America’s home-grown terrorists haven’t gone away, you know

SEYMOUR HERSCH’S allegations that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon were behind the decision to abuse the Arab prisoners sexually so that they would talk must be taken seriously.

This is because Hersch has already established a reputation as possibly the greatest investigative journalist in America.

His first big scoop came in November 1969 when, as a 32-year old freelance journalist, he broke the story of the My Lai massacre in the village of Son My, where over 500 Vietnamese civilians old men, women and children were murdered by American soldiers on March 16, 1968. What happened at Abu Ghraib prison has again raised the spectre of My Lai.