Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDemocracy Now: Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing
Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing & Responds to White House, Media Backlash
Four years after U.S. forces assassinated Osama bin Laden, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has published an explosive piece claiming much of what the Obama administration said about the attack was wrong. Hersh claims at the time of the U.S. raid bin Laden had been held as a prisoner by Pakistani intelligence since 2006.
Top Pakistani military leaders knew about the operation and provided key assistance. Contrary to U.S. claims that it located bin Laden by tracking his courier, a former Pakistani intelligence officer identified bin Ladens whereabouts in return for the bulk of a $25 million U.S. bounty. Questions are also raised about whether bin Laden was actually buried at sea, as the U.S. claimed. Hersh says instead the Navy SEALs threw parts of bin Ladens body into the Hindu Kush mountains from their helicopter. The White House claims the piece is "riddled with inaccuracies." Hersh joins us to lay out his findings and respond to criticism from government officials and media colleagues.
Transcript Here
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/12/seymour_hersh_details_explosive_story_on
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
8 replies, 1092 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (10)
ReplyReply to this post
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Democracy Now: Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing (Original Post)
nationalize the fed
May 2015
OP
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)1. Seymour Hersh has thoroughly discredited himself with this story.
He's done some good work in the past, but now he's a worldwide laughingstock.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)2. OK
Remember First of April, 2003?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch#Controversy_regarding_coverage
Edit to add:
MADem
(135,425 posts)3. It's a pity, really. He did some good work, years ago.
Now he's making Pierre Salinger's final days look gravitas-laden by comparison.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)5. Yep, he's in Alex Jones tinfoil hat nutter territory now. eom
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)4. Politico: Sy Hersh, Lost in a Wilderness of Mirrors
Sy Hersh, Lost in a Wilderness of Mirrors
By JACK SHAFER
May 11, 2015
Its a messy omelet of a piece that offers little of substance for readers or journalists who may want to verify its many claims. The Hersh piece cant be refuted because theres not enough solid material to refute. Like the government officials who spun the original flawed Abbottabad stories, he simply wants the reader to trust him.
Hershs piece quarrels with almost every aspect of the official story, asserting that much of it is cover designed to protect the Pakistanis who sold bin Laden out to the United States for military aid. The official account that the U.S. located bin Laden by tracking his couriers? A cover story to mask the former Pakistani intelligence officer who walked in with information to collect the reward. The official account of a firefight at bin Ladens compound. Also a cover story, according to an unnamed source who says the SEALs killed bin Laden totally unopposed. The disposal of bin Ladens corpse into the ocean from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson? No evidence it happened, states Hersh. What really happened, according to an unnamed retired official who spoke to Hersh, is that the SEALs claimed to have tossed some of bin Ladens body parts over the Hindu Kush mountains on the flight back to their Jalalabad, Afghanistan, base. The treasure trove of intelligence reaped by the SEALs from the shot-up Abbottabad compound? The collection of bin Laden DNA evidence? Another cover story.
In his detailed critique of the piece, Voxs Max Fisher accuses Hersh of internal contradictions and troubling inconsistencies. Why bother to build a duplicate of the Abbottabad residence in Nevada for SEAL training purposes when the Pakistanis were going to allow a cakewalk all the way to bin Ladens doorstep? If the intelligence materials harvested by the SEALs were fake, then why did al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri endorse them as genuine? No supporting documents, Fisher kvetches, no proof, several anonymous sources, and one named Pakistani who ran ISI in the early 1990s, amounting to worryingly little evidence for a story that accuses hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years, Fisher writes.
By JACK SHAFER
May 11, 2015
Its a messy omelet of a piece that offers little of substance for readers or journalists who may want to verify its many claims. The Hersh piece cant be refuted because theres not enough solid material to refute. Like the government officials who spun the original flawed Abbottabad stories, he simply wants the reader to trust him.
Hershs piece quarrels with almost every aspect of the official story, asserting that much of it is cover designed to protect the Pakistanis who sold bin Laden out to the United States for military aid. The official account that the U.S. located bin Laden by tracking his couriers? A cover story to mask the former Pakistani intelligence officer who walked in with information to collect the reward. The official account of a firefight at bin Ladens compound. Also a cover story, according to an unnamed source who says the SEALs killed bin Laden totally unopposed. The disposal of bin Ladens corpse into the ocean from the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson? No evidence it happened, states Hersh. What really happened, according to an unnamed retired official who spoke to Hersh, is that the SEALs claimed to have tossed some of bin Ladens body parts over the Hindu Kush mountains on the flight back to their Jalalabad, Afghanistan, base. The treasure trove of intelligence reaped by the SEALs from the shot-up Abbottabad compound? The collection of bin Laden DNA evidence? Another cover story.
In his detailed critique of the piece, Voxs Max Fisher accuses Hersh of internal contradictions and troubling inconsistencies. Why bother to build a duplicate of the Abbottabad residence in Nevada for SEAL training purposes when the Pakistanis were going to allow a cakewalk all the way to bin Ladens doorstep? If the intelligence materials harvested by the SEALs were fake, then why did al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri endorse them as genuine? No supporting documents, Fisher kvetches, no proof, several anonymous sources, and one named Pakistani who ran ISI in the early 1990s, amounting to worryingly little evidence for a story that accuses hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years, Fisher writes.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/seymour-hersh-bin-laden-story-117830.html#ixzz3aX2rjmFn
Not at all surprising that some of us would swallow Hersh's version of events, unquestioningly. But many of his colleagues are asking plenty of questions. There's a problem when your account is based, primarily, on the word of a single "unnamed" source. Remember the Rolling Stone UVA story that should never have been printed? I have a feeling this is going to end Hersh's career with any serious media outlet. There's a reason why he had to print this story abroad, it's because the New Yorker knew it didn't meet their journalistic standards. Hersh has become Infowars, and he doesn't even know it yet.
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)6. Thank you Seymour Hersh
you are a true patriot and one of the greatest journalists working today. Thank you for exposing the lies told by the State.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)7. Slate: Sigh, Sy
Seymour Hersh has produced amazing investigative journalism. But his newest bombshell reads like bad fiction.
By Phillip Carter
When Seymour Hersh is right, hes really right. His incredible reporting unearthed the My Lai massacre in 1969, causing seismic tremors for the U.S. military that would reverberate for decades. Thirty-five years later, Hershs patient detective work uncovered the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, changing not just how U.S. forces treated detainees in the field but also how the U.S. military managed detention operations at Guantánamo Bay. These meticulously researched and reported pieces altered the course of American policy during two major wars, and set a gold standard for what investigative national security journalism can (and should) be.
Unfortunately, Hershs latest dispatch in the London Review of Books falls far short of this mark. In a piece published Sunday, Hersh asserts that the official story of how U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden in May 2011 was one, big, bright shining lie, shielded up until now by the hyperclassification surrounding the mission and a desire to protect Americas secret partners in Pakistan. To make these fantastic allegations, Hersh relies on a coterie of Pakistani sources, mostly retired from that countrys military or intelligence agencies, as well as a handful of anonymous U.S. officials or consultants. The shallow sourcing alone makes Hershs article suspicious. The convenient overlap between certain Pakistani interests and the truths revealed by Hersh cast doubt on the piece too, especially in the absence of more solid sourcing. Many of the actual details in the piece, such as the reported obliteration of Bin Ladens corpse by gunfire, shred any remaining credibility the article might have. Little wonder the CIA told the Washington Post the report was utter nonsense, and a White House official said it had too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions to respond to each one.
If the facts were as Hersh reported, they probably would have come out by now. Not surprisingly given his Pakistani sources, Hershs version of truth aligns conveniently with Pakistani interests, particularly those of Pakistani generals anxious to make themselves look less impotent after the U.S. raid. In the U.S. version that has been told many times since 2011, Pakistans military fell asleep at the switch multiple times, allowing Bin Laden to live near Pakistans version of West Point, and allowing U.S. forces to conduct a lethal raid on their territory. In Hershs telling, Pakistani leaders look calculating, wise, and gifted at manipulating their American patrons.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_s_london_review_of_books_investigation_of_the_osama_bin_laden.html
By Phillip Carter
When Seymour Hersh is right, hes really right. His incredible reporting unearthed the My Lai massacre in 1969, causing seismic tremors for the U.S. military that would reverberate for decades. Thirty-five years later, Hershs patient detective work uncovered the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, changing not just how U.S. forces treated detainees in the field but also how the U.S. military managed detention operations at Guantánamo Bay. These meticulously researched and reported pieces altered the course of American policy during two major wars, and set a gold standard for what investigative national security journalism can (and should) be.
Unfortunately, Hershs latest dispatch in the London Review of Books falls far short of this mark. In a piece published Sunday, Hersh asserts that the official story of how U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden in May 2011 was one, big, bright shining lie, shielded up until now by the hyperclassification surrounding the mission and a desire to protect Americas secret partners in Pakistan. To make these fantastic allegations, Hersh relies on a coterie of Pakistani sources, mostly retired from that countrys military or intelligence agencies, as well as a handful of anonymous U.S. officials or consultants. The shallow sourcing alone makes Hershs article suspicious. The convenient overlap between certain Pakistani interests and the truths revealed by Hersh cast doubt on the piece too, especially in the absence of more solid sourcing. Many of the actual details in the piece, such as the reported obliteration of Bin Ladens corpse by gunfire, shred any remaining credibility the article might have. Little wonder the CIA told the Washington Post the report was utter nonsense, and a White House official said it had too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions to respond to each one.
If the facts were as Hersh reported, they probably would have come out by now. Not surprisingly given his Pakistani sources, Hershs version of truth aligns conveniently with Pakistani interests, particularly those of Pakistani generals anxious to make themselves look less impotent after the U.S. raid. In the U.S. version that has been told many times since 2011, Pakistans military fell asleep at the switch multiple times, allowing Bin Laden to live near Pakistans version of West Point, and allowing U.S. forces to conduct a lethal raid on their territory. In Hershs telling, Pakistani leaders look calculating, wise, and gifted at manipulating their American patrons.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_s_london_review_of_books_investigation_of_the_osama_bin_laden.html
grasswire
(50,130 posts)8. ++ nt