came up in storytelling at the holiday dinner table, coins wre produced from the pockets of two different active duty über-nephews, without any need to fetch them. The minted examples I saw are full of symbolism, and might reasonably be called modern day equivalents to crusader coins.

Thx for the link Tom. One of the Hounshell supporters provide some interesting (if true) generalizations on the special warfare community's religious divisions, which nailed my family's angry christian particulars.

Boykins sermonizing 'my God is stronger' seems plain vanilla to us who were raised singing 'onward christian soldi-er-ers'

Hersh, who presumably considers himself a journalist, is using his past credibility to pass ridiculous theories as truth.

I would think other journalists (and society) should consider that to be an ethical issue. Hersh, like Helen Thomas, has received the benefit of the doubt for a long time based on past achievements. But there should be limits for a business that considers itself a profession.

Never mind that Hersh is doing it in the Arab world -- where ill informed populations can be more easily inflamed with conspiracy theories that fit the narrative of their abusive governments.

Its pretty disgusting, really. No doubt Krugman will lead the charge to hold Hersh "accountable" for his rhetoric when the next church gets bombed in the middle east.

I would also note that if the Army is actually "crusading" they have done a pretty miserable job of it.

I doubt you could find a dozen Christian converts in Iraq or Afghanistan -- but there are hundreds of US Soldiers who have converted to Islam.

Fundamentalist dogma is appealing to the military mindset.I see it all the time in my extended family.Why wouldn't we have service members that believe these things and join like minded groups?I don't think it's a huge problem but i also don't think it isn't happening.

..if they admitted it in today's military they might get fragged!

Seriously, didn't the military have to recently replace gun sights on military weapons because there were bible passage references in the sights? There should be NO, ZERO, religion in the military, get rid of Chaplains, have religious services be civilian and paid for by the churches mosques synagogues temples wiccans etc themselves.

Mr. Ricks,

Do you dispute any of Hersh's facts? If so, let's hear it.

Until then, do yourself and your readership a favor by being quiet on the topic and moving on to something else.

JSINAIKO is right: when our military strategy is informed by sectarian religious agendas it undermines both morale and the mission. It's a substantial problem worthy of a substantial discussion. Snarky b.s. is not funny, it's a waste of our time.

Mr. Ricks, I read Fiasco and I thank you for it.

That said, I don't agree with your tone here. The openly Holy Warrior Boykin-types in the special operations command are terrible danger to our long-term security. It's one thing for non-coms to carry their purifying faith into battle, but strategic decisions should not be made by self-styled avenging angels.

Sy Hersh was displaying a combination of discomfort and contempt with the state of things. I share both of these feelings.

Hmm... so, Tom - there's no issue with the role of religious fundamentalism in the US military?

Lots of sarcasm on your end, and a little light on the facts as far as I can tell.

Too bad - your blog is interesting and informative, sometimes.

Here is a comment I posted over at another article on FP. For the record the Google searches that one can do for the Order of Malta, Knights of Malta etc often turn up results to fake groups that have co-opted the name of the official Order of Malta. The true Order of Malta is taking measures against these groups but it is a difficult task.

Mr. Hersh said after his talk that it was not scripted but some "ruminations." However when making such claims against groups such as the Order of Malta he ought to be very clear about his facts and not "shooting from the hip." The potential backlash from such speculation places the Order and members in danger as evidenced by the call for attacks against the Order's embassy in Cairo in 2007. In fact it seems that most of his concern in the articles is with fundamentalist Christians in the military and not a religious order of the Catholic Church

How exactly are the Knights of Malta secretive? Because they elect their leader by secret ballot? When we vote for our union officials I mail in a secret ballot in a blank envelope, does that make us a "secret society?" In the American Association of the Order of Malta we submit press releases with pictures of all our new members to local media outlets. We also regularly submit articles involving the activities of members to same outlets. Our annual Mass of Investiture is held at St. Patrick's in NY and the doors are not closed to the public. Every religious order in history has elected its head privately. The same could be said of most private membership clubs. I'm sure you could contact any country club in the country and ask if so and so is a member and they would tell you that they can't give out that information.

A point of further clarification in the article. It was mentioned that knights no longer take the three religious vows but merely one of obedience. In fact there are 3 classes of Knights. The first are Professed Knights who like the original knights of the Order are religious and still take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. A second class is for Knights in Obedience who do not make a formal vow of obedience but rather a promise of obedience. The third class to which most members belong make no formal promises or vows other than striving to live their lives in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Faith and the rule of the Order, copies of which are publicly available.

JD - Communications Liaison - SMOM American Association