In a speech billed as a discussion of the Bush and Obama eras, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh Monday expressing his disappointment with President Barack Obama and his dissatisfaction with the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

"Just when we needed an angry black man," he began, his arm perched jauntily on the podium, "we didn't get one."

Hersh, whose exposés of gross abuses by members of the U.S. military in Vietnam and Iraq have earned him worldwide fame and high journalistic honors, said he was writing a book on what he called the "Cheney-Bush years" and saw little difference between that period and the Obama administration.

He said that he was keeping a "checklist" of aggressive U.S. policies that remained in place, including torture and "rendition" of terrorist suspects to allied countries, which he alleged was ongoing.

He also charged that U.S. foreign policy had been hijacked by a cabal of neoconservative "crusaders" in the former vice president's office and now in the special operations community.

He then alleged that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC before briefly becoming the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and his successor, Vice Adm. William McRaven, as well as many within JSOC, "are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta."

Hersh may have been referring to the Sovereign Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic organization.

"Many of them are members of Opus Dei," Hersh continued. "They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally.

Hersh was speaking on the invitation of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, which operates a branch campus in Qatar.
[link to blog.foreignpolicy.com]