Seymour Hersh's Fails to Link the S.M.O.M to U.S. Military Conspiracy

Journalist Seymour Hersh who become famous for breaking the story on the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam gave a talk recently at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar where he attempted to implicate the Order of Malta in a conspiracy of high ranking U.S military officials seeking to "turn Churches into Mosques." In a transcript of the speech published at Foreign Policy, Hersh claims that

"a large percentage of the Special Operations Command, the JSOC, General McChrystal, Vice Admiral Bill McRaven --all are members or at least supporters of Knights of Malta. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Special Operations Command, the Joint Special Operations Command and Stanley McChrystal, the one who got in trouble because of the article in Rolling Stone, and his follow-on, a Navy admiral named McRaven, Bill McRaven -- all are members or at least supporters of Knights of Malta. McRaven attended, so I understand, the recent annual convention of the Knights of Malta they had in Cyprus a few months back in November. They're all believers -- many of them are members of Opus Dei. They do see what they are doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims in the 13th century. And this is their function. They have little insignias, they have coins they pass among each other, which are crusader coins, and they have insignia that reflect that, the whole notion that this is a war, it's culture war. . . So the trouble with some of these religious groups is they may have good things, but right now there is a tremendous, tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community.

For a Pulitzer winning journalist Hersh fails to provide any coherent evidence to support his claims that the Order of Malta has any link to the U.S. Spec Ops Command. His only evidence of any connection is that in his words, "McRaven attended, so I understand, the recent annual convention of the Knights of Malta in Cyprus in November." For the record Gen. McChrystal denied being a member of the Order. He then goes on to indict Opus Dei suggesting that not only is everyone a Knight of Malta but also a member of Opus Dei. Of course Hersh admits that both organizations do great stuff,

They do a lot of charity work; so does Opus Dei. It's a very extreme, extremely religious s, Roman Catholic sect, if you will.

I'm confused, is he referring to Opus Dei as an extreme sect, the Order or both? Regardless he provides an anecdote involving a Nazi rocket scientist from WWII, who else but Nazi's to involve in your conspiracy, and concludes that,

the trouble with some of these religious groups is they may have good things, but right now there is tremendous, tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community.

Maybe part of the transcript is missing because I don't see how in the same sentence you start out saying that religious groups do good things and in the next breath say there is tremendous anti-Muslim feeling in the military community. A claim furthermore for which he provides no evidence. The rest of the talk faults Obama for essentially abdicating his authority and turning over the conduct of the war to those prosecuting it.

Hersh's passive aggressive style, they do really good work but are leading a covert crusade against Islam, threatens the Order as it provides a pretext for it to be attacked. Similar reckless statements against the Order of Malta spurred jihadists to threaten the Order of Malta's embassy in Cairo in 2007.  It also fuels conspiracy theories against the Order as a quick Google search of Hersh's speech will prove.  See the full text of his talk here.