Vox Media reports:
[May 10], the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh finally released a story that he has been rumored to have been working on for years: the truth about the killing of Osama bin Laden. According to Hersh's 10,000-word story in the London Review of Books, the official history of bin Laden's death--in which the US tracked him to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan; killed him in a secret raid that infuriated Pakistan; and then buried him at sea--is a lie.
Hersh's story is amazing to read, alleging a vast American-Pakistani conspiracy to stage the raid and even to fake high-level diplomatic incidents as a sort of cover. But his allegations are largely supported only by two sources, neither of whom has direct knowledge of what happened, both of whom are retired, and one of whom is anonymous. The story is riven with internal contradictions and inconsistencies.
Zero Hedge says:
In a nutshell--and one really needs to read Hersh's magnum opus, as no amount of abbreviation will do it justice--Hersh accuses Obama of not only taking credit for the al Qaeda leader's death, but fabricating the story that resulted from what has been widely reported to have been a Navy SEAL incursion into bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in Pakistan. As a result the military and intelligence communities were forced to scramble and then corroborate the president's version of events.
Needless to say, the White House did not respond to Hersh's requests for comment.
Among the many allegations of Hersh's report are that:
- bin Laden had been a prisoner of the Pakistan intelligence at the Abbottabad compound since 2006 (something revealed previously in "Osama bin Laden 'protected by Pakistan in return for Saudi cash")
- that the two most senior Pakistani military leaders knew of the raid in advance and had made sure that the two helicopters delivering the SEALs to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms;
- that the CIA did not learn of bin Laden's whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the US,
- and that, while Obama did order the raid and the SEAL team did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration's account were false.
[...] bin Laden was murdered, plain and simple: [...] A former SEAL commander, who has led and participated in dozens of similar missions over the past decade, assured me that 'we were not going to keep bin Laden alive--to allow the terrorist to live. By law, we know what we're doing inside Pakistan is a homicide. We've come to grips with that. Each one of us, when we do these missions, say to ourselves, "Let's face it. We're going to commit a murder."'
The big, slow, noisy helicopters they used had me convinced from the start that the official narrative was garbage... and I think everyone recognizes that these "special operations" teams are simply assassination squads.
takyon adds:
• R.J. Hillhouse Reported Essentials of Hersh's bin Laden Story in 2011 - With Seemingly Different Sources
• The Detail in Seymour Hersh's Bin Laden Story That Rings True
• A Crank Theory of Seymour Hersh: To understand the legendary national security reporter, you need to understand an archetype of the intelligence world: the crank.
• Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing & Responds to White House, Media Backlash
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:51PM
1. Whether Bin Laden was a "guest" or "prisoner" of the Pakistani ISI is pure semantics. OBL obviously had a good life there and was being protected from the USA, who wanted to kill him.
2. Whether or not the SEALs planned to kill OBL or just bring him in was discussed as an interesting point after the raid occurred, but really, Americans don't really care. OBL was killed; that's probably a better solution than bringing him back to the USA, which would inflame Islamists worldwide.
3. If the CIA lied when they said how they were found OBL, well, as an American that's what I want and expect. I don't want the CIA giving away their methodology in this un-gentlemanly business of going after our top enemies who are in hiding, and sometimes protected by foreign goverments.
BTW I just logged onto foxnews.com. If they're running this story it's not on their front page, and they don't miss many opportunities to stick it to Obama.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 13 2015, @02:22PM
Killing Osama doesn't seem half as useful as imprisoning him forever, for one simple reason: Dead men can't talk.
However, that may be part of why he was killed in the first place. My guess is that the CIA has more than a few secrets about their activities in Afghanistan in the 1980s that they wanted buried.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @02:25PM
What could happen is that any major US politician, or large group of tourists, would be a target of kidnapping overseas, as a potential hostage swap for OBL. I suspect that probably came up in the pre-raid planning.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:42PM