The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

[highnote]

Seymour M. Hersh who wrote about the Mi Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib prison has written an exposé claiming that the White House covered up the details of the killing of Bin Laden and also fabricated others.

It is a long article, but very interesting and worth a read:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

Here's the opening paragraph:

It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

[Clocker]

I have not read Hersh's article yet, but there appear to be some serious questions about the credibility of his claims. In an interview with Michael Hirsh of Politico, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell says he started reading Hersh's article and gave up on it because it got so much wrong. Morell was with the CIA for 20 years, and at first glance anyway, appears to be non-political.

Hirsh: The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is out with a new article in the London Review of Books that says the U.S. has been lying about the bin Laden mission—that in fact the Pakistanis knew all about it beforehand.

Morell: I read about a third of it, and then I actually put it down, because everything I read was wrong. His source has no idea what he’s talking about. … First of all it’s not true that we paid some Pakistani $25 million to tell us where Osama bin Laden was. It’s absolutely not true. The story of us following the courier to get to bin Laden is the true story. … I sat in the situation room when the president made the decision not to tell the Pakistanis.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/michael-morell-interview-cia-impending-terror-attack-117821.html#ixzz3Zxc9W8Sj



Morell also says some interesting things about Benghazi, if you read between the lines.

[highnote]

I have not read Hersh's article yet, but there appear to be some serious questions about the credibility of his claims. In an interview with Michael Hirsh of Politico, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell says he started reading Hersh's article and gave up on it because it got so much wrong. Morell was with the CIA for 20 years, and at first glance anyway, appears to be non-political.
.


If Morell was in the situation room with Obama then it makes sense that he would stick to the original story and say that Hersh got a lot wrong.

Hersh's explanation makes a lot more sense than the "official" White House explanation, in my opinion.

[ArlJim78]

The administration has lied about everything that much we already knew, but Sy Hersh is a grand stander who has a horrible record for getting things right.

[highnote]

The administration has lied about everything that much we already knew, but Sy Hersh is a grand stander who has a horrible record for getting things right.

Do two lies equal the truth?

[MutuelClerk]

The POS is dead. Can't we just be happy with that?

[JustRalph]

The POS is dead. Can't we just be happy with that?

Prove it......

[highnote]

Prove it......

Again, Hersh's story seems plausible that the Navy Seals obliterated the body with bullets.

The official story is that bin Laden was given a Muslim burial. Who was the Iman that was supposed to be present during the burial at sea?

Without a body, who knows what the truth is?

[Tom]

I only believe he is dead because the SEALS say so.
Not Obama - not at all.
Or the Bitch.

[JustRalph]

I only believe he is dead because the SEALS say so.
Not Obama - not at all.
Or the Bitch.

I don't doubt the Seals. But the fact the country was not presented with proof is a problem

[Robert Fischer]

OBL 'the symbol', died whatever way the media said, or alternatively, whatever alternate theory the alternate or politically specific media that you happen to follow said.

OBL the man? Who knows... Some of the scenarios that are within my probability estimates are unorthodox, and don't follow the major media broadcasts. In my perspective it also seems inconsequential. I'm perfectly content to go with the flow on this one.

[Tom]

I don't doubt the Seals. But the fact the country was not presented with proof is a problem

Yes, it does.

[MutuelClerk]

I heard OBL and Elvis were eating whoppers at Burger King and the King was pissed.

[Clocker]

Navy SEAL says Hersh all wrong. I don't know if it has been confirmed that this is the guy that actually shot OBL.

The former Navy SEAL who says he killed Osama bin Laden is slamming a new report that challenges the White House’s account of the mission, calling it “garbage.”

“The story that I read, the part from [Seymour] Hersh, was full of lies,” Rob O’Neill said on Fox News's "Shepard Smith Reporting."

“It took me a long time to read it because I had to put it down — I couldn’t read the nonsense.”

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/241661-bin-laden-report-full-of-lies-says-former-navy-seal