Hersch & The Social Imperialists (1/4)

No its not some recently discovered Northern Soul band. Renowned investigative journalist, Seymour Hersch, who was involved with Woodward and Bernstein in uncovering the Watergate scandal, exposed the My Lai massacre in 1970, uncovered Henry Kissinger’s role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, and more recently exposed US torture at Abu Ghraib, has, however, provoked the ranks of the social imperialists into a frenzy, as a result of his article, “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”.

Because of his history, the article by Hersch is not so easily discounted, as the social imperialists have been able to do with the writing of pro-Putin apologists. However, along with the mobilisation of the vast propaganda machine of western imperialism, they have given it their best shot. They have been aided, as Daniel Lazare points out, in the WW, by the fact that, in recent times, Hersch's record has been somewhat dented, and, in the present case, his evidence relies on a single unnamed source. Given imperialism's attitude to whistleblowers such as Manning, and Assange, it is, of course, no wonder that any source wishes to remain anonymous, and why few such whistleblowers come forward. Many of Hersch's original big stories came from single unnamed sources, and, as they unfolded, were validated. He's only just started on revealing this story.

Nevertheless, if you are going to claim that it was definitely the US, with or without assistance from one or more of its NATO allies, that did it, rather than just present the very substantial evidence to that effect, and let intelligent readers make up their mind, you really need to have more than one such witness, and preferably ones you can prove exist – though, how Watergate would ever have originally been exposed without the single anonymous witness that was “Deep Throat”, you would have to question. Sometimes throwing the grenade in the water is the fastest way to getting the fish to jump out.

There is a difference between making an assertion of fact, and simply pointing to the evidence for and against a proposition. In 1952, Betrand Russell wrote an article on religion for “Illustrated” magazine, though it was never published. In it, he compares the argument of those that assert the existence of God, and who respond to atheists, by demanding they prove that God does not exist, with an assertion that there is a teapot orbiting the Sun, too small to be seen by telescopes, and that those who make the assertion, then require sceptics to prove that there isn't!

The imperialists, and the social-imperialist apologists, are rather like the Christians cited by Russell, in that they have so ingrained their ideology into the mindset that they are the force of good in the world, whose motives and actions can only be questioned by eccentrics and evil-doers that they only have to claim that it is Russia that blew up the Nordstream pipelines, or to claim that its preposterous that the US is responsible, for it to be accepted. Initially, that is exactly what they claimed. But, of course, not only have they failed to prove that Russia was responsible, as they initially claimed, and upon which they have fallen deadly silent for months, but the large mass of evidence leads any rational person to the conclusion that the most likely culprit is the US, with or without assistance from one or more of its NATO allies.

Hersch did not need to prove conclusively - though it would have been better if he could – that the US was responsible. All he needed to do was to provide the mountain of evidence to that effect, and let his readers decide, much as they did in relation to Watergate. Of course, given the history of Watergate, its no wonder that the Biden Whitehouse, already unpopular, attacking US rail and dockworkers, shaping up for a war with Russia and China, has been desperate to rubbish Hersch's claims, and the social-imperialists have been quick to come to the side of Biden and the imperialists, in that venture. And, as they rush to the aid of the imperialists, in attacking Hersch, they have also been keen to prevent any challenge to their own responses to Hersch.

NATO imperialism, and its social-imperialist apologists and supporters are, of course, also aided by the fact that Russia is a vile, corrupt, right-wing regime, whose own actions, and lies are manna for the propaganda machine of the West. But, the fact that the Russian regime is a bunch of vile, corrupt lying butchers, does not remove the requirement to consider the facts and the evidence in relation to the likely culprit. After all, the regime of Zelensky that NATO is using in its proxy war against Russia, and which the social-imperialists are providing uncritical and fawning support to, is equally as vile, lying and corrupt, and anti-working-class as that of Putin! Nor is NATO backward when it comes to lying, and acting as a vile reactionary force across the globe to pursue the interest of US imperialism, even at the expense of the US's allies.

As Irish Marxism set out last year,

“The right wing US think-tank The CATO Institute has an annual ‘Human Freedom’ index, a combination of separate indices for personal and economic freedom. Its 2021 report shows that Ukraine is the third worst country out of 22 in Eastern Europe while the Russian Federation is the worst. Over 165 countries Ukraine is number 98 while Russia is 126. The freest country at number 1 is Switzerland, which scores 9.11 for human freedom while Ukraine scores 6.86 (75% of the Swiss score) and Russia scores 6.23 (or 68% of the Swiss score). We are expected to support the war of Ukraine with 75% of the ‘human freedom’ of the freest against Russia with 68%. The war of 7%. It is relevant to note that while in 2021 Ukraine ranked 98th, it ranked higher at 82nd in 2008, so that relatively it has gotten worse, but so has Russia from 112th to 126th.

The second index is that of ‘Transparency International’ which reports the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries/territories around the world. It scores these countries out of 100, with the lower the score the more corrupt a country is perceived to be. The 2021 publication reports that the least corrupt countries included Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, scoring 88 each. Ukraine is 123rd on the list while Russia is 139th. A better indication of the difference is that Ukraine scores 32 out of 100 while Russia scores 29, meaning that the former scores 36% of Denmark etc. while Russia scores 33%. Not a pile of difference; 3 to be exact.”

Hundreds of billions of Dollars, Euros and Pounds is being poured into the Ukrainian money-pit, and with these levels of corruption, can anyone seriously doubt that large amounts of it, is finding its way into the private pockets and offshore bank accounts of Urrainian officials and oligarchs, just as happened with all of the billions that went on COVID procurements and so on.  All of it money coming out of taxes that ought to go to rebuilding shattered infrastructure in the US, Britain and the EU, not into further destroying property by wars between competing and corrupt capitalist  states.

A few days ago, I came across this post from the pro-imperialist AWL supporter Jim Denham. It is a re-blog of a post from Simon Pirani at the People and Nature blog, and also on the website of the US petty-bourgeois socialist sect New Politics. So, I made a brief comment to the effect above that whether Hersch had proved his assertion or not, the fact remains that all the evidence points to it being the US, and nor is it just Hersch that has said so, as I have set out in my own posts over recent months. The head of commodities trading at Citigroup, Ed Morse, pointed out months ago that the cause of soaring oil prices had been the decision of the EU, under US pressure, to boycott Russian oil supplies, leaving EU countries needing to buy up more expensive US oil instead. Moreover, even if you could write off Hersch as some kind of pro-Putin eccentric, despite all of his reputation, its not so easy to write off a stalwart of US imperialism such as Jeffrey Sachs!

But, these straightforward posts never appeared either at Denham's blog, or at Pirani's blog. I posted a second comment at Pirani's blog, in response to a comment from someone else, noting this reluctance to deal with criticism. Several days later, I received an e-mail from Simon Pirani, saying that my comment had not been published, because it did not relate to his post. Obviously, I questioned that, and received a further reply saying all he had received was the second comment, and that if I wished to submit a comment I could.

Yet, my first comment had initially been flagged as awaiting moderator approval, so where had it gone? I've pointed this out, and yet it still didn't appear.  Secondly, I had copied and pasted the comment to Denham's blog, and it had disappeared too, which has also happened with other comments I posted there in recent weeks, on this subject. All of this is reminiscent of the experience I had with the bureaucratic-centrists of the AWL, and their systematic censorship, which led me to begin this blog in the first place.

As with the Catholic Church, it appears that the apostles of imperialism can suffer no hint of challenge to their faith, for fear of being tempted into the realm of heresy themselves. So, let us follow the example of Martin Luther, and post our challenge to them on the doors of our own church of reason. I will do so, by responding to Piran's argument, which itself responds to, or purports to respond to, the arguments of Hersch.

 

Part 2 Tomorrow