Renown Journalist Seymour Hersh Alleges Bin Laden Death Coverup

[DonLever]

from NY Times:

WASHINGTON Four years after a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, lingering questions remain about the raid and what led up to it. Now, in a 10,000-word article in The London Review of Books, the journalist Seymour M. Hersh challenges nearly every facet of the semiofficial narrative that has emerged over the years, alleging a vast cover-up that involves hundreds, possibly thousands, of people and goes all the way to President Obama himself.

On Monday, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the article is riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods.

The gist of Mr. Hershs report is that Pakistan harbored Bin Laden for years with money paid by Saudi Arabia. Once the United States found out the Pakistanis had Bin Laden, Mr. Hersh writes, it offered Pakistans generals a choice: Help the United States kill him or watch billions of dollars in American aid disappear. The Americans and the Pakistanis then worked together to plot the raid, Mr. Hersh writes.

In its bold claims, Mr. Hershs article, relying largely on anonymous sources, pairs plausible alternatives to the details about the raid presented by the administration with a number of much more questionable claims. In one conceivable episode, Mr. Hersh writes that American intelligence officials were alerted to Bin Ladens whereabouts by a Pakistani military officer who walked into the United States Embassy in Islamabad and was subsequently paid a reward and moved by the C.I.A. to the United States. The account told by the Obama administration after the raid that the C.I.A. tracked down Bin Laden through the work of dogged analysts was a ruse intended to protect the real informant, according to Mr. Hersh.

It is a deception that the C.I.A. has employed before, claiming for years that it discovered that one of its own, Aldrich H. Ames, was passing intelligence to the Soviet Union through the work of a team of analysts. The truth that eventually emerged was that crucial evidence against Mr. Ames came from a Soviet spy working for the C.I.A.

Yet other claims by Mr. Hersh would have required a cover-up extending from top American, Pakistani and Saudi officials down to midlevel bureaucrats.

One example is Mr. Hershs claim, based on anonymous sources, that administration officials were lying when they said the SEAL team recovered a trove of intelligence from Bin Ladens compound.

If he is right, that means the United States knowingly allowed an F.B.I. agent to perjure himself at a federal trial of a member of Al Qaeda in New York in February. In his testimony, the agent described in detail how he received computers, hard drives, documents and other material from the SEAL team members immediately after they landed at a base in Afghanistan. He then spent 17 hours cataloging the material before it was put on a plane back to the United States.

The detail, if manufactured, is stunning: The agent, Alexander Otte, listed the types of materials he had received, including the size of some of the digital storage devices recovered (a two-gigabyte micro-SD card, a four-gigabyte thumb drive), and even the brands of the devices (Sony and Kingston).

Mr. Otte also testified that he saw the body of Bin Laden, which Mr. Hersh reported had been largely dismembered by gunfire during the raid. The SEAL team members then threw some body parts out of the helicopters on the way back to Afghanistan, Mr. Hersh writes, though he did report that Bin Ladens head was largely intact.

Mr. Otte, in his testimony, offered a very different account: Asked if the SEAL team members had a body with them, he said, It was the body of Osama bin Laden. At no point did he describe the body as being in pieces or having been decapitated.

[The Magician]

Wouldn't doubt it

[TOMapleLaughs]

RIP renown journalist Seymour Hersh.

[Webster6]

RIP renown journalist Seymour Hersh.

Hah no kidding eh.

This isn't necessarily news, there's just more credibility behind the theory now. My understanding is that he had such incredibly poor health for so long that he should've died well before his supposed assassination.

[kyledude]

Obviously it was all a big sham. You don't need a "renown journalist" to tell you that, only the clear lack of any real journalism from the beginning.

[DonLever]

The most biggest lie is the US claim that they tracked Bin laden through dogged analysis. Well, if they had such powerful detective work it would not have taken 10 years to find him. In most criminal or terrorist cases, authorities use informants, tipsers, to find their their subjects. Money is a great motivator - it makes people talk.

[Ghostsof1915]

Wonder where Bin Laden started out? Oh that's right...he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan with CIA aid.

Blowback.

Maybe the real enemy is the CIA?

[Tortorella's Rant]

One unnamed source. This reminds me of that pathetic news article conservative media spun weeks ago asserting ISIS militants had camps just over the border from Texas. "unnamed Mexican officials" discovered this but provided no evidence whatsoever. Of course their whole viewer based flipped right out as intended and expected. Media firing off stories indistinguishable from public forum troll bullshat..

[Gross-Misconduct]

[Qwags]

While we're at it, did you know that jet fuel can't melt steel beams?

[drummer4now]

While we're at it, did you know that jet fuel can't melt steel beams?

[2SKATES1STICK]

Wonder where Bin Laden started out?

The Bin Ladens in Sweeden in the 70's. He's circled.

[Cowgary]

The SEAL team members then threw some body parts out of the helicopters on the way back to Afghanistan, Mr. Hersh writes, though he did report that Bin Ladens head was largely intact.

LOL

[Gaudette Celly]

Yeah we really got him... but oh, we threw the body out at sea, so sorry, lol. OBL's been dead since at least 2002. He'd run his course of usefulness, time for a new Goldstein for the sheep to fear and hate.

[Ghostsof1915]

While we're at it, did you know that jet fuel can't melt steel beams?

Yet a guy at his home can use propane and get it hot enough to forge a katana.

[canuktravella]

The Bin Ladens in Sweeden in the 70's. He's circled.

to bad there was no car bomb there bin laden go boom lol

[drummer4now]

to bad there was no car bomb there bin laden go boom lol

Very inappropriate..

collateral damage is not the answer.

Sniper hit is better..

[TheRussianRocket.]

Here'a the actual story Hersh published: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

Too long to post here so just go to the link.

If you're wondering why Hersh would use an anonymous source, well this is why: http://theantimedia.org/cia-whistleblower-jeffrey-sterling-42-months-prison/

Oh, and btw, NBC actually quietly agreed with Hersh's claim that the CIA got a tip leading to OBL but they dust that off and still play him like he's a madman: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistanis-knew-where-bin-laden-was-say-us-sources-n357306

And here's one last link which summarizes this up pretty well: https://privacysos.org/node/1736

...have to say I'm with Hersh here. US gov was full of crap with the intial reporting and no way can I take that as the truth.

@onekade:

Shorter NBC: We knew it was a walk-in, but the lie wasn't a lie because the admin was just protecting a source. http://t.co/BbEZRTOyrj

@onekade:

Someone in Pakistan intel walked into CIA and told them where bin Laden was being hidden. Obama said CIA expert signals intelligence did it.

@onekade:

This is an extremely disturbing lie. The way the state uses confidential informants and signals intelligence is a very dangerous shell game.

@onekade:

In this case, they pretended they'd gotten the biggest possible fish through electronic monitoring. What a justification for more spying!

@onekade:

And in others, they do illegal wiretapping and data tracking to get the dirt, and then in court pretend they got it from an informant.

@onekade:

This is a very, very dangerous game. The administration tried to say UBL's targeting justified torture and surveillance. Blatant lies.

"We followed Bin Laden's courier to his secret enormous hideout. We could do that because he’s suddenly an idiot, and we’re geniuses" lmao

[peaches5]

Yet a guy at his home can use propane and get it hot enough to forge a katana.

I don't know what this is about but planes are made out of carbon fibre which when ignited burns at over 3000 degrees pretty sure thats enough to melt anything.

[Realtor Rod]

Does anyone really care anymore? The guy is dead. They used some other means to catch him that doesn't match zero dark thirty.