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American history is filled with war stories that subsequently unraveled. Consider the Bush administration's false claims about Saddam Hussein's supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction or the imagined attack on a U.S. vessel in the Gulf of Tonkin. Now Johnathan Mahler writes in the NY Times about the inconsistencies in the official US story about bin Laden's death. "Almost immediately, the administration had to correct some of the most significant details of the raid," writes Mahler. Bin Laden had not been ''engaged in a firefight,'' as the deputy national-security adviser, John Brennan, initially told reporters; he'd been unarmed. Nor had he used one of his wives as a human shield. The president and his senior advisers hadn't been watching a ''live feed'' of the raid in the Situation Room; the operation had not been captured on helmet-cams.
But according to Mahler there is the sheer improbability of the story itself, which asked us to believe that Obama sent 23 SEALs on a seemingly suicidal mission, invading Pakistani air space without air or ground cover, fast-roping into a compound that, if it even contained bin Laden, by all rights should have been heavily guarded. How likely was that? Abbottabad is basically a garrison town; the conspicuously large bin Laden compound — three stories, encircled by an 18-foot-high concrete wall topped with barbed wire — was less than two miles from Pakistan's equivalent of West Point. ''The story stunk from Day 1,'' says Seymour Hersh whose most consequential claim was about how bin Laden was found in the first place. According to Hersh, it was not years of painstaking intelligence-gathering, he wrote, that led the United States to the courier and, ultimately, to bin Laden. Instead, the location was revealed by a ''walk-in'' — a retired Pakistani intelligence officer who was after the $25 million reward that the United States had promised anyone who helped locate him. And according to Hersh, the daring raid wasn't especially daring. The Pakistanis allowed the U.S. helicopters into their airspace and cleared out the guards at the compound before the SEALs arrived. The most blatant lie was that Pakistan's two most senior military leaders – General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI – were never informed of the US mission.
"It's not that the truth about bin Laden's death is unknowable," concludes Mahler. "it's that we don't know it. And we can't necessarily console ourselves with the hope that we will have more answers any time soon; to this day, the final volume of the C.I.A.'s official history of the Bay of Pigs remains classified. We don't know what happened more than a half-century ago, much less in 2011."
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by ledow on Friday October 23 2015, @07:31AM
And to be honest, because of the way it was done, we can't even be sure that he is dead. We can suspect that to be the case but can't ever be certain now (maybe in 50 years, we can say that in all likelihood he's dead, but that's about it).
For all we know, he's in Guantanamo being beaten every day to show him how "civilised" countries behave and apply the rule of law, rather than just acting like a bunch of violent terrorists. *cough*.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 23 2015, @08:17AM
Well, the videos and tth tapes stopped arriving. Maybe he's in witness protection?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 23 2015, @07:09PM
Indeed, if he isn't a corpse, then he's either been scared stiff and acting like one, or he's been secured.
Or maybe they went through a sudden and violent theological upheaval and decided to pursue other means to secure their religious interests, regardless of what happened to him. Perhaps hes watching from a distance or he's as dead as claimed.
That ISIS thing seems to be working out better for them, and perhaps was spurred on by a vacuum in leadership. It seems that this particular bogeyman is no longer a valid reference point when such a dynamic new one has arisen to take his place.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 23 2015, @07:25PM
or he's been secured.
But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @08:33AM
Maybe he is just hanging out in Saudi Arabia with the rest of his family... Eating grapes, drinking wine, smoking hashish, and enjoying a minor surgical disguise!
Who knows?!
Americans gave more respect to the Nazis and actually PUT THEM ON TRIAL so that the entire world could see them punished and make a statement.
Bin Laden? "Oh we dumped him in the ocean for... reasons..."
Sounds legit!
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 23 2015, @03:40PM
Americans gave more respect to the Nazis and actually PUT THEM ON TRIAL so that the entire world could see them punished and make a statement.
To be fair, they only did that to the ones they hadn't already shot and killed.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @04:10PM
I'm sure that trial wouldn't be bombed