
The media’s reaction to Seymour Hersh’s bin Laden scoop - Alex3917
http://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.php
======
greenyoda
_" No phrase has been bandied about more than “conspiracy theory” in
describing Hersh’s reporting. Critics argue that he’s accusing “hundreds of
people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that
has gone on for years.” How could that be possible?"_

The mass surveillance by NSA, GCHQ and the rest of the "Five Eyes"
intelligence organizations involved thousands of people in several countries
and was covered up for a long time, perpetuating the hoax that "the NSA only
spies on foreign nationals". Then Snowden came along. Governments are pretty
good at covering up their secrets.

~~~
Squarel
While the scope was not known, Trailblazer, Thin Thread and Turbulence were
known about, and whistleblown about fairly shortly after their inception.

The difference between when Binney & Drake etc blew the whistle and when
Snowden did is the time that had passed since 9/11.

Binney started making noise in 2002, when the public mood was "If it catches
bad guys, it's all good" Drake began making noise at the same time, and first
went to the media in 2005, when the Iraq & Afghanistan wars, and the hunt for
Bin Laden were still relatively well supported.

Snowden went public much later, and with much more detail, but if the first 2
(and the others who blew the whistle at the same time) had gotten media
attention, the program may not have spread as far as it had by the time
Snowden came along.

Governments are fairly terrible at covering up secrets, the question is
whether the media or the public want to pay attention.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
In fact, public awareness of massive NSA surveillance probably dates back to
at least 1975 with the Church Committee:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee)

~~~
uxp
You realize the irony of linking to that article, with the following quote:

> Then on December 22, 1974, The New York Times published a lengthy article by
> Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years that
> had been dubbed the "family jewels".

Seymour Hersh was instrumental in bringing the CIA spying revelations to the
public view then.

------
nyolfen
the intercept has reported[0] that all of the major points reported by hersh
were first reported in 2011 by rj hillhouse, and the two stories seem to have
different sources. hillhouse seems upset about not being given credit and
accuses hersh of 'plagiarism', though that doesn't have any bearing on the
truth of the matter. the fact that hersh reported details which hillhouse has
stated she was aware of but explicitly chose not to disclose (that the seals
dumped parts of bin laden's body out over the hindu kush on the chopper ride
home) seems to prove that he was doing original reporting to me. the real
tragedy is that we've already cemented the national mythology of torture
producing the intelligence necessary to locate bin laden, thanks to zero dark
thirty and the cia lying to cover its ass.

[0] [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/11/former-
profess...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/11/former-professor-
reported-basics-hershs-bin-laden-story-2011-seemingly-different-sources/)

~~~
GabrielF00
A few parts of the story seem to be reasonable. There was widespread
speculation that the ISI knew Bin Laden's location, even right after Bin Laden
was killed. The story about the Pakistani general defecting seems to have been
reported by others and seems reasonably plausible.

Some other portions of Hersh's story just don't seem plausible to me (the Vox
piece made a number of these points and more, but personally I think these are
the strongest). If Bin Laden was under ISI control, I don't understand why the
Pakistanis would have wanted the US to send in SEALs to kill him in Abottabad
when they could have just put him on a helicopter and had the SEALs kill him
in Afghanistan. That would have avoided all sorts of embarrassment to the
Pakistani military and intelligence services. The fact that the US penetrated
Pakistani air defenses was very embarrassing to the Pakistani military, as was
the fact that Bin Laden was living practically down the street from a
Pakistani military academy - not to mention that it seems strange that the
Pakistanis and Americans would have chosen to undertake all the risks of
discovery of sending helicopters in to a peaceful town when the ISI, which was
supposedly guarding Bin Laden, could have just quietly taken him to a remote
area.

The business about SEALs dumping parts of his body out of a helicopter also
seems strange - given how politically charged the mission was I would imagine
that they would have been incredibly disciplined and professional. And Hersh's
explanation for the breach in US/Pakistani relations following the mission
just seems convoluted and implausible. It seems very plausible to me that the
US went in and killed Bin Laden without Pakistani knowledge, and that the
mission caused the breach. Hersh's explanation just seems like he's building
up a whole convoluted series of explanations to justify his theory.

~~~
nyolfen
as far as why the pakistanis didn't just hand him over: hersh reports that
they were receiving a great deal of saudi money to keep them from letting the
americans know about him, presumably because they didn't want them to get him
to talk about his ties to high-ranking saudis. the pakistanis conditionally
permitted the raid, as long as it was explicitly a kill mission, which would
stay in line with the saudi terms. again, the original plan was to kill him
and take the body and announce a week later that he was killed in a drone
strike on the afpak border, but that was scuttled when the helicopter crashed.

as for the unprofessionalism of dumping parts of the corpse of the most hated
man in american history, perhaps you hold higher estimation of the moral
restraint of a team of men who kill for a living than i do

~~~
Synaesthesia
He may be the most hated man in America History but I think the moral thing to
do would have been to capture him and bring him to trial, but that apparently
didn't enter into consideration.

~~~
bhayden
They don't even give trials for American citizens abroad. Seems unlikely
they'd do it for terrorist #1.

~~~
jMyles
They're trying KSH - why not?

~~~
ghurtado
I'm assuming you mean KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed). I think it could be
strategically valuable to be able to parade pictures of your former enemy
looking like this: [http://usofarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Khalid-
Sheikh-...](http://usofarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Khalid-Sheikh-
Mohammed+.jpg) . It would have been awesome if we could have done the same
with Bin Laden.

~~~
jMyles
I don't know how my fingers wrote "H" for Mohammed, but yes, of course. :-)

I'm not sure I agree that it's strategically valuable - in an asymmetrical
engagement, it seems like this just provokes sympathy and stokes recruitment.

Treating him (both of them, in fact) with dignity, respect, and an honest
public trial including an accounting of their crimes might help, though.

------
hackuser
The description of the response reminds me of Gary Webb:
[http://www.focusfeatures.com/kill_the_messenger](http://www.focusfeatures.com/kill_the_messenger)

It doesn't make Hersh right (I don't know if he is or not), but I do know that
a common response to outsiders who challenge insiders is to attack their
character. It's a way of creating FUD and of deterring others.

~~~
MBCook
I thought Hersh made a great point when he was on On the Media last week. If
he's even partly right it means that the main media got the story very wrong
and didn't do any real research into verifying the administration claims.

So either the media has to admit that they, as a whole, massively screwed up
the story (not unlike the WMD stuff) or they can just attack Hersh and not
seem to lose any credibility.

In other words, it's in their best interest he's wrong even if he's right. It
was a very good interview.

~~~
vijayr
Today, no _sane_ person takes what she reads/watches in the media on face
value. Journalism as a profession has lost much of it's respect and
credibility in my lifetime. Most news papers, TV/radio stations and online
properties have some agenda or the other and they act according to that,
openly and shamelessly, truth be damned (liberal, conservative, religious,
left, right...whatever).

But even for them, attacking a very distinguished journalist's character,
instead of analyzing his work on it's merit is new low.

~~~
viraptor
Actually i see a lot of people who believe their chosen media with all the
agenda that involves. You can call them not sane, but they're out there.
Whether it's fox or something more or less extremist than that, they just
don't want to analyse on their own.

They may be uneducated or gullible or lacking the will to question
preprocessed information... But likely sane.

------
mark_l_watson
Good article - I agree that Seymour Hersh is being treated unfairly by the
corporate news media. Remember that almost all of the news sources in the USA
are owned by just a few corporations. It is my opinion that they actually care
less about truth (or even profit) than pushing an agenda supporting the elite
class.

~~~
hackuser
> Remember that almost all of the news sources in the USA are owned by just a
> few corporations.

Is this still true, with the explosion of Internet-based news publications?
Also consider that, on the Internet, "in the USA" doesn't matter nearly as
much. Americans can as easily read the Guardian, for example, as the Wall
Street Journal.

~~~
whoopdedo
> Is this still true, with the explosion of Internet-based news publications?

How many internet-based news sites are actually doing reporting,
investigation, sourcing, etc.? Versus merely repeating stories from upstream
new sites with or without additional opinion and/or analysis added on?

~~~
legutierr
How many corporate media outlets are actually doing reporting, investigation,
sourcing, etc., versus merely repeating stories from upstream PR firms,
anonymous official sources, or talking heads?

------
suprgeek
Both the Government's "Seal Team Six - Fuck yeah!" version and Hersh's more
pedestrian "ISI insider sold him down the river & it was a hit job" version
have exactly the same corroboration - ZERO, NONE.

We have no body, no evidence of burial, no (faked or otherwise) pictures of
the actual raid, etc.

Obama admin. feels happy to make up one version of events & now via Hersh we
have another. We may never know the truth but I find Hersh's version a bit
more plausible. Why?

1) So the Pakistani's who are always nervous of India trying to sneak into its
airspace missed the choppers in AND out (even if they came in via the Afgan
route)?

2) The ISI is the most capable aider & abettor of Terrorism in the world -
they HAD to have known the Osama was in Abottabad (and more likely house-
arrested him there).

The US govt. would have us believe that Osama was living the backyard of a
Pakistani Military academy unnoticed & unknown to the ISI? This is an
inconceivable lie.

3) There was a mysterious courier that lead to Osama thru the Hard work and
Torturing of the CIA OR an ISI insider betrayed the location for money : which
is more plausible?

Torture rarely yields credible intel & the possibility of the CIA stumbling
onto some courier fortuitously & following him around meticulously is too many
coincidences for me. OTOH a greedy ISI insider is not hard to believe.

~~~
tzs
> The US govt. would have us believe that Osama was living the backyard of a
> Pakistani Military academy unnoticed & unknown to the ISI? This is an
> inconceivable lie.

Over half a mile away is not living in "the backyard" of the academy. There
are hundreds of buildings within a half mile of the academy. They aren't even
connected directly by major streets. The bin Laden compound was a couple of
side streets off the main road in that part of the city.

Unless Pakistan keeps track of who is living in private residences to a much
greater extent than we do in the US, there is no reason to expect that they
knew he was there solely based on the location.

~~~
xyzzy123
Robert Baer's take on this (a former CIA case officer, Time.com's intelligence
columnist) is:

"Abbottabad, I'll say it again, you cannot hide a foreigner in Abbottabad, for
any length of time, without coming to the attention of the intelligence bureau
first of all, which is Pakistani intelligence, and then ISI. [ISI is not a
rogue element]. If in fact he was a prisoner there, [then] he was in fact a
prisoner of the Pakistani Government, not ISI. So they knew he was there,
certainly. Can you go, what was it, 7 years and hide in Abbottabad and [have
them] not know?

Anybody who's lived in Pakistan will tell you that every day there's sort of a
knock on the door, it's the police, they talk to the chokidar about the
foreigners, what are they doing, you know and the rest of it. You simply don't
set up a compound as you would in, I don't know, the desert in Nevada and not
have people notice. Impossible, totally impossible."

Ref: Podcast linked from the article -
[http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/bbriefing_2015_05_...](http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/bbriefing_2015_05_11a_robert%20baer.mp3))
at 09:55

------
Synaesthesia
>Most journalists would never dream of confronting CIA officials with the same
aggressiveness they now direct at Hersh—even though, less than six months ago,
the Senate released a 500-page report documenting in meticulous detail the
dozens of times the CIA blatantly lied to the public, the press, and Congress
about torture over the past decade.

>Hersh’s assertion, which has by now been at least partially confirmed by
multiple news organizations, that bin Laden was found thanks to a “walk-in”
tip—rather than by tracking his courier as the government has claimed—should
be a major scandal. For years, the CIA has said it found bin Laden thanks to
information about his personal courier—information that was obtained by means
of torture.

An agenda to promote the ethical validity of torture.

~~~
sroerick
This is the takeaway from all of this.

People who are trying to sort out which details are accurate and which are not
are missing the point entirely.

The government lied about the way Bin Laden was killed, plain and simple. And
they did it to justify torture.

None of us are any safer because of this.

~~~
rhizome
Yeah, Hersh's story can definitely be considered to be a red herring answer to
the government's lies, so the fact remains that even if Hersh's version isn't
true to the last detail, Bush still evaded military service, so to speak.

------
ipsin
Unfortunately I get a page with no scrollbar, and I can't seem to scroll in
Google Chrome 42.0.2311.135 (Linux).

~~~
stdgy
I had to refresh before it would allow me to scroll. Not sure what the issue
is.

------
abalone
Link to the priceless _Slate_ interview, for anyone who missed it:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.single.html)

~~~
hackuser
I highly recommend reading this as context; it's almost essential to
understanding Hersh.

~~~
sukilot
That he is cranky and hates he Slate interviewer?

------
xyzzy123
This article, May 16th, seems like an incredible coincidence. I went to NYT to
see if they had any updates, and instead found this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/world/middleeast/abu-
sayya...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/world/middleeast/abu-sayyaf-isis-
commander-killed-by-us-forces-pentagon-says.html)

"... two dozen Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk
helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and killed the leader, a man known as Abu Sayyaf"

"Islamic State fighters who defended their building and Abu Sayyaf tried to
use women and children as shields, but that the Delta Force commandos "used
very precise fire" and "separated the women and children."

"The U.S. government did not coordinate with the Syrian regime, nor did we
advise them in advance of this operation," said Bernadette Meehan, the
National Security Council spokeswoman."

"The objective was the building, a multistory building," the official said. He
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly.

"They said the American forces were able to seize laptop computers, cellphones
and other materials from the site, which may prove useful in intelligence
assessments."

------
joesmo
Considering the utter absurdity of the government's story, I find it hard to
imagine any rational person could have ever believed it for a second.
Considering Hersh's reputation, the criticism against him is unfounded. That
raises a lot of questions. Like how to deal with an "ally" who would hide this
information from us for years causing our wars to drag on longer and many more
people to die. It's a disservice that the media is not covering this, but
unsurprising considering the initial coverage and lack of skepticism to the
initial literally incredible events they reported when bin Laden was killed in
2011. Stupidity is great, but it's not as great as malice and I find it
impossible to believe that the reporters originally reporting the story in
2011 didn't know it was a lie. I also find it impossible to believe anyone is
still defending that story now. Instead of real coverage of the issues,
however, we just get the media talking about itself like this article. I'm
glad articles like this exist, but it's indicative of the self-pleasuring role
that media has taken in our society and the duty towards the people it has
shirked.

~~~
Rapzid
I find it hard to believe any rationale person would believe ANYTHING the
government has to say. I'm not sure if it has always been this way but now-a-
days, and even with as bad as the media is, it's perfectly clear that the
government will lie about anything it feels like. It's not just fiction and
movies, we KNOW this from recently recorded history. Further, we don't even
know if the "whitehouse" is blatantly lying or if they are being lied to by
the intelligence organizations because we also know now that they will lie
about ANYTHING to other parts of the government including the executive. So
any time people start immediately pointing fingers at the POTUS and
"whitehouse" I can see what their agenda is. It's so messed up there is no
telling where the lies are originating from. Maybe the CIA/NSA should change
their missions statement to "provide the truth". Whatever else they are aren't
they supposed to be "intelligence" organizations? What good are they if they
provide bad information?!

------
sroerick
Why was the title of this post changed?

It's far less accurate and no longer reflective of the title of the post.

Frankly, in a conversation about the media's disgraceful reaction, you
probably shouldn't change the title to support the same political agenda as
the dominant narrative.

~~~
dang
I reverted the title back after reading your comment, but on reflection, I
think the edit is correct, so I'm going to put it back. I don't feel strongly
about it, though, so if you all do, we'll restore the "disgrace" bit.

Generally we want HN titles to say what an article is about, not tell people
what to think about it. This article is about media reaction to Hersh's story.
For HN purposes it doesn't need to say more than that. The presence of the
article near the top of HN already says a great deal.

Moderation decisions on HN aren't driven by political agendas (at least not
that I know of). It should be clear from the fact that this article is
currently #3 that we don't have a problem with critiques of dominant
narratives, as long as they're substantive. I'd say this article clears that
bar easily.

~~~
sroerick
I have to disagree. The article is an unambiguous criticism of the media
reaction to Hersh's article.

In the context of the media trying to control the narrative regarding Hersh's
story, editing the title here really appears to be more narrative control.

While I can appreciate not wanting to tell HN readers what to think, this
piece is an editorial and a criticism and deserves to be treated as such.

That said, thank you for your transparency and taking the time to respond.

~~~
dang
No question it's a critique. IMO a devastating one. But I don't see why we
should edit the front page differently? The standard for titles is that they
be accurate and neutral. (Edit: it's the "neutral" bit that matters here.) HN
moderation is about readers being smart enough to figure things out for
themselves.

~~~
ohitsdom
If there was a blog post titled "10 Reasons Rust Sucks", wouldn't that be the
HN title as well? You can't make everything neutral.

~~~
dang
That would likely not be a title we would let stand on HN. But I'd have to see
specific examples. There's no algorithm for this.

------
leroy_masochist
Most of the big revelations seem to come from individuals who were or are
senior members of the Pakistani security services, and the key takeaways
(Pakistan knew where bin Laden was the whole time; Pakistan's air defenses
were deactivated during the raid, otherwise they would have shot down the
American helicopter; Pakistan played America in order to extract more military
aid) all underscore the idea that the Pakistani security services are
comprised of wily, street-smart seasoned operators who should not be fucked
with.

------
asuffield
So the large media organisations - who tend to rely on government cooperation
to produce most of their content - have done exactly the same thing that they
did every other time. That's barely even news.

Does anybody have a proposal for how this situation might be changed?

~~~
api
Real investigative journalism is expensive. To check your facts and avoid
being led astray by cranks or disinformationists (professional cranks)
requires something akin to a private intelligence agency.

As long as nobody pays for news, there is zero incentive for anyone to invest
that kind of money.

You get what you pay for. Pay nothing for news and get nothing but reprints of
press releases.

------
guard-of-terra
When news about bin Laden hit, we in the outside world were wondering:

How can people make a national holiday of (a) death of a lone person (b) that
might as well not happen?

~~~
mcantelon
Not to mention that he was conveniently "dumped at sea" after being reported
dead by the PM of Pakistan long ago.

------
sesutton
>First of all, denigrating a legendary reporter who has broken more major
stories than almost anyone alive as a “conspiracy theorist” because his story
contained a few details a little too implausible for some people’s taste is
beyond insulting.

Besides this being a blatant appeal to authority can you blame people for
thinking he is drifting into conspiracy theorist territory when he has claimed
that US Special Forces have been infiltrated by Opus Dei and the Knights of
Malta?

~~~
sroerick
He didn't claim that they had been "infiltrated". He simply claimed a few high
ranking generals were members.

The narrative he was trying to create was that the military literally
considers our presence in the Middle East as a crusade, in the historical
sense. And frankly, I don't think this is too far off.

George Bush used "crusade/holy war" rhetoric both publicly and (reportedly) in
private. Religious indoctrination in the army is rampant. Eric Prince of
Blackwater has been accused by former employees of trying to start a Crusade.

So what's your counter narrative? The higher-ups in JSOC and the military are
all reasonable secular humanists?

The Pope is a member of the Jesuit order. This doesn't mean that the Jesuits
have "infiltrated Catholicism", it just means the Pope is a Jesuit. If you
think that Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta are "shadowy conspiracy groups",
you need to stop reading Dan Brown books, and start embracing the fact that
other people have different ideologies.

As far as your "appeal to authority" is concerned, yes, that's exactly what it
is. That's how journalism works. Anonymous sources get quoted all the time for
pro-military stories. Deal with it. Would you have criticized Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein for using "anonymous sources"? Part of good investigative
journalism is relying on the reputation of established journalists. And while
you're right that this is an appeal to authority, your argument is nothing
more than an ad hominem designed to discredit the narrative Hersh has created.

~~~
mpyne
> He simply claimed a few high ranking generals were members.

He also claimed that JSOC was passing around "crusade coins" as part of their
religious "crusade".

I don't know how he got 'crusade coins' from something completely benign
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin))
but that's the kind of "journalism" we've been receiving from Hersh in the
past few years.

Besides which, if your interpretation of Hersh's comments were true then they
simply wouldn't be news at all. "Some members of a typically-conservative
organization are also members of a separate typically-conservative
organization" is hardly worth a mention at all.

On the other hand the implied story "Opus Dei secretly in control of (or
heavily influencing) America's special operations arm" _would_ be news, Sy
Hersh-winning-a-Pulitzer kind of news... if it were true.

The comment you replied to wasn't claiming anything sinister about Opus Dei,
that honor goes to Hersh himself.

~~~
sroerick
The claim is that top ranking officials believe they are waging a
traditionalist "Holy War" against Islam.

I don't know if your obsession with Catholic or military trinkets is simple
misinterpretation or deliberate obfuscation. Hersh never made the claim which
you put "in quotes". And it's disingenuous to claim he did.

If top generals believe they are fighting a Crusade, that's newsworthy.

If you want to address that narrative, I'd be interested to hear what you have
to say. But as it stands, the strawman you're arguing against has no basis in
Hersh's words or viewpoint.

~~~
mpyne
> I don't know if your obsession with Catholic or military trinkets is simple
> misinterpretation or deliberate obfuscation. Hersh never made the claim
> which you put "in quotes". And it's disingenuous to claim he did.

From [http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/18/seymour-hersh-
unleashed/](http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/18/seymour-hersh-unleashed/)
(which, while paywalled, is only one of _many_ sources you could easily
Google), they quote Hersh as saying, among other things:

“They have little insignias, these coins they pass among each other, which are
crusader coins,” he continued. “They have insignia that reflect the whole
notion that this is a culture war. … Right now, there’s a tremendous,
tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community.”

I'll note that when I mentioned _Hersh 's_ alarm about 'crusade coins' (I'm
sorry I missed the 'r'), you said that not only was it _my_ obsession, but
that it could have been a deliberate obfuscation attempt on my part, along
with being disingenuous.

Disingenuous to claim something that's actually true! What a world!

> If top generals believe they are fighting a Crusade, that's newsworthy.

Religious people will often perceive the world they live in through the
perspective of their religion. When top generals start taking the nation into
harm's way for their own pet religious principles then by all means, sound the
alarm. Until then, as long as they're doing the 'right' thing by the country
to the best of their professional (as opposed to religious) judgment and don't
try to force their religion on subordinates (as the Air Force Academy has been
actually accused of doing) then I don't give a shit what God they pray to or
how they make that relationship work.

> strawman

Please, by all means, go talk to Seymour about his own words, which are
apparently a figment of my spotty imagination.

~~~
mcantelon
Not sure why a specific challenge coin could not also simultaneously serve as
a symbol of an effort such as a "crusade".

~~~
mpyne
Might they make specific challenge coins for specific operations within
whatever we're calling the 'war on terror' nowadays? Absolutely, and some of
those coins might even be vaguely offensive.

But unless these coins were actually evidence of some sort of JSOC conspiracy
to loop in Pope Benedict on U.S. counter-terror operations then why were they
worth the attention of the Great Man who popularized My Lai and Abu Ghraib?

I'll leave open for now the question of why a group of people who _certainly
know better_ would procure hard physical evidence of their nefarious misdeeds
instead of executing the professional conspiracy that any snake-eater should
be able to handle if they really wanted to. Since this is Seymour's world now
we needn't concern ourselves with trying to find contrary evidence that would
disprove Hersh's assertions, and then demonstrating why that evidence isn't
actually problematic. Why, Seymour has told us this must be true, and that's
all we need to know.

------
guymullins
The best solution to all the questions posed by sceptics about the Abbottabad
raid is contained in the book Osama's Angel. Why the Pakistani doctor was hung
out to dry by the CIA. Why a burial at sea was chosen to disguise the truth.
Why the DNA identification was unreliable and lastly and most importantly, why
did the US administration send men to fetch the man when a missile from a
drone would have killed bin laden and done everything a burial at sea did,
without risking American lives. Why was no attempt made to capture the single
most valuable source of information available? Why was a helicopter filled
with SEAL Team 6 soldiers shot down shortly after the raid and why is the
usually most secretive American combat unit publicly squabbling over who shot
bin Laden? The story is much more convoluted than Seymour Hersh believes.

------
beaner
I remember the response here on HN was generally similar to that of the
mainstream media.

~~~
MBCook
That's one of the problems with this story. Most everyone was glad for the
hunt just to be over, a lot of people wouldn't _want_ to question it even if
they thought it wasn't entirely aboveboard. Easier to say "it's finally done"
and move on. The fact it took that long was embarrassing enough.

------
thomashabets2
> As a simple example, which Hersh himself stated in this fascinating On The
> Media interview, how many people knew about the Bush administration’s
> manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq war? Hundreds? Over a thousand?

Uh. Everyone? Everyone knew that. Everyone on the planet knew that. What are
you talking about?

> How many knew about the NSA’s mass phone metadata program aimed at Americans
> until Edward Snowden revealed it? A thousand? Ten thousand?

The program that was revealed in 2006, 7 years before Snowden?

------
ChoGGi
Obviously I don't know if he's right or wrong, but that Q&A he did with Isaac
Chotiner was hilarious

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.single.html)

------
anonsource
Hersh's story is not well sourced, contradictory, and mostly wrong. From a
simple verification perspective, it is difficult to keep track of how many
anonymous sources he has, and which has made which claim. However, the chance
that they are well placed enough to know all of the details they claim to is
highly unlikely, especially with the compartmentalization of information.
While ad hominem attacks are certainly not the correct approach, he has stated
the information he heard from his sources with an excess of confidence,
assuming that they have no agenda. He then places it in a narrative which

I only have direct experience with slices of the information about the events
in the story, but it directly contradicts the narrative.

The question is not what you think about Seymour Hersh, the question is what
you think about the motives of his supposed sources, and what that might
indicate about their veracity.

~~~
xyzzy123
From the article:

> Yet most of this criticism, over the thousands of words written about
> Hersh’s piece in the last week, has amounted to “That doesn’t make sense to
> me,” or “That’s not what government officials told me before,” or “How are
> we to believe his anonymous sources?”

Your post pretty much echoes the hit pieces this article is complaining about,
and adds nothing new to the discussion.

~~~
foxhedgehog
No, he is making different points. Similarly, this is where I stopped reading
the article:

> Barrels of ink have been spilled ripping apart Hersh’s character, while
> barely any follow-up reporting has been done to corroborate or refute his
> claims

The original poster's point isn't "this doesn't make sense to me." It's that
the facts do not comport with reality.

One of the things that those who defend this kind of reporting love to trot
out is the idea that any criticism is fallacious, and is "ad hominem."

Of course, there is plenty of ad hominem response out there, but cherry-
picking these responses as representative, rather than engaging with
substantive refutation, and then claiming that there is no such refutation is
argument in bad faith.

In fact, there is a name for that particular kind of argument: a straw man.

~~~
xyzzy123
What point is the poster making? That the anonymous sources have their own
agendas? - “How are we to believe his anonymous sources?”.

Can you tell me what other points there are to be found in there?

> It's that the facts do not comport with reality.

Which facts, specifically? There are certainly none mentioned in that post.

~~~
foxhedgehog
I count a few points:

1\. The article is not well-sourced. a. There are many anonymous sources,
which is generally a bad practice; SH consequently may over-represent
confidence in his material. b. It is difficult to track how many anonymous
sources there are. c. It is unlikely that these sources would have access to
the information that they claim.

2\. The article has internal contradictions.

I'm sure that we can flesh these out more if you would like, but none of these
are ad hominem.

Wrapping "exclusively anonymous sources are bad" as a criticism in with "Sy
Hersh is an unreliable jerk" is also an argument in bad faith. The two are not
equivalent, and the former is a sincere issue with this piece. Including it in
with the latter has the effect of encouraging dismissal of both just because
the latter is obviously fallacial.

~~~
xyzzy123
1\. It's a pity you stopped reading the article, because addressing the
criticism of anonymous sources is about 1/3 of it.

2\. A discussion of specific internal contradictions in the article would be
interesting and valuable, unlike the original post. [Might make sense to make
a new post for it, so it doesn't get buried though].

As to the "facts not comporting with reality", should I assume you have
abandoned that claim? That would also be an interesting discussion.

This is the whole point of the CJR article - that the media response so far
has been largely fact-free.

~~~
anonsource
No...it's not the criticism of anonymous sources, it's the lack of
consideration given to the possibility that the anonymous source is lying. If
you bring out an anonymous source that is making these kind of assertions, you
need more than a claim that it's a retired intel officer to achieve
credibility.

------
dmix
I thought the issue was it was based on the use of anonymous sources which
might be hard for any journo to "disprove his assertions with additional
reporting".

------
golergka
So, the whole story was about how Pakistan knew about Osama bin Laden and
allowed raid to happen?

Can anyone explain me why is this important?

~~~
DanBC
The CIA tortured people.

Then Osama Bin Laden was assassinated.

Then the CIA said "see? Torture is unpleasant but it was needed here".

Now it turns out that they didn't get OBL info from torture but from some
other method.

The CIA lied about whether they tortured people or not; then they lied about
whether that torture was useful or not.

~~~
golergka
Wait, they actually stated that they couldn't have found Osama without
torture? I don't follow US politics that close, so I must have missed it.
Isn't it incredibly stupid by itself? Did people actually need confirmation
that torture doesn't work?

------
mml
if any of this surprises anyone, they haven't been paying attention for
decades.

------
ape4
But I saw the movie /s

~~~
sheensleeves
I think it started with the first actor President.

I should re-read _America_, 1988, Jean Baudrillard.

"You have the same difficulty today distinguishing between a process and its
simulation, for example between a flight and a flight simulation. America,
too, has entered this era of undecidability: is it still really powerful or
merely simulating power?"

"Can Reagan be considered the symbol of present-day American society - a
society which, having once possessed the original features of power, is now
perhaps at the face-lift stage?

Give your emptiness and indifference to others, light up your face with the
zero degree of joy and pleasure, smile, smile, smile. . . Americans may have
no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth. And it works."

The simulation, the movie, is greater than the dispossessed actuality,
whatever that may be. A movie is visceral, gut thinking, truth. Why fight it,
as long as there is a chicken in every pot.

~~~
anonbanker
at the time of this writing, this post is at the bottom of the page.

and it's probably the best one written.

------
jugad
I didn't read through the whole thing... its huge.

Can someone please provide a tldr? Who gains by the conspiracy (if its one)?
And what do they gain?

------
jokoon
It's sad that in all those conspiracy nuts, there might be some legitimate
info that will never be heard. Sometimes I even wonder if conspiracy theorists
are not just there to drown investigators in nonsensical noise.

Anyway, what would the conspiracy be about ? Getting Obama elected for a
second term ? Or if OBL is not dead, announce him dead to make him get out of
his hideout ?

One thing is true, being a conspiracy theorist today is not easy.
/r/conspiratard seems to be a stranger place that /r/conspiracy although maybe
it aims at keeping the mentally weak away from this stuff. I hate getting
involved in things.

~~~
sroerick
If the question is "who benefits", there's an easy answer for that.

The senate just published a 500 page report detailing the lies that were told
by the CIA in order to promote torture.

The actual report was 4500 pages.

It certainly also helps the democrats look good on national defense, but I
don't think that's really a root cause of the lie, just a happy accident.

~~~
joshuapants
So the beneficiary is the CIA and the benefit itself is that they still get to
torture people? That doesn't seem like a very big benefit.

edit: I should make it clear that I think Hersh's story is interesting and I
really wish other journalists would focus more on the story than on trying to
assassinate his character.

I just don't know if permission to torture is a high enough prize to justify a
cover up, especially since they could easily just torture people anyway and
scrub the evidence if they're willing to resort to subterfuge.

~~~
sroerick
Tell that to the CIA.

Diane Fienstein accused them of committing crimes in order to suppress the
torture report.[0] A little lying about how Osama was killed seems pretty
innocuous next to that, doesn't it?

Military operations are routinely "framed" in a light that makes for the most
positive PR spin. See the Jessica Lynch story for a good example of this.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-cia-torture-
co...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-cia-torture-cover-
up.html)

~~~
joshuapants
> Military operations are routinely "framed" in a light that makes for the
> most positive PR spin.

That definitely makes more sense to me than trying to keep torture in the
toolbox. Looks much better as an all-American raid than a canned hunt where
the Pakistanis already had him.

Even with the Feinstein thing, it seems more like any cover up was more about
public perception than anything else.

------
GabrielF00
It's worth reading Hersh's interview with Slate. Hersh comes across as a
complete nut job.
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.single.html)

~~~
binxbolling
To me he comes off less as a nut job and more as a cranky 78-year-old who's
being interviewed by a media outlet that's been attacking him pretty hard.

~~~
mturmon
I agree. It's the problem when the other side asks the questions and edits the
responses down.

Hersh was clearly annoyed that the interviewer wanted to talk about why the
article did not appear in the _New Yorker_. The interviewer's agenda seemed
clear: if the _New Yorker_ did not see fit to print it, then I can safely
ignore it. (People really do think like this, of course.)

Why would a writer respect such an agenda? So Hersh lets him have it.

Then, the interviewer appears to back off that angle ("Can I tell you why?"),
and gave a different reason: He said he's interested in the publication venue
because that would indicate a bias in the American press. Hersh says that's
interesting.

At the very end, the interviewer seems like he's trying to catch Hersh up in
some kind of logical error regarding the venue question ("I feel like you are
telling me two different things.") And then it's over.

There's just nothing there. The interviewer asks questions, with a transparent
agenda, that a grouchy reporter has heard before. They are kind of second-
order to the actual story (i.e., venue). Hersh gets annoyed and hangs up.

