9 ms·

What Do We Really Know About Osama Bin Laden’s Death?

135 points by kareemm 11y ago

DGAP 11y ago
>Tell the story you want them to believe. I can speak from first-hand experience that this is exactly how matters of this nature are handled. The general account of Bin Laden's death may be true, but the government chose which details they wanted to drive the narrative and selectively released those. i.e. the heroism of the SEALS vs that our "ally" was hiding a terrorist.
- bardworx 11y ago
  > I can speak from first-hand experience that this is exactly how matters of this nature are handled. > i.e. the heroism of the SEALS vs that our "ally" was hiding a terrorist. Perhaps I'm a jaded New Yorker with a family member having, at one time, a "high title" in an international news corporation. They worked for many companies, this isn't a liberal/conservative or democrat/republican comment. I do not trust what our politicians or news corporations say at face value. Nor am I naive to believe that US "allies" would tell "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". Every story is laced with certain amount of spice - this goes for news, company lines, startup elevator pitches, etc. I'm not sure how you are framing your initial sentence: are you being fastidious or attempting to be cordial in calling straight bullshit. However, why is anyone surprised? Everyone spins the truth to their benefit. The most eye opening experience I've ever had was being in a news room, reading a live report from Baghdad reporter while listening to an anchor a few feet away. The disparity between the two was so staggering that I renounced all news instantly and felt disgusted. I understand news companies have to make money but what they say isn't "news". In my opinion, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, and TMZ are all flavors of the same marketing machine. News/Politicians = Convenient truth which sells ads. edit: spelling, clarity.
  - parm289 11y ago
    Your comment was enlightening and compels me to ask: where can the public get access to live field reports such as the one you mention? If news companies transform these reports into faux-news, I'd like to bypass them directly and read/watch directly from the source. Are there any publicly-accessible resources that provide access to field reports or "real" news?
    - bardworx 11y ago
      Currently, I believe social media is the best source of news; usually it is a first person account. I was referring to a internal system which reporters and producers share which doesn't have a public feed. If you watch some news reports, you'll notice a bunch of people at their desks with a small screen next to their larger monitors. That smaller screen is something like an IRC chat which is used to coordinate assets between reporters and producers. http://radio.foxnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FNCNewsroomphoto.jpg http://radio.foxnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FNCNewsr... This is from fox news - notice those small monitors that look out of place. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8018/7405270916_7cd37ba78f_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8018/7405270916_7cd37ba78f_b.j... This is from CNN, notice that most monitors have CNN as their screen saver while some, with no one sitting next to them, have block boxes.
      - parm289 11y ago
        Thanks for the insight. Are there any particular social media sources you like to use? I find that Twitter and reddit are the most real-time, but reddit can often carry its own biases as well. Twitter seems like it could be the best social media news source if field reporters released news directly through their streams (ie not tweeting as a representative of FOX or NBC). Essentially the IRC chat you mentioned above, but public-facing.
        bardworx 11y ago
        Unfortunately I won't be very helpful here as I really just stopped listening/readying/watching news actively. I'll browse a news aggregate like Hacker News and bi-weekly do a Google News browse but that's about it. I can't find the quote now but it was from an editor of a news magazine who said something like: If you didn't read the news for a whole year, away from civilization, you probably wouldn't miss anything very important.
danso 11y ago
Sorry to derail the discussion but a possible word of warning: whatever is going on in the OP's page and code, it's causing the tab Safari on my iPad (Air 2) to completely freeze. Not bad enough that I have to do a hard reboot, but enough that the entire page is completely unresponsive. This is the first time this is happened to me on a NYT story page.
- jzwinck 11y ago
  Same thing in Google Chrome on Android. I can only scroll until the page finishes loading (ads?), then the font size gets rather large, a menu bar appears at the top of the page, and it can no longer scroll. Like you I have never seen this before on NYT.
  - mirceal 11y ago
    by the time you guys figure out what's going on, you're going to be left with a broken blown-up black hawk in your browser tab
- ern 11y ago
  Same thing happened on Safari on my iPad 2. Putting the page into reading mode solved the problem.
api 11y ago
It sounds like what really happened was that Pakistan (or elements therein) was protecting him, sold him out (or someone did for money), and the US just went in and mopped him up... and then sexed up the story to help re-elect Obama and probably to cover for the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program. I suppose it's also possible that there is some alternative narrative that's being covered up, such as the CIA actually keeping him alive (or telling Pakistan to do so) as "bait" to catch other members of his network or for some sort of propaganda or psyops purpose. Maybe we'll know in 25 years.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Patient0 11y ago
I don't find his cover up story at all credible - Pakistan knew where Bin Laden was the whole time and kept it a secret from the U.S.? For what possible gain?
- nly 11y ago
  In case they needed a trump card to make nice?
- CDRdude 11y ago
  There has been a good amount of U.S. aid money going to Pakistan since the war on terror. Pakistan would have the incentive to prolong the war on terror, may have reasoned that a living Bin Laden was a cash cow.
  - RaleyField 11y ago
    Or could risk total embargo from every NATO country and every country that can be coerced to enforce embargo. They could find themselves in situation way worse than that of North Korea.
    - littletimmy 11y ago
      This would never happen because nukes. Pakistan has 100+ nuclear warheads - the day they fall into the hands of terrorists is the day we're all toast. No one is ever going to embargo Pakistan completely even if their leaders are openly sponsoring terror - what's going to happen at worst is forced regime change.
- hugh4 11y ago
  The same possible gain that motivates people to blow themselves up and crash planes into buildings and burn churches and synagogues. That is, no possible gain that a rational person would understand. But Islam is not a rational memeplex.
  - dang 11y ago
vidoc 11y ago
The official accounts of its killing strongly reminded me of the way the 'link' between 9/11 and Al Qaeda was made. The passport found by a cop, a few days later near ground zero :P
- olewhalehunter 11y ago
  The majority of "Al Qaeda"'s "organization" came from families and warlords whose financial history is extremely linked with CIA operations, their friends the Saudis, and almost all of the intel concerning that link came from the NSA, European agencies the US has administered in proxy since the start of the Cold War, and reported gossip from the aforementioned families. Are 9/11 truthers really that nutty? EDIT: Downvotes without refutations can be assumed to be public opinion bots, morons, or both.
- vidoc 11y ago
  for the downvoter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satam_al-Suqami#Passport_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satam_al-Suqami#Passport_disco...
  - meowface 11y ago
    It wasn't a cop who found it. >Suqami's passport was found by a passerby (identity unknown), reportedly in the vicinity of Vesey Street, before the towers collapsed.
    - vidoc 11y ago
      yeah well, then given to a cop right ?
- scintill76 11y ago
  The discovery: " This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed." > ... Two of the passports that have survived, those of Satam al Suqami and Abdul Aziz al Omari, were clearly doctored. To avoid getting into classified detail, we will just state that these [passports] were manipulated in a fraudulent manner in ways that have been associated with al Qaeda. ... http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-01-26.htm http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Comm... Surrounding statements seem to contradict that, such as "And yet between 1992 and September 11th, 2001 we have not found any signs that intelligence, law enforcement or border inspection services sought to acquire, develop or disseminate systematic information about al Qaeda's or other terrorist groups travel and passport practices." How did they know the manipulations were al Qaeda's if nobody had been tracking their techniques for years? I guess it can be squared by presuming they cataloged some information post-9/11 (possibly including "training manuals recovered in the mid 1990s") that had been available before but not closely examined. I wonder if the determination of what al Qaeda passport techniques look like was a bit circularly-defined or sloppy, since they had little information to start with and concluded the investigation quickly.
suprgeek 11y ago
So we are supposed to believe that: 1) There are super secret helicopters that allowed the US Seals to fly over Pakistan to Abbotabad (which is nearer to India than to Afghanistan) without the Pakistani military which is always paranoid about Indian aircraft/drones knowing about it. 2) Despite one of the Helicopters CRASHING & BURNING and some guy Tweeting about it, there was no police, no military response in Abbotabad, a Garrison City where you literally cannot throw a rock and not hit a Military person 3) The US Seals faced no resistance while entering the compound, and OBL had no guards on the perimeter 4) No single image of OBL's body is in the public domain 5) the Seals flew out to Abbotabad, were on the scene for an hour, flew back (about ~3 hours) of elapsed time - never once were the Pakistani's any wiser? No military, no police no official response? These are only some of the major flaws but if you think about this for sometime the whole thing totally strains belief. Maybe Seymor Hersh's tale is not the truth but the official version is certainly pure fantasy.
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  Most of your bullet points as you've described didn't actually happen they way you've outlined. The only thing listed remotely accurate is that there is no official picture of OBL dead with a bullet in his head, and it has been purposefully kept that way to keep it from being used as further propaganda.
  - mcantelon 11y ago
    I'm not sure what propaganda value there is in noone knowing if the US actually killed Bin Laden. Benazir Bhutto said, a month before she was assassinated, that Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2001 by Omar Sheikh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBTd5QNGB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBTd5QNGB0
  - revelation 11y ago
    There was an actual person there live-tweeting the thing. Of course pakistan knew perfectly well.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
bahmboo 11y ago
We actually know quite a bit, author of book on the subject defending his account against Hersh's: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden-capture-conspiracy http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden...
tylerkahn 11y ago
Can anyone explain what is meant by this: > During the Iraq war, reporters informed us that a mob of jubilant Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. Never mind that there were so few local people trying to pull the statue down that they needed the help of a U.S. military crane. Here's an (edited) video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snyz8sn2-z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snyz8sn2-z4 I'm 90% certain I watched this live at home in the morning when I was home sick from school. There were a smattering of people trying to bring it down and then the crowd got bigger and then the U.S. crane came in and helped. This happened over the course of an hour or two. I remember thinking it was cool that U.S. military helped out. Where does this claim of the false narrative come in?
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  "Mob" != "smattering", perhaps. It makes it seem like there was more Iraqi popular opposition than was actually occurring.
- jbattle 11y ago
  I don't remember 100% clearly but I think photos published of the event were carefully framed to make it look like a huge crowd of Iraqis and few if any Americans
  - tripzilch 11y ago
    Yup, that's what I remember too. Seeing the uncropped version of the photo a few days later and thinking "huh wow, propaganda much?" :)
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Even the idea that Iraqis tried to topple the statue at all (and then the US "helped") is highly controversial. (That's how CNN portrayed it at the time.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destructi... If you look how the image is framed (especially in the Fox coverage) the framing cuts out or de-emphasizes the vehicle while emphasizing the (quite small) Iraqi crowd. The accompanying commentary is all about the crowd throwing stuff (they seem to be standing around, mostly). And the later coverage definitely emphasized the Iraqis pulling down the status with US help, not (say) the US pulling down the statue while Iraqi's mostly watched.
snissn 11y ago
This is Hersh's publication: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-...
n0us 11y ago
Sounds more likely to me that some people within the Pakistani intelligence knew Bin Laden was in the country, similarly individuals within the US intelligence community knew and had known for a while that he was in Pakistan if not specifically where/how to get him out. The idea that someone sold him out is certainly plausible. The idea that there has to be some black and white distinction between the US cooperating with Pakistani authorities to enter the country and kill him vs the idea that they had no knowledge at all I think is probably not accurate. It sounds possible that US authorities alerted Pakistani authorities that they were going to be conducting a raid and Pakistan could comply or face much bigger problems. Since they didn't want to be portrayed internationally as being complicit in housing a well known terrorist, they ignored the radar signatures of the helicopters just long enough for the raid to happen. It's too bad they didn't bring the body back to the US. I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. I see no reason they should have disposed of him and prevented some sort of public verification.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  What kind of public acknowledgement you would expect them hanging him off the Washington monument?
- mmanfrin 11y ago
  > It's too bad they didn't bring the body back to the US. I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. I see no reason they should have disposed of him and prevented some sort of public verification. They did not want the body to become a shrine to those who followed the ideology of Bin Laden, and they similarly did not want the picture(s) of his body to be iconography for that ideology. I know a lot of people disagree, but I can see very valid reasoning behind how they disposed of his body.
  - 67726e 11y ago
    Similar reasoning to the Soviet's disposal of Hitler's corpse. So I guess we have a lot of conspiracies on the History Channel to look forward to.
Simulacra 11y ago
...That he's dead? Do we really need to know more than that?
transfire 11y ago
I go by the King's rules: No head? Then he ain't dead.
chejazi 11y ago
tl;dr: Hersh’s most consequential claim was about how bin Laden was found in the first place. It was not years of painstaking intelligence-gathering, he wrote, that led the United States to the courier and, ultimately, to bin Laden. Instead, the location was revealed by a ‘‘walk-in’’ — a retired Pakistani intelligence officer who was after the $25 million reward that the United States had promised anyone who helped locate him. For that matter, bin Laden was hardly ‘‘in hiding’’ at all; his compound in Abbottabad was actually a safe house, maintained by the Pakistani intelligence service. When the United States confronted Pakistani intelligence officials with this information, Hersh wrote, they eventually acknowledged it was true and even conceded to provide a DNA sample to prove it.
crapshoot101 11y ago
One big danger is assuming that the Pakistani state is some sort of monolithic entity - it isn't. The ISI is a state within the state, and there are significant sectarian movements and tribal loyalties on top of it, and that's without even getting into the nature of the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the governing apparatus across the country (ie, one big movement calls for working with the TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban). In other words, is it possible that elements in the Pakistani state (read: ISI cells / divisions) and some personnel knew that Bin Laden was in Pakistan? Almost certainly yes. Is it probable that it was known widely by the governing apparatus as a sort of defacto knowledge discussed at say, the cabinel level? I'd say that's unlikely.
- crapshoot101 11y ago
  Btw, Mark Bowden, the author of the story that's cited as the "official" version, makes his case here. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden-capture-conspiracy http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden...
spoiledtechie 11y ago
While we are on the subject, has anyone else really looked at the image of Obama in the situation room looking intently at the TV? The picture the Whitehouse put out looks like they put Obama's head on another persons body. Seriously, I'm not trying to change subjects, but there is a white collar that sort of appears behind and over his next, but doesn't actually fit with his head and body. I would love to know if anyone else bas noticed this?
AJ007 11y ago
It is criminal to make unauthorized disclosures of classified material. The numerous conflicts in the story suddenly make a lot more sense after taking that in to consideration. This particular piece gives the Obama administration a tremendous pass by failing to mention what the made up narrative did to the Pakistani vaccination program.
littletimmy 11y ago
I trust Seymour Hersh on this. If my only choices are either believing what the government says, or believing what a decorated investigative journalist says, I'm going with the investigative journalist. The government simply has too much of an incentive to lie about something like this.
- tacos 11y ago
  Hersh is a hero of mine but -- and I hate to play the age card -- he is getting a little wackier as he ages. I'm not sure why he rushed to print this story. There's nothing time-critical here. Also it's not a question of accepting Hersh vs the government. It's a matter of balancing Hersh's investigative reporting with the details provided by other investigative reporters. Seems like he's onto something but, like he was told when his story was rejected, I don't think he has it all figured out yet. EDIT: These two sentences in particular are very un-Hirsch: "(The informant and his family were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area. He is now a consultant for the CIA.)" Doesn't name the informant (who would obviously be in a protection program) but gives the city and employer? Why? It's unrelated to the story. If it's only important enough to be in parenthesis, probably shouldn't risk putting a man and his family's life at risk over the disclosure.
  - chillwaves 11y ago
    There are over 6 million people in the Washington metro. I think he'll be OK.
    - tacos 11y ago
      And fewer than 5,000 Pakistani families with children -- under 100 in one likely city (Lincolnia). Probably already relocated at taxpayer expense due to those two useless sentences.
  - dennisgorelik 11y ago
    > There's nothing time-critical here. The sooner truth comes out - the faster we learn from our mistakes.
Zelphyr 11y ago
On an unrelated note; what's with the over use of the word "narrative" in this article? It seems to be a fad lately for people to use it to sound smart (I guess) but you'd think the editor of the NY Times would've told the guy, "try picking a different word for once, eh?" It's used so much it's almost distracting.
- burnte 11y ago
  It's a fancier way to say "story" and it's really grating. It's similar to how "looks" and "appearance" became "optics" ("this looks bad/this has a bad appearance" is now "these are bad optics") and "math" or "algebra" became "calculus" (what's the political math/algebra here?" is "what's the political calculus?"). It's the dumbing down of content disguised by fancier words.
  - gozo 11y ago
    Narrative can mean story as in "a spoken or written account of connected events", but in can also have further meaning as in "a representation of a particular situation or process in such a way as to reflect or conform to an overarching set of aims or values". So the governments recollection of how they killed Osama bin Laden is to some extent a story, but it's also part of the narrative of e.g. the "war on terror". I'm not sure it's so much dumbing down as careless use of word. Before you teach something you often have to unlearn the things you learned as part of learning. Overuse of certain words or concepts are quite common in technology too. Though we also often make the somewhat different mistake of being too specific.
- charlesism 11y ago
  Yes, such a word is "problematic"
unclebucknasty 11y ago
And, yet, the biggest questionable detail of all goes virtually unchallenged.
- coldcode 11y ago
  I still have my doubts he actually was alive when he was "killed".
squozzer 11y ago
The logic behind keeping OBL's death a secret has some facets worth examining. Most reasons given mention OBL's propaganda value - but was he really that popular? Did he have t-shirts or something similar a la Che Guevara? Would stronger proof of his death have attracted more people to his cause? Could not mystique in the end prove stronger than martyrdom? At least a couple of religions describe the return of a prophet. Isn't it also possible to have very good reasons for either releasing photos of his death or not killing him? The kind of terrorist who might emulate OBL would probably prefer death on the battlefield to capture or execution. So it's not clear what kind of deterrent effect all the secrecy has delivered. I can however think of a few reasons to kill him quickly and release as few details as possible. Independent verification of anything might produce inconvenient facts, that would cast doubt on all other claims. A commenter said Pakistan does not act as a single entity, which is true, but neither does the US. So who knows what a debriefing might have revealed?
ryanx435 11y ago
reading all of these comments reminds me, welcomingly, that most commentators on HN don't know shit: they are just really good at sounding like they know what they are talking about. interestingly this is only ever apparent when a topic comes up that I am an expert in.
- derefr 11y ago
  I think this sort of topic seems more-inviting-than-usual to those without expert knowledge. An average thread here about e.g. the BEAM VM (something I have expertise on) is usually very well-thought-out and fact-based, because enthusiasm to talk about it usually goes up with experience. In politics, meanwhile, the true experts are more-often-than-not the people who left the room early before the shouting began. ;)
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    pg has a good essay on it, "Keep Your Identity Small" [0]. [0] - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
- laichzeit0 11y ago
  I suspect this is some variant of Parkinson's law combined with Dunning-Kruger effect.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  A valid complaint, but it's bad to stop just there. Could you enlighten us all and share some of your expert knowledge on the topic?
- confluence 11y ago
  It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
- bootload 11y ago
  "interestingly this is only ever apparent when a topic comes up that I am an expert in." Which topic?
jokoon 11y ago
So if he is not dead, it was either: * A move to push OBL to come out of the bushes to denounce its fake death, and get an opportunity to catch him this way ? * A move to get Obama reelected ? What else could be seen as foul ? I mean it's a war against Islamic terrorism, I'd understand if some plays were little lies. Manipulating the public can be okay if it's not for risky purposes.
mknits 11y ago
A short video on how 9/11 was really a conspiracy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47D5ISemds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47D5ISemds Some more videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-wXcJA-et0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-wXcJA-et0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJmY5-LbH8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJmY5-LbH8c Edit: Thanks in advance for the downvotes. Missile incoming!
peter303 11y ago
The main whitewashing Ive heard was he and some of his family were shot in cold blood, i.e. Weaponless and without provocation. I am guessing due to the tight constraints of the operation and the difficultly of a high profile prisoner. I dont know why some thought they had to whitewash the story, because most people would understand the necesity.
dennisgorelik 11y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984
tripzilch 11y ago
Not a word about the vaccination program? It was reported both in the mainstream media at the time, as well as featuring in Hersh's version of events. They (of course) don't quite match up, but the vaccination program definitely played a role in both versions. It's a bit weird to leave it out. Not like the reporter wouldn't have come across it, and the repercussions are quite real.

135 points by kareemm 11y ago

DGAP 11y ago

>Tell the story you want them to believe. I can speak from first-hand experience that this is exactly how matters of this nature are handled. The general account of Bin Laden's death may be true, but the government chose which details they wanted to drive the narrative and selectively released those. i.e. the heroism of the SEALS vs that our "ally" was hiding a terrorist.

bardworx 11y ago
> I can speak from first-hand experience that this is exactly how matters of this nature are handled. > i.e. the heroism of the SEALS vs that our "ally" was hiding a terrorist. Perhaps I'm a jaded New Yorker with a family member having, at one time, a "high title" in an international news corporation. They worked for many companies, this isn't a liberal/conservative or democrat/republican comment. I do not trust what our politicians or news corporations say at face value. Nor am I naive to believe that US "allies" would tell "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". Every story is laced with certain amount of spice - this goes for news, company lines, startup elevator pitches, etc. I'm not sure how you are framing your initial sentence: are you being fastidious or attempting to be cordial in calling straight bullshit. However, why is anyone surprised? Everyone spins the truth to their benefit. The most eye opening experience I've ever had was being in a news room, reading a live report from Baghdad reporter while listening to an anchor a few feet away. The disparity between the two was so staggering that I renounced all news instantly and felt disgusted. I understand news companies have to make money but what they say isn't "news". In my opinion, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, and TMZ are all flavors of the same marketing machine. News/Politicians = Convenient truth which sells ads. edit: spelling, clarity.
- parm289 11y ago
  Your comment was enlightening and compels me to ask: where can the public get access to live field reports such as the one you mention? If news companies transform these reports into faux-news, I'd like to bypass them directly and read/watch directly from the source. Are there any publicly-accessible resources that provide access to field reports or "real" news?
  - bardworx 11y ago
    Currently, I believe social media is the best source of news; usually it is a first person account. I was referring to a internal system which reporters and producers share which doesn't have a public feed. If you watch some news reports, you'll notice a bunch of people at their desks with a small screen next to their larger monitors. That smaller screen is something like an IRC chat which is used to coordinate assets between reporters and producers. http://radio.foxnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FNCNewsroomphoto.jpg http://radio.foxnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/FNCNewsr... This is from fox news - notice those small monitors that look out of place. https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8018/7405270916_7cd37ba78f_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8018/7405270916_7cd37ba78f_b.j... This is from CNN, notice that most monitors have CNN as their screen saver while some, with no one sitting next to them, have block boxes.
    - parm289 11y ago
      Thanks for the insight. Are there any particular social media sources you like to use? I find that Twitter and reddit are the most real-time, but reddit can often carry its own biases as well. Twitter seems like it could be the best social media news source if field reporters released news directly through their streams (ie not tweeting as a representative of FOX or NBC). Essentially the IRC chat you mentioned above, but public-facing.
      - bardworx 11y ago
        Unfortunately I won't be very helpful here as I really just stopped listening/readying/watching news actively. I'll browse a news aggregate like Hacker News and bi-weekly do a Google News browse but that's about it. I can't find the quote now but it was from an editor of a news magazine who said something like: If you didn't read the news for a whole year, away from civilization, you probably wouldn't miss anything very important.

danso 11y ago

Sorry to derail the discussion but a possible word of warning: whatever is going on in the OP's page and code, it's causing the tab Safari on my iPad (Air 2) to completely freeze. Not bad enough that I have to do a hard reboot, but enough that the entire page is completely unresponsive. This is the first time this is happened to me on a NYT story page.

jzwinck 11y ago
Same thing in Google Chrome on Android. I can only scroll until the page finishes loading (ads?), then the font size gets rather large, a menu bar appears at the top of the page, and it can no longer scroll. Like you I have never seen this before on NYT.
- mirceal 11y ago
  by the time you guys figure out what's going on, you're going to be left with a broken blown-up black hawk in your browser tab
ern 11y ago
Same thing happened on Safari on my iPad 2. Putting the page into reading mode solved the problem.

api 11y ago

It sounds like what really happened was that Pakistan (or elements therein) was protecting him, sold him out (or someone did for money), and the US just went in and mopped him up... and then sexed up the story to help re-elect Obama and probably to cover for the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program. I suppose it's also possible that there is some alternative narrative that's being covered up, such as the CIA actually keeping him alive (or telling Pakistan to do so) as "bait" to catch other members of his network or for some sort of propaganda or psyops purpose. Maybe we'll know in 25 years.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Patient0 11y ago

I don't find his cover up story at all credible - Pakistan knew where Bin Laden was the whole time and kept it a secret from the U.S.? For what possible gain?

nly 11y ago
In case they needed a trump card to make nice?
CDRdude 11y ago
There has been a good amount of U.S. aid money going to Pakistan since the war on terror. Pakistan would have the incentive to prolong the war on terror, may have reasoned that a living Bin Laden was a cash cow.
- RaleyField 11y ago
  Or could risk total embargo from every NATO country and every country that can be coerced to enforce embargo. They could find themselves in situation way worse than that of North Korea.
  - littletimmy 11y ago
    This would never happen because nukes. Pakistan has 100+ nuclear warheads - the day they fall into the hands of terrorists is the day we're all toast. No one is ever going to embargo Pakistan completely even if their leaders are openly sponsoring terror - what's going to happen at worst is forced regime change.
hugh4 11y ago
The same possible gain that motivates people to blow themselves up and crash planes into buildings and burn churches and synagogues. That is, no possible gain that a rational person would understand. But Islam is not a rational memeplex.
- dang 11y ago

vidoc 11y ago

The official accounts of its killing strongly reminded me of the way the 'link' between 9/11 and Al Qaeda was made. The passport found by a cop, a few days later near ground zero :P

olewhalehunter 11y ago
The majority of "Al Qaeda"'s "organization" came from families and warlords whose financial history is extremely linked with CIA operations, their friends the Saudis, and almost all of the intel concerning that link came from the NSA, European agencies the US has administered in proxy since the start of the Cold War, and reported gossip from the aforementioned families. Are 9/11 truthers really that nutty? EDIT: Downvotes without refutations can be assumed to be public opinion bots, morons, or both.
vidoc 11y ago
for the downvoter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satam_al-Suqami#Passport_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satam_al-Suqami#Passport_disco...
- meowface 11y ago
  It wasn't a cop who found it. >Suqami's passport was found by a passerby (identity unknown), reportedly in the vicinity of Vesey Street, before the towers collapsed.
  - vidoc 11y ago
    yeah well, then given to a cop right ?
scintill76 11y ago
The discovery: " This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed." > ... Two of the passports that have survived, those of Satam al Suqami and Abdul Aziz al Omari, were clearly doctored. To avoid getting into classified detail, we will just state that these [passports] were manipulated in a fraudulent manner in ways that have been associated with al Qaeda. ... http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-01-26.htm http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Comm... Surrounding statements seem to contradict that, such as "And yet between 1992 and September 11th, 2001 we have not found any signs that intelligence, law enforcement or border inspection services sought to acquire, develop or disseminate systematic information about al Qaeda's or other terrorist groups travel and passport practices." How did they know the manipulations were al Qaeda's if nobody had been tracking their techniques for years? I guess it can be squared by presuming they cataloged some information post-9/11 (possibly including "training manuals recovered in the mid 1990s") that had been available before but not closely examined. I wonder if the determination of what al Qaeda passport techniques look like was a bit circularly-defined or sloppy, since they had little information to start with and concluded the investigation quickly.

suprgeek 11y ago

So we are supposed to believe that: 1) There are super secret helicopters that allowed the US Seals to fly over Pakistan to Abbotabad (which is nearer to India than to Afghanistan) without the Pakistani military which is always paranoid about Indian aircraft/drones knowing about it. 2) Despite one of the Helicopters CRASHING & BURNING and some guy Tweeting about it, there was no police, no military response in Abbotabad, a Garrison City where you literally cannot throw a rock and not hit a Military person 3) The US Seals faced no resistance while entering the compound, and OBL had no guards on the perimeter 4) No single image of OBL's body is in the public domain 5) the Seals flew out to Abbotabad, were on the scene for an hour, flew back (about ~3 hours) of elapsed time - never once were the Pakistani's any wiser? No military, no police no official response? These are only some of the major flaws but if you think about this for sometime the whole thing totally strains belief. Maybe Seymor Hersh's tale is not the truth but the official version is certainly pure fantasy.

res0nat0r 11y ago
Most of your bullet points as you've described didn't actually happen they way you've outlined. The only thing listed remotely accurate is that there is no official picture of OBL dead with a bullet in his head, and it has been purposefully kept that way to keep it from being used as further propaganda.
- mcantelon 11y ago
  I'm not sure what propaganda value there is in noone knowing if the US actually killed Bin Laden. Benazir Bhutto said, a month before she was assassinated, that Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2001 by Omar Sheikh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBTd5QNGB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBTd5QNGB0
- revelation 11y ago
  There was an actual person there live-tweeting the thing. Of course pakistan knew perfectly well.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago

bahmboo 11y ago

We actually know quite a bit, author of book on the subject defending his account against Hersh's: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden-capture-conspiracy http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden...

tylerkahn 11y ago

Can anyone explain what is meant by this: > During the Iraq war, reporters informed us that a mob of jubilant Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. Never mind that there were so few local people trying to pull the statue down that they needed the help of a U.S. military crane. Here's an (edited) video of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snyz8sn2-z4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snyz8sn2-z4 I'm 90% certain I watched this live at home in the morning when I was home sick from school. There were a smattering of people trying to bring it down and then the crowd got bigger and then the U.S. crane came in and helped. This happened over the course of an hour or two. I remember thinking it was cool that U.S. military helped out. Where does this claim of the false narrative come in?

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
"Mob" != "smattering", perhaps. It makes it seem like there was more Iraqi popular opposition than was actually occurring.
jbattle 11y ago
I don't remember 100% clearly but I think photos published of the event were carefully framed to make it look like a huge crowd of Iraqis and few if any Americans
- tripzilch 11y ago
  Yup, that's what I remember too. Seeing the uncropped version of the photo a few days later and thinking "huh wow, propaganda much?" :)
Tloewald 11y ago
Even the idea that Iraqis tried to topple the statue at all (and then the US "helped") is highly controversial. (That's how CNN portrayed it at the time.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destructi... If you look how the image is framed (especially in the Fox coverage) the framing cuts out or de-emphasizes the vehicle while emphasizing the (quite small) Iraqi crowd. The accompanying commentary is all about the crowd throwing stuff (they seem to be standing around, mostly). And the later coverage definitely emphasized the Iraqis pulling down the status with US help, not (say) the US pulling down the statue while Iraqi's mostly watched.

snissn 11y ago

This is Hersh's publication: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-...

n0us 11y ago

Sounds more likely to me that some people within the Pakistani intelligence knew Bin Laden was in the country, similarly individuals within the US intelligence community knew and had known for a while that he was in Pakistan if not specifically where/how to get him out. The idea that someone sold him out is certainly plausible. The idea that there has to be some black and white distinction between the US cooperating with Pakistani authorities to enter the country and kill him vs the idea that they had no knowledge at all I think is probably not accurate. It sounds possible that US authorities alerted Pakistani authorities that they were going to be conducting a raid and Pakistan could comply or face much bigger problems. Since they didn't want to be portrayed internationally as being complicit in housing a well known terrorist, they ignored the radar signatures of the helicopters just long enough for the raid to happen. It's too bad they didn't bring the body back to the US. I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. I see no reason they should have disposed of him and prevented some sort of public verification.

dogma1138 11y ago
What kind of public acknowledgement you would expect them hanging him off the Washington monument?
mmanfrin 11y ago
> It's too bad they didn't bring the body back to the US. I wouldn't consider Bin Laden to be a Muslim and therefore not deserving of a proper Muslim burial. I see no reason they should have disposed of him and prevented some sort of public verification. They did not want the body to become a shrine to those who followed the ideology of Bin Laden, and they similarly did not want the picture(s) of his body to be iconography for that ideology. I know a lot of people disagree, but I can see very valid reasoning behind how they disposed of his body.
- 67726e 11y ago
  Similar reasoning to the Soviet's disposal of Hitler's corpse. So I guess we have a lot of conspiracies on the History Channel to look forward to.

Simulacra 11y ago

...That he's dead? Do we really need to know more than that?

transfire 11y ago

I go by the King's rules: No head? Then he ain't dead.

chejazi 11y ago

tl;dr: Hersh’s most consequential claim was about how bin Laden was found in the first place. It was not years of painstaking intelligence-gathering, he wrote, that led the United States to the courier and, ultimately, to bin Laden. Instead, the location was revealed by a ‘‘walk-in’’ — a retired Pakistani intelligence officer who was after the $25 million reward that the United States had promised anyone who helped locate him. For that matter, bin Laden was hardly ‘‘in hiding’’ at all; his compound in Abbottabad was actually a safe house, maintained by the Pakistani intelligence service. When the United States confronted Pakistani intelligence officials with this information, Hersh wrote, they eventually acknowledged it was true and even conceded to provide a DNA sample to prove it.

crapshoot101 11y ago

One big danger is assuming that the Pakistani state is some sort of monolithic entity - it isn't. The ISI is a state within the state, and there are significant sectarian movements and tribal loyalties on top of it, and that's without even getting into the nature of the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the governing apparatus across the country (ie, one big movement calls for working with the TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban). In other words, is it possible that elements in the Pakistani state (read: ISI cells / divisions) and some personnel knew that Bin Laden was in Pakistan? Almost certainly yes. Is it probable that it was known widely by the governing apparatus as a sort of defacto knowledge discussed at say, the cabinel level? I'd say that's unlikely.

crapshoot101 11y ago
Btw, Mark Bowden, the author of the story that's cited as the "official" version, makes his case here. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden-capture-conspiracy http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/mark-bowden-bin-laden...

spoiledtechie 11y ago

While we are on the subject, has anyone else really looked at the image of Obama in the situation room looking intently at the TV? The picture the Whitehouse put out looks like they put Obama's head on another persons body. Seriously, I'm not trying to change subjects, but there is a white collar that sort of appears behind and over his next, but doesn't actually fit with his head and body. I would love to know if anyone else bas noticed this?

AJ007 11y ago

It is criminal to make unauthorized disclosures of classified material. The numerous conflicts in the story suddenly make a lot more sense after taking that in to consideration. This particular piece gives the Obama administration a tremendous pass by failing to mention what the made up narrative did to the Pakistani vaccination program.

littletimmy 11y ago

I trust Seymour Hersh on this. If my only choices are either believing what the government says, or believing what a decorated investigative journalist says, I'm going with the investigative journalist. The government simply has too much of an incentive to lie about something like this.

tacos 11y ago
Hersh is a hero of mine but -- and I hate to play the age card -- he is getting a little wackier as he ages. I'm not sure why he rushed to print this story. There's nothing time-critical here. Also it's not a question of accepting Hersh vs the government. It's a matter of balancing Hersh's investigative reporting with the details provided by other investigative reporters. Seems like he's onto something but, like he was told when his story was rejected, I don't think he has it all figured out yet. EDIT: These two sentences in particular are very un-Hirsch: "(The informant and his family were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area. He is now a consultant for the CIA.)" Doesn't name the informant (who would obviously be in a protection program) but gives the city and employer? Why? It's unrelated to the story. If it's only important enough to be in parenthesis, probably shouldn't risk putting a man and his family's life at risk over the disclosure.
- chillwaves 11y ago
  There are over 6 million people in the Washington metro. I think he'll be OK.
  - tacos 11y ago
    And fewer than 5,000 Pakistani families with children -- under 100 in one likely city (Lincolnia). Probably already relocated at taxpayer expense due to those two useless sentences.
- dennisgorelik 11y ago
  > There's nothing time-critical here. The sooner truth comes out - the faster we learn from our mistakes.

Zelphyr 11y ago

On an unrelated note; what's with the over use of the word "narrative" in this article? It seems to be a fad lately for people to use it to sound smart (I guess) but you'd think the editor of the NY Times would've told the guy, "try picking a different word for once, eh?" It's used so much it's almost distracting.

burnte 11y ago
It's a fancier way to say "story" and it's really grating. It's similar to how "looks" and "appearance" became "optics" ("this looks bad/this has a bad appearance" is now "these are bad optics") and "math" or "algebra" became "calculus" (what's the political math/algebra here?" is "what's the political calculus?"). It's the dumbing down of content disguised by fancier words.
- gozo 11y ago
  Narrative can mean story as in "a spoken or written account of connected events", but in can also have further meaning as in "a representation of a particular situation or process in such a way as to reflect or conform to an overarching set of aims or values". So the governments recollection of how they killed Osama bin Laden is to some extent a story, but it's also part of the narrative of e.g. the "war on terror". I'm not sure it's so much dumbing down as careless use of word. Before you teach something you often have to unlearn the things you learned as part of learning. Overuse of certain words or concepts are quite common in technology too. Though we also often make the somewhat different mistake of being too specific.
charlesism 11y ago
Yes, such a word is "problematic"

unclebucknasty 11y ago

And, yet, the biggest questionable detail of all goes virtually unchallenged.

coldcode 11y ago
I still have my doubts he actually was alive when he was "killed".

squozzer 11y ago

The logic behind keeping OBL's death a secret has some facets worth examining. Most reasons given mention OBL's propaganda value - but was he really that popular? Did he have t-shirts or something similar a la Che Guevara? Would stronger proof of his death have attracted more people to his cause? Could not mystique in the end prove stronger than martyrdom? At least a couple of religions describe the return of a prophet. Isn't it also possible to have very good reasons for either releasing photos of his death or not killing him? The kind of terrorist who might emulate OBL would probably prefer death on the battlefield to capture or execution. So it's not clear what kind of deterrent effect all the secrecy has delivered. I can however think of a few reasons to kill him quickly and release as few details as possible. Independent verification of anything might produce inconvenient facts, that would cast doubt on all other claims. A commenter said Pakistan does not act as a single entity, which is true, but neither does the US. So who knows what a debriefing might have revealed?

ryanx435 11y ago

reading all of these comments reminds me, welcomingly, that most commentators on HN don't know shit: they are just really good at sounding like they know what they are talking about. interestingly this is only ever apparent when a topic comes up that I am an expert in.

derefr 11y ago
I think this sort of topic seems more-inviting-than-usual to those without expert knowledge. An average thread here about e.g. the BEAM VM (something I have expertise on) is usually very well-thought-out and fact-based, because enthusiasm to talk about it usually goes up with experience. In politics, meanwhile, the true experts are more-often-than-not the people who left the room early before the shouting began. ;)
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  pg has a good essay on it, "Keep Your Identity Small" [0]. [0] - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
laichzeit0 11y ago
I suspect this is some variant of Parkinson's law combined with Dunning-Kruger effect.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
A valid complaint, but it's bad to stop just there. Could you enlighten us all and share some of your expert knowledge on the topic?
confluence 11y ago
It's called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
bootload 11y ago
"interestingly this is only ever apparent when a topic comes up that I am an expert in." Which topic?

jokoon 11y ago

So if he is not dead, it was either: * A move to push OBL to come out of the bushes to denounce its fake death, and get an opportunity to catch him this way ? * A move to get Obama reelected ? What else could be seen as foul ? I mean it's a war against Islamic terrorism, I'd understand if some plays were little lies. Manipulating the public can be okay if it's not for risky purposes.

mknits 11y ago

A short video on how 9/11 was really a conspiracy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47D5ISemds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47D5ISemds Some more videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-wXcJA-et0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-wXcJA-et0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJmY5-LbH8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJmY5-LbH8c Edit: Thanks in advance for the downvotes. Missile incoming!

peter303 11y ago

The main whitewashing Ive heard was he and some of his family were shot in cold blood, i.e. Weaponless and without provocation. I am guessing due to the tight constraints of the operation and the difficultly of a high profile prisoner. I dont know why some thought they had to whitewash the story, because most people would understand the necesity.

dennisgorelik 11y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9520984

tripzilch 11y ago

Not a word about the vaccination program? It was reported both in the mainstream media at the time, as well as featuring in Hersh's version of events. They (of course) don't quite match up, but the vaccination program definitely played a role in both versions. It's a bit weird to leave it out. Not like the reporter wouldn't have come across it, and the repercussions are quite real.