Roger L. Simon: Seymour, An (Iranian) Introduction

Because Pajamas and this site have been covering events in Iran, we were sent last night the interview with Seymour Hersh conducted by state radio of the Islamic Republic. In this interview Hersh calls Iran "probably the most democratic country" in the Middle East. You could call that damning with faint praise, but it is much worse. I have described on here a recent encounter I had with one of the leaders of their student movement. His face had been bashed in like a Picasso from his multiple stays in Evin Prison. He and his brother (also an activist) were tortured in front of each other in the same prison. Later the brother was murdered by the Regime. Hersh is evidently not interested in such matters. He probably thinks he's some sort of scion of Orwell. Lots of people do. But Orwell best described the likes of Hersh when he called them "objectively pro-fascist."

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I suppose it never occurred to him that Israel is there in the Middle East. He probably thinks Israel is somewhere on 17th street in Washington, sitting sweetly in the middle of its lobby.

Iranian Radio Host - Mr. Hersh there are so many people that say Mr. Bush is the devil, most of them say according to Cindy Sheehan and others that Bush has descended onto hell. Mr. Hersh Is Mr. Bush the devil?

Hersh - Well I'm neither catholic nor protestant so I'm not intimately aware of Mr. Bush qualifications to have been chosen for that job, but from what I have been able to gleam from all the pictures released by the WH is that there are no air conditioners in the oval office. Now that should tell you quite a lot. One day the president will wake up and he won't be able to hide that he may indeed be the devil. Now, I want to be perfectly clear this is just speculative on my part. We still have no proof, no smoking gun that Bush is the devil. Although with Chaney there is a smoking gun.

Ah, yes, "most democratic". Unlike in the Soviet Union, where there was only one government-pre-approved name on the ballot, in Iran there are sometimes two or more government-pre-approved names on the ballot.

I suggest that the U.S. adopt Iranian-style rules for 2008. Supreme Leader for Life George W. Bush and a council he selects will be allowed to decide what candidates, for any party, are allowed to run for all offices. If we're lucky, they'll let people as far left as Zell Miller run.

Israel. Lebanon. And does anyone remember the 11 million purple fingers in Iraq?

speaking of orwell, this passage from his 'thoughts on nationalism' best describes mr hersh:

"But for an intellectual, transference has an important function which I have already mentioned shortly in connection with Chesterton. It makes it possible for him to be much more nationalistic -- more vulgar, more silly, more malignant, more dishonest -- that he could ever be on behalf of his native country, or any unit of which he had real knowledge. When one sees the slavish or boastful rubbish that is written about Stalin, the Red Army, etc. by fairly intelligent and sensitive people, one realizes that this is only possible because some kind of dislocation has taken place. In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion -- that is , the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware -- will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are sceptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice: in that case he will have abandoned the form of nationalism that lies nearest to hand without getting any closer to a genuinely internationalist outlook. He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack -- all the overthrown idols can reappear under different names, and because they are not recognized for what they are they can be worshipped with a good conscience. Transferred nationalism, like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct.
....Within the intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein, or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia, or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong. As a result, "enlightened" opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next."

As old Sy himself said a couple of years back by way of justifying the use of faux "facts" in his speeches to promote the "greater good," "I can certainly fudge what I say."

"Scion of Orwell"? No, I think "Scion of Duranty" would probably be more accurate.

April 9, 2007: Seymour, An (Iranian) Introduction

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