Posted on 05/11/2015 10:32:02 PM PDT by drewh
One of America’s most revered investigative journalists has questioned the veracity of one of the Obama administration’s proudest achievements — and the firestorm of criticism has been immediate and unforgiving, from the White House to the Pentagon to the CIA.
The publication Sunday of a 10,000-word article questioning the official version of the 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden might have received scant attention had it it not been penned by Seymour Hersh.
The award-winning reporter, 78, who uncovered one of the worst war crimes by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War and disclosed the torture of inmates at the U.S military-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004, is now questioning the entire national security bureaucracy in one fell swoop. And its members are taking it personally.
According to Hersh’s article, top Pakistani officials initially did not inform the U.S. about bin Laden’s whereabouts in the hope of using the late Al Qaeda leader as “leverage” in negotiations.
The report also states that Pakistani officials knew about the raid before it happened in May 2011 and instructed those monitoring bin Laden’s compound to allow the SEALs to conduct the operation unobstructed.
Hersh’s story relies heavily on the account of a single unnamed source, referred to as “a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Was the objective met?
Is bin Laden still dead?
Seymour Hersh - one of al Qaeda’s declared “favorite reporters.” Runs in same circle as Isikoff, VIP’s Pat Lang and Karen Kwiatkowski the Lyndon LaRouche nut.
I don’t know if Hersh’s account makes any more sense than the official line, but if he is calling BS on Obama’s story, more power to him.
according to Hersh, he’s in pieces all over Afghanistan. I knew Seal Team 6 would not give him a ‘Muslim Burial’ on a freaking boat... Works for me! :)
It does sound plausible that the whole ‘cover story’ was blown when the stealth chopper crashed... http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden
If you believe Hersh’s story, then you have to believe some Hollywood script writer was sitting there and put together a 300-line text of a fake story, with at least twenty different scenes which either didn’t happen or were totally created out of thin air.....then hands the script to forty people to memorize and recite at daily press conferences. Then the same fake WH story would be declassified and handed to some Hollywood people to turn into both a TV special and a four-star movie.
The piece on bin Laden’s body being handled at the aircraft carrier was epic. I watched the CNN special and they wove the fine story into a great piece. The admiral called around and found that he had a Muslim-religion sailor onboard, and secretly assigned him to the task of cleansing the body by Islam standards, then they held a solemn moment as they buried him at sea. By Hersh’s account....bin Laden’s body wasn’t all intact, and they simply buried him on some mountaintop in Afghanistan with no cleansing or anything.
The problem I see with Hersh....he is dependent on his info calling from one single person. This is not three or four people. Maybe it’s reliable but to have twenty odd differences with the Hersh story and being from only one source....I suspect there’s some fraud involved. Not that I don’t suspect the same with the WH version of the ‘adventure’.
Either way, works for me...
SEALs
This report clears up a number of things, one of which is how OBL survived so long with his medical conditions. The Pakis had a doctor on call for his medical needs for 5-6 years...
Perhaps Hersch can confirm that Osama was porked in several orifices. i realize it was a waste of hot dogs. But it was for a good cause.
Only in Obamaland would Geronimo get a burial at sea with muslim honors...
From the very first accounts of the raid, I felt that the Pakistan government was assisting the USA, or, that Pakistan had promised the USA a set amount of time before local police or military would respond to the raid.
The raid lasted 40 minutes.
Bin Laden’s house was less than a mile from the “West Point of Pakistan.”
A helicopter crashed inside the perimeter wall of the house during the first minute of the raid.
After the crash, multiple explosive devices were used to enter and secure the home.
Muffled bursts of USA automatic weapons fire continued over a period of at least 20 minutes.
Un-muffled bursts of return automatic fire occurred periodically during that 20 minutes.
At least one helicopter hovered over the area during the entire raid, which was clearly heard and reported in real time by a local resident who was on social media.
Bottom Line - for 40 minutes, in the middle of the night, not one policeman or military patrol showed up to investigate all the aerial activity, explosions, and gunfire?
I will never believe that the USA pulled this off without Pakistan's active complicity.
Hersh also says that the ISI turned off the power grid in the neighborhood that night.
Neither, did Bin Laden.
I do believe Hersh’s 10K words on the entire subject would have benefitted from documentation and footnotes & references.
I also think if anyone would like to do this is do a bit of research on names he used other than OBL and do a body count-pakistan & american.
One thing for sure I remember was seeing a pic of that crashed chopper-broken to bits.
and for my personal opinion-?& how it all came down?
no wonder someone sent Barry to the golf course. LOL
In this case, since Obama is so loathed by conservatives, they're willing to believe a fabulist like Hersh. We shouldn't go down that path. A number of conservative sites, like Red State, are already calling Hersh's story a bunch of cock and bull nonsense.
Soon they will trot out Dempsey and/or a bunch of other sycophant military “leaders” to stand behind Valerie’s man child and sing his praises.
All to counter the truth.
Watch. They are orchestrating it now.
Well, we all know that this administration has SUCH a sterling record with ‘fact checking’. :)
“.....The admiral called around and found that he had a Muslim-religion sailor onboard, and secretly assigned him to the task of cleansing the body by Islam standards, then they held a solemn moment as they buried him at sea.”......
What happened to all those on board that ship that NEVER saw such burial? Having been on board a ship, the crew KNOWS what is taking place all over that ship and in particular an at-sea burial. I still don’t believe the at sea burial story. Bring forth every person who served on that ship at that time and PROVE it really happened, only then will I believe their bogus BS.
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