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Do you have any details on the OBL thing? Other reporting seems to corroborate Hersh. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/magazine/the-detail-in-seymour-hershs-

Do you have any details on the OBL thing? Other reporting seems to corroborate Hersh. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/magazine/the-detail-in-seymour-hershs-bin-laden-story-that-rings-true.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/magazine/the-detail-in-se...

tptacek 8y ago
That piece goes out of its way to concur with just one detail of Hersh's story. And both the official story and the NYT reporter's story can be true at the same time: there could have been a Pakistani military source to US intelligence and a parallel operation to establish UBL's location without relying on (and thus compromising) that same source. Hersh had a lot more to say about UBL's killing than just that.
- Amezarak 8y ago
  The article says much more than that: > Two years later, when I was researching my book, I learned from a high-level member of the Pakistani intelligence service that the ISI had been hiding Bin Laden and ran a desk specifically to handle him as an intelligence asset. After the book came out, I learned more: that it was indeed a Pakistani Army brigadier — all the senior officers of the ISI are in the military — who told the C.I.A. where Bin Laden was hiding, and that Bin Laden was living there with the knowledge and protection of the ISI. > The local police told me that they received the calls and could have been at the compound within minutes, but army commanders ordered them to stand down and leave the response to the military. Yet despite being barracked nearby, members of the Pakistani Army appear to have arrived only after the SEALs — who spent 40 minutes on the ground without encountering any soldiers — left. Hersh's key claims were that the Pakistani intelligence was hiding OBL, eventually they (or at least one of them) let the US in on the fact, and that the US essentially went on a cakewalk to kill him, all of which are corroborated by other reporting. What are the major details that have been debunked?
  - tptacek 8y ago
    No, that's not Hersh's key claim. Hersh's key claim is that UBL was captured by Pakistan in 2006(!) and ransomed to the US in exchange for increased aid and influence in Afghanistan --- that the UBL story we all heard was an elaborate ruse to cover up a quid pro quo conspiracy that involved not just Pakistan but Saudi Arabia. In fact, after UBL was killed, we cut aid to Pakistan, and increased our military presence in Afghanistan. Again: it's not a crazy argument to suggest people in Pakistan may have had intelligence about UBL's location (after all, we got intelligence about UBL, and we suck at this) and that someone who was read in ratted UBL out for the reward money. But that's not all Hersh reported! This is the problem with a lot of Hersh-style reporting: it sometimes starts from a plausible kernel and extrapolates wildly.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      If you have time, it would be great if you could add some citations for what you are writing. The lack of them doesn't make the comments wrong or useless, but this is a discussion about the veracity of someone's claims.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      >Hersh's key claim is that UBL was captured by Pakistan in 2006(!) and ransomed to the US in exchange for increased aid and influence in Afghanistan There have been several leaks as suggesting Pakistan knew of his whereabouts as early as 2009. And Hersh says they did it as the US was threatening to cut off aid, anything about "influence in Afghanistan" was about the reason they kept Bin Laden. Aid did not see the sudden stop, and stayed about the same level as most preceding years, save one one outlying year. https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAK https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAK
    - imbokodo 8y ago
      > an elaborate ruse News started to leak out that bin Laden had been killed in Abbotabad not long after it happened. As no one disputes, one of the helicopters crashed. The disputed premise is either the Pakistani high command ok'd the raid (Hersh) or they did not (you - official line). That is the premise. The "elaborate ruse to cover up a quid pro quo conspiracy" is a no-brainer after that. If the high command did OK the raid and there was no ruse, it would basically be saying the Pakistani military does not protect Pakistanis from the invasion of foreign armies, that it is more or less a US puppet. Something a sizable portion of Pakistan, not unsympathetic to bin Laden, thought already. And why wouldn't they support bin Laden - the US stood along side them supporting bin Laden's jihad to oust the secular government of Afghanistan in the 1980s. They have just remained the same, it's the US that shifted its policies (putting Army bases in Saudi Arabia, getting into conflict with bin Laden and other Arabian elements). Either the high command ok'd the raid or they did not. It is natural for the ruse and conspiracy to follow. I am sure it was one of the "ransom" demands made so that the raid could happen.
danso 8y ago
Other reporting has corroborated some of Hersh's reporting, but not all of it. In the article you've posted, for instance: > I cannot confirm Hersh’s bolder claims — for example, that two of Pakistan’s top generals, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former army chief, and Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director of the ISI, had advance knowledge of the raid. But I would not necessarily dismiss the claims immediately. Here's a roundup from the Columbia Journalism Review that criticizes the mainstream press for being so dismissive of Hersh's story: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.p... Here's a less pro-Hersh roundup by the NYMag, on the topic of whether Hersh's account should be trusted: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/how-solid-is-this-story-on-the-bin-laden-raid.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/how-solid-is-th... But AFAIK, the main claims haven't been "proven" or disproven. Though I think most people agree that the initial accounts, including the August 2011 New Yorker story [0] (which was not by Hersh) and "Zero Dark Thirty", have had worthwhile questions raised about their veracity. If you want a deep dive on the topic, this October 2015 NYT story is one of the longer that I've read. Not sure what's changed since then: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-reall... [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-la...
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > Zero Dark Thirty That was entertainment - historical fiction - not documentary.
  - danso 8y ago
    The filmmakers had substantial cooperation with the CIA and military, which means that this narrative is likely what the government wants people to believe: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-reall... > The opening credits announced that the film was based on ‘‘firsthand accounts of actual events.’’ And, as a trove of documents made public via the Freedom of Information Act amply demonstrated, the C.I.A. eagerly cooperated with the filmmakers, arranging for the writer and director to meet with numerous analysts and officers who were identified as being involved in the hunt for bin Laden. The director, Kathryn Bigelow, has described the film as ‘‘the first rough cut of history.’’ I'm not arguing that it is the truth, but it is, like it or not, likely the most popular and well-known narrative, partly because it was billed as being informed by official sources.

tptacek 8y ago

That piece goes out of its way to concur with just one detail of Hersh's story. And both the official story and the NYT reporter's story can be true at the same time: there could have been a Pakistani military source to US intelligence and a parallel operation to establish UBL's location without relying on (and thus compromising) that same source. Hersh had a lot more to say about UBL's killing than just that.

Amezarak 8y ago
The article says much more than that: > Two years later, when I was researching my book, I learned from a high-level member of the Pakistani intelligence service that the ISI had been hiding Bin Laden and ran a desk specifically to handle him as an intelligence asset. After the book came out, I learned more: that it was indeed a Pakistani Army brigadier — all the senior officers of the ISI are in the military — who told the C.I.A. where Bin Laden was hiding, and that Bin Laden was living there with the knowledge and protection of the ISI. > The local police told me that they received the calls and could have been at the compound within minutes, but army commanders ordered them to stand down and leave the response to the military. Yet despite being barracked nearby, members of the Pakistani Army appear to have arrived only after the SEALs — who spent 40 minutes on the ground without encountering any soldiers — left. Hersh's key claims were that the Pakistani intelligence was hiding OBL, eventually they (or at least one of them) let the US in on the fact, and that the US essentially went on a cakewalk to kill him, all of which are corroborated by other reporting. What are the major details that have been debunked?
- tptacek 8y ago
  No, that's not Hersh's key claim. Hersh's key claim is that UBL was captured by Pakistan in 2006(!) and ransomed to the US in exchange for increased aid and influence in Afghanistan --- that the UBL story we all heard was an elaborate ruse to cover up a quid pro quo conspiracy that involved not just Pakistan but Saudi Arabia. In fact, after UBL was killed, we cut aid to Pakistan, and increased our military presence in Afghanistan. Again: it's not a crazy argument to suggest people in Pakistan may have had intelligence about UBL's location (after all, we got intelligence about UBL, and we suck at this) and that someone who was read in ratted UBL out for the reward money. But that's not all Hersh reported! This is the problem with a lot of Hersh-style reporting: it sometimes starts from a plausible kernel and extrapolates wildly.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    If you have time, it would be great if you could add some citations for what you are writing. The lack of them doesn't make the comments wrong or useless, but this is a discussion about the veracity of someone's claims.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    >Hersh's key claim is that UBL was captured by Pakistan in 2006(!) and ransomed to the US in exchange for increased aid and influence in Afghanistan There have been several leaks as suggesting Pakistan knew of his whereabouts as early as 2009. And Hersh says they did it as the US was threatening to cut off aid, anything about "influence in Afghanistan" was about the reason they kept Bin Laden. Aid did not see the sudden stop, and stayed about the same level as most preceding years, save one one outlying year. https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAK https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAK
  - imbokodo 8y ago
    > an elaborate ruse News started to leak out that bin Laden had been killed in Abbotabad not long after it happened. As no one disputes, one of the helicopters crashed. The disputed premise is either the Pakistani high command ok'd the raid (Hersh) or they did not (you - official line). That is the premise. The "elaborate ruse to cover up a quid pro quo conspiracy" is a no-brainer after that. If the high command did OK the raid and there was no ruse, it would basically be saying the Pakistani military does not protect Pakistanis from the invasion of foreign armies, that it is more or less a US puppet. Something a sizable portion of Pakistan, not unsympathetic to bin Laden, thought already. And why wouldn't they support bin Laden - the US stood along side them supporting bin Laden's jihad to oust the secular government of Afghanistan in the 1980s. They have just remained the same, it's the US that shifted its policies (putting Army bases in Saudi Arabia, getting into conflict with bin Laden and other Arabian elements). Either the high command ok'd the raid or they did not. It is natural for the ruse and conspiracy to follow. I am sure it was one of the "ransom" demands made so that the raid could happen.

danso 8y ago

Other reporting has corroborated some of Hersh's reporting, but not all of it. In the article you've posted, for instance: > I cannot confirm Hersh’s bolder claims — for example, that two of Pakistan’s top generals, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former army chief, and Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director of the ISI, had advance knowledge of the raid. But I would not necessarily dismiss the claims immediately. Here's a roundup from the Columbia Journalism Review that criticizes the mainstream press for being so dismissive of Hersh's story: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.p... Here's a less pro-Hersh roundup by the NYMag, on the topic of whether Hersh's account should be trusted: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/how-solid-is-this-story-on-the-bin-laden-raid.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/how-solid-is-th... But AFAIK, the main claims haven't been "proven" or disproven. Though I think most people agree that the initial accounts, including the August 2011 New Yorker story [0] (which was not by Hersh) and "Zero Dark Thirty", have had worthwhile questions raised about their veracity. If you want a deep dive on the topic, this October 2015 NYT story is one of the longer that I've read. Not sure what's changed since then: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-reall... [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-la...

forapurpose 8y ago
> Zero Dark Thirty That was entertainment - historical fiction - not documentary.
- danso 8y ago
  The filmmakers had substantial cooperation with the CIA and military, which means that this narrative is likely what the government wants people to believe: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-reall... > The opening credits announced that the film was based on ‘‘firsthand accounts of actual events.’’ And, as a trove of documents made public via the Freedom of Information Act amply demonstrated, the C.I.A. eagerly cooperated with the filmmakers, arranging for the writer and director to meet with numerous analysts and officers who were identified as being involved in the hunt for bin Laden. The director, Kathryn Bigelow, has described the film as ‘‘the first rough cut of history.’’ I'm not arguing that it is the truth, but it is, like it or not, likely the most popular and well-known narrative, partly because it was billed as being informed by official sources.