Military Mentality at the Top:

Seymour Hersh may be America's greatest journalist: He broke the My Lai Massacre story in 1969 and in 2004, the Abu Ghraib prison story, both of which exposed the obscenely cruel bluntness of the military tool and the willingness of commanders to cover up responsibility. Now he's preparing a book in which he plans to reveal a mindset among the military's commanders that inevitably undermines hope for peaceful solution to America's goals in the Muslim world.

According to Hersh, military leaders see themselves as 12th century crusaders, intent on turning mosques into churches. (See Paul Farhi's story in The Washington Post.)