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[BlastProcessing]

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

His account is very different from the White House's story. A few quotes.

This spring I contacted Durrani and told him in detail what I had learned about the bin Laden assault from American sources: that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Kayani and Pasha 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.

A worrying factor at this early point, according to the retired official, was Saudi Arabia, which had been financing bin Laden’s upkeep since his seizure by the Pakistanis. ‘The Saudis didn’t want bin Laden’s presence revealed to us because he was a Saudi, and so they told the Pakistanis to keep him out of the picture. The Saudis feared if we knew we would pressure the Pakistanis to let bin Laden start talking to us about what the Saudis had been doing with al-Qaida. And they were dropping money – lots of it. The Pakistanis, in turn, were concerned that the Saudis might spill the beans about their control of bin Laden. The fear was that if the US found out about bin Laden from Riyadh, all hell would break out. The Americans learning about bin Laden’s imprisonment from a walk-in was not the worst thing.’

Bargaining continued over the way the mission would be executed. ‘Kayani eventually tells us yes, but he says you can’t have a big strike force. You have to come in lean and mean. And you have to kill him, or there is no deal,’ the retired official said.

In his address announcing the raid, Obama said that after killing bin Laden the Seals ‘took custody of his body’. The statement created a problem. In the initial plan it was to be announced a week or so after the fact that bin Laden was killed in a drone strike somewhere in the mountains on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and that his remains had been identified by DNA testing. But with Obama’s announcement of his killing by the Seals everyone now expected a body to be produced. Instead, reporters were told that bin Laden’s body had been flown by the Seals to an American military airfield in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and then straight to the USS Carl Vinson, a supercarrier on routine patrol in the North Arabian Sea. Bin Laden had then been buried at sea, just hours after his death.

One lie that has endured is that the Seals had to fight their way to their target. Only two Seals have made any public statement: No Easy Day, a first-hand account of the raid by Matt Bissonnette, was published in September 2012; and two years later Rob O’Neill was interviewed by Fox News. Both men had resigned from the navy; both had fired at bin Laden. Their accounts contradicted each other on many details, but their stories generally supported the White House version, especially when it came to the need to kill or be killed as the Seals fought their way to bin Laden. O’Neill even told Fox News that he and his fellow Seals thought ‘We were going to die.’ ‘The more we trained on it, the more we realised … this is going to be a one-way mission.’

But the retired official told me that in their initial debriefings the Seals made no mention of a firefight, or indeed of any opposition. The drama and danger portrayed by Bissonnette and O’Neill met a deep-seated need, the retired official said: ‘Seals cannot live with the fact that they killed bin Laden totally unopposed, and so there has to be an account of their courage in the face of danger. The guys are going to sit around the bar and say it was an easy day? That’s not going to happen.’

The whole article is worth reading. It's pretty goddamned crazy

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

- One anonymous source

- Almost an election year

- Guy has written bullshit like this before

Yeah. No.

 

[Speevy]

As long as he's still dead...

 

[badcrumble]

- One anonymous source

- Almost an election year

- Guy has written bullshit like this before

Yeah. No.

Lol. Sy Hersh is the guy who broke the story on the My Lai massacre.

 

[Stinkles]

Pakistan willingly allowing Saudi Arabia proxy control seems really far fetched. While they have many common interests, including strained U.S. support, they also have many conflicts. However, iSI definitely knew precisely where he was and he was in their care.

Most of this is commonly held and possibly correct speculation.


And the idea that all Seals are vainglorious blowhards to the point of treason is a bit out there too, IMO. Many are almost robotically straight laced.

 

[Mimosa97]

I watched Zero Dark thirty. Funny stuff.

I guess we might know what really happened in 50 years. Until then, we'll never know.

 

[ginger ninja]

Its been making rounds on internet and the content/sources is very questionable to say the least. At one poine he claims seals were throwing obl body parts over the hindukush during their return ride..gtf outta here.

He may have been a reputable once but i think he went loony since.

 

[BlastProcessing]

- One anonymous source

- Almost an election year

- Guy has written bullshit like this before

Yeah. No.

All of his major sources are anonymous but there are names attached to things that can be corroborated such as:

In a reconstruction of the bin Laden operation for Vanity Fair, Mark Bowden, who spoke to many senior administration officials, wrote that bin Laden’s body was cleaned and photographed at Jalalabad. Further procedures necessary for a Muslim burial were performed on the carrier, he wrote, ‘with bin Laden’s body being washed again and wrapped in a white shroud. A navy photographer recorded the burial in full sunlight, Monday morning, May 2.’ Bowden described the photos:

One frame shows the body wrapped in a weighted shroud. The next shows it lying diagonally on a chute, feet overboard. In the next frame the body is hitting the water. In the next it is visible just below the surface, ripples spreading outward. In the last frame there are only circular ripples on the surface. The mortal remains of Osama bin Laden were gone for good.

Bowden was careful not to claim that he had actually seen the photographs he described, and he recently told me he hadn’t seen them: ‘I’m always disappointed when I can’t look at something myself, but I spoke with someone I trusted who said he had seen them himself and described them in detail.’

Hersh has written a lot over many years. He has a Pulitzer and his work on Abu Ghraib has held up to scrutiny. I am not saying his claims are true, but I don't think you can dismiss him with a wave of the hand.

We are pretty far from the election and I am not sure how the story really affects politics in a substantive way. It makes Obama look like a politician who is willing to get dirty to kill Bin Laden. That's not a clean attack for Republicans.

 

[Stinkles]

All of his major sources are anonymous but there are names attached to things that can be corroborated such as:



Hersh has written a lot over many years. He has a Pulitzer and his work on Abu Ghraib has held up to scrutiny. I am not saying his claims are true, but I don't think you can dismiss him with a wave of the hand.

We are pretty far from the election and I am not sure how the story really affects politics in a substantive way. It makes Obama look like a politician who is willing to get dirty to kill Bin Laden. That's not a clean attack for Republicans.

It would be easier and safer to fake the burial than create a secondary backstory about non existent photographs. It's all a bit Occam's razor-y

 

[FlyingSaucer]

Pretty interesting article; the way it shows how the "story" has been "constructed" for mass comsumption make my cynic heart believe it for being more realist than whatever Hollywoodian crap we have been fed.

 

[Tesseract]

All of his major sources are anonymous but there are names attached to things that can be corroborated such as:



Hersh has written a lot over many years. He has a Pulitzer and his work on Abu Ghraib has held up to scrutiny. I am not saying his claims are true, but I don't think you can dismiss him with a wave of the hand.

We are pretty far from the election and I am not sure how the story really affects politics in a substantive way. It makes Obama look like a politician who is willing to get dirty to kill Bin Laden. That's not a clean attack for Republicans.

obama won a nobel, don't bullshit a bullshitter!

 

[BlastProcessing]

Its been making rounds on internet and the content/sources is very questionable to say the least. At one poine he claims seals were throwing obl body parts over the hindukush during their return ride..gtf outta here.

He may have been a reputable once but i think he went loony since.

See, to me the idea that Seals, who thought the entire operation would be kept entirely secret, would be cavalier with Bin Laden's remains feels way more likely than Bin Laden setting up a headquarters in Abbotabad.

It would be easier and safer to fake the burial than create a secondary backstory about non existent photographs. It's all a bit Occam's razor-y

That would require time and coordination. Hersh's version of events talks about a mad scramble.

 

[Rivitur]

Sounds like something those snakes in the gov would do.

 

[foxtrot3d]

Sounds a lot like some bullshit.

 

[Syph Medwes]

obama won a nobel, don't bullshit a bullshitter!

i enjoyed this post

 

[Stinkles]

See, to me the idea that Seals, who thought the entire operation would be kept entirely secret, would be cavalier with Bin Laden's remains feels way more likely than Bin Laden setting up a headquarters in Abbotabad.



That would require time and coordination. Hersh's version of events talks about a mad scramble.

So they pretend crash landed a Blackhawk for theatrics but couldn't organize a side of beef and some sheets?

 

[Guevara]

Dude's been seriously wrong about Iran for 10+ years, I'm not saying he's lost it, but he's got some bad sources.

 

[BlastProcessing]

So they pretend crash landed a Blackhawk for theatrics but couldn't organize a side of beef and some sheets?

The Blackhawk crash was an accident. Did you read the article? The fact that the Blackhawk crashed is the crux of the whole account.

 

[ginger ninja]

He's writing also shows that he has very poor understanding of general dynamics of how pakistan actually work, and that's coming for actual journalists.

Pakistani establishment's involvement in obl's hiding has always lingered between incompetence and actual support, and the way things turned out after the raid, the former assertion just makes more sense. If anybody thinks that any higher up in the military would agree to tarnish it's image so badly(after years of denying it), well then they definitely understand how that country essentially works.

 

[border]

So what does this change, if true? Maybe Bin Laden was a hot potato that everyone knew about but nobody wanted. Maybe someone somewhere decided to give his location away to the US in exchange for making his killing look like an independent strike. Maybe Seal Team Six killed him in cold blood while he was defenseless, but I think most people are really not going to care about that.

 

[BlastProcessing]

So what does this change, if true? Maybe Bin Laden was a hot potato that everyone knew about but nobody wanted. Maybe someone somewhere decided to give his location away to the US in exchange for making his killing look like an independent strike. Maybe Seal Team Six killed him in cold blood while he was defenseless, but I think most people are really not going to care about that.

I agree that it doesn't change a lot in the grand scheme of things if it's true. But if it's true, then torture didn't lead to actionable information and an innocent doctor is doing 33 years for treason.

 

[Mully]

He has a pretty credible history as a reporter, but he's missed on Iran a number of times and he seems to slowly be moving towards the conspiracy theorist end of the spectrum as a reporter.

 

[way more]

I watched Zero Dark thirty. Funny stuff.

I guess we might know what really happened in 50 years. Until then, we'll never know.

What was the funny stuff?

 

[AxelFoley]

Lol. Sy Hersh is the guy who broke the story on the My Lai massacre.

And Ralph Nader used to be a respected consumer advocate, but look at him now.

 

[way more]

And Ralph Nader used to be a respected consumer advocate, but look at him now.

Bob Woodward (Watergate) has a similar reputation.

Slate.com

There’s no question that he frequently ferrets out information that other reporters don’t. But getting the scoop is only part of the equation. Once you have the facts, you have to present those facts in context and in proportion to other facts in order to accurately reflect reality. It’s here that Woodward fails.

But I'm not seeing a lot of scandal here. It seems like the Pakistani's want to downplay the information they were willing to give up. This seems like a high minded article to support the Bin Laden never died, theory.

It's late, I have to wake up early and take the cat to the vet so I only parsed the article. But it comes from a worthy publisher and a source who wants to keep his name worthy. It's probably not just anonymous sourcers that lead to nothing, http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1026352

 

[Acinixys]

Pretty interesting article; the way it shows how the "story" has been "constructed" for mass comsumption make my cynic heart believe it for being more realist than whatever Hollywoodian crap we have been fed.

Jet fuel cant melt steel beams

Wow though

All that guns blazing glory kill stuff was a lie?

They waltzed in unopposed and killed him in cold blood? Thats fucked up if true

 

[JackBauer24]

So how does he explain Bin Laden's relatives and guards being armed? Or the privacy walls? Or the canopy that prevented satellites from seeing who went on mini walks? Also, what kind of prison has the types of evidence that Seals pulled off drives and rooms in the limited time that they had? This conspiracy is worse than some of Jesse Ventura's.

 

[HariKari]

So how does he explain Bin Laden's relatives and guards being armed? Or the privacy walls? Or the canopy that prevented satellites from seeing who went on mini walks? Also, what kind of prison has the types of evidence that Seals pulled off drives and rooms in the limited time that they had? This conspiracy is worse than some of Jesse Ventura's.

A white collar prison. He was already paranoid about drones and being caught by the Americans. He hid in plain sight. It wouldn't be all that shocking if Pakistan or Saudi Arabia were in on it, or a faction within those governments like ISS.

 

[itsgreen]

They waltzed in unopposed and killed him in cold blood? Thats fucked up if true

This is pretty much true in the official version. They shot him immediately because he didn't instantly say he surrendered.

 

[foxtrot3d]

This is pretty much true in the official version. They shot him immediately because he didn't instantly say he surrendered.

Well, they allegedly shot him because he was running and going for a weapon. It doesn't matter because they were never going to take him alive, the orders for years when hunting Bin Laden was to kill him on sight, he was never going to be taken alive. And, the logic was not unsound the idea was that taking him alive would present too many challenges and risks. By simply capturing it would inspire countless terrorist attacks to set him free and then their would be the complexity of a trial if we decided to bring him back states side. It was always better to just kill him and be done with it.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Sounds a lot like some bullshit.

Its like every conspiracy theory. The idea that Obama just fucked up his speech and they had to re-do the whole cloak-and-dagger plan just sounds sketchy as fuck to me.

 

[Lucky Forward]

But the retired official told me that in their initial debriefings the Seals made no mention of a firefight, or indeed of any opposition. The drama and danger portrayed by Bissonnette and O’Neill met a deep-seated need, the retired official said: ‘Seals cannot live with the fact that they killed bin Laden totally unopposed, and so there has to be an account of their courage in the face of danger. The guys are going to sit around the bar and say it was an easy day? That’s not going to happen.’

Wait...he's saying they killed bin Laden unopposed, but then a story about a firefight was fabricated so the Seals could feel better about themselves and have a good bar story to tell?

 

[GreatestHits]

It's time like this that GAF exposes that it's average user is on par with the mainstream american when it comes to understanding what the hell is actually going on in political world affairs. I say this because I thought nerds/internet culture was more accepting of theories in the 'conspirator' category. I suppose the scrutinization makes for a good vehicle which can serve as a bridge for people in the same boat.

I didn't realize that people actually still believed Bin Laden and the USA were not partners in crime, but I guess that's how out of touch I am with said people

 

[Angry Grimace]

Wait...he's saying they killed bin Laden unopposed, but then a story about a firefight was fabricated so the Seals could feel better about themselves and have a good bar story to tell?

Like most conspiracy theories, it requires a lot of good acting by a LOT of different people, notably the Seal Team. And apparently, according to this theory, the guy who spilled the beans on accident was Barack Obama, in a public address. Whoops.

In the end, I don't know what the US or any of the government actors stood to gain in this version of the story and in the supposed cover-up. The reward on bin Laden's head was already public knowledge.

 

[Hari Seldon]

That doesn't sound that far fetched to be honest. This isn't some false flag conspiracy theory.

 

[YoungHav]

Bin Laden being prisoner since 2006 makes sense and could be possible. He all of a sudden stopped dropping video mixtapes around that time. Inexplicably moved to audio after that. I had assumed he died around 2007, but prisoner would explain the lack of video.

 

[Trojita]

It's time like this that GAF exposes that it's average user is on par with the mainstream american when it comes to understanding what the hell is actually going on in political world affairs. I say this because I thought nerds/internet culture was more accepting of theories in the 'conspirator' category. I suppose the scrutinization makes for a good vehicle which can serve as a bridge for people in the same boat.

I didn't realize that people actually still believed Bin Laden and the USA were not partners in crime, but I guess that's how out of touch I am with said people

Wake up sheeple.

 

[capslock]

Bin Laden being prisoner since 2006 makes sense and could be possible. He all of a sudden stopped dropping video mixtapes around that time. Inexplicably moved to audio after that. I had assumed he died around 2007, but prisoner would explain the lack of video.

So the audio person was an impersonator?

 

[jstripes]

Sounds plausible to me.

The Saudis and Pakistanis wanted to save face, and the US got to make a glorious story about how they got their most wanted guy.

 

[massoluk]

He's writing this based on one, ONE, anonymous source. Whatever good he had done before, this clearly isn't worthy of your time.

And of course, Bush admin decided to forego killing Bin Laden in 2006 for reason and left it to Obama admin to execute it.

 

[pyros]

Interesting article, about seymour hersh's report

 

[RustyNails]

Peter Bergen has put together a pretty good rebuttal to the Hersh piece. Its on CNN front page.

 

[NimbusD]

Lol. Sy Hersh is the guy who broke the story on the My Lai massacre.

He also 'broke' that we were going to nuke Iran.

This is a pretty good article on this: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin-laden

At the very least it's pretty obvious that he has no real evidence of this, unlike the My Lai Massacre or Abu Graib.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Nope.

 

[Lamel]

I am sure there are many aspects of this story that will remain hidden from the public sphere. The CIA and ISI do major shit, I am sure they know much more than the story has led us to believe.

 

[GreatestHits]

Peter Bergen has put together a pretty good rebuttal to the Hersh piece. Its on CNN front page.

I just want to point out, that whether the piece was farce or not, this was going to happen

 

[EnlightenedMint]

Saw Jeremy Scahill post on twitter of a reporter who reported a very similar story in 2011 http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/th...h-did-not-break-bin-laden-cover-up-story.html

 

[luckygodzilla]

Its such a damn shame to see what Hersh has become. What used to be one of the most credible and respected investigative journalists out there peddling second rate conspiracy theories, we really have lost someone special.

 

[Plywood]

Fuck off.

 

[soulassssns]

It would be easier and safer to fake the burial than create a secondary backstory about non existent photographs. It's all a bit Occam's razor-y

And nobody besides a very select few got to see this "Burial". All hands were ordered below decks and into work centers/berthings and to stay clear. None of my friends that were onboard the Carl Vinson that deployment saw or heard a thing.

Ironically I am currently finishing up my very last deployment which so happens to be onboard the Carl Vinson. LOL