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> He was pummeled for publishing, in the LRB, an all-but-refuted story claiming that the entire story about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden was a lie (he r
by imbokodo 8y ago
> He was pummeled for publishing, in the LRB, an all-but-refuted story claiming that the entire story about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden was a lie (he relied on the secondhand story of a retired, anonymous defense department employee for his sourcing; his home publication, The New Yorker, refused to run it).
The New Yorker refused to run his bin Laden story? The My Lai story was published in the St. Louis Dispatch, only 30 papers picked it up initially. Only the Washington Post published about Watergate for months (with a few exceptions). Abu Ghraib was barely reported until the pictures came out. That the commissar at the New Yorker would not affix his signature means little to me.
The official story was, and in your mind presumably still is (though it seems to be in tatters now) that Osama bin Laden sat in a compound in Abbotabad, to the complete ignorance of all high Pakistani officials, including those living less than a mile away at the Pakistan Military Academy. Tariq Ali called this risible in the days after the raid, as did some of the Pakistani press. It's a completely ludicrous story. Later investigation by Pakistani journalists, Hersh and others uncovered even more. The official story was known to be ridiculous when it was announced. You are correct that he was pummeled for publishing the story and about the New Yorker though. I am not sure what has been refuted, other than the US government sticking by its original story. I guess it all comes down to whether one believes IF Stone's old journalistic maxim "Governments lie". People seem more interested in ad hominem attacks on Hersh, appeals to authority etc. as opposed to looking into whether the bin Laden raid story was true. Because the idea that no one in high position with connections to the Pakistani Military Academy had no notion bin Laden was there is laughable.
- tptacek 8y agoHey, without digging into any of the rest of your argument, which I'm not especially interested in, but just because this one part of the argument is bugging me: Abbotabad is famously Pakistan's version of West Point, and we're meant to be shocked that UBL could be in a house just two miles from Pakistan's West Point. Pull up a map of West Point, NY. Trace a circle 2 miles around it. Is this an especially difficult area to hide in? Is Philipstown, NY carefully patrolled by military intelligence? It doesn't look like it is, but I'm unfamiliar with the area.
- jessaustin 8y agoIf the area around USMA were a dense jungle with an extensive tunnel network, and UbL had been found there instead of in Pakistan, it certainly would have been a remarkable event. One suspects it might even have been mentioned by the late-night comedy impresarios...
- tptacek 8y agoI don't understand what this has to do with my question. Abbotabad is a large-ish city about as far from Islamabad, the largest city in Pakistan, as West Point is from Manhattan. It's not a "dense jungle with an extensive tunnel network" (there are no dense jungles in Pakistan or Afghanistan).
- jessaustin 8y agoI exaggerated in the (dashed) hopes of inspiring some reflection. Even in this goofy fantasy in which no USA military or intelligence asset could have been expected to know who was living in the house down the street from their most cherished institution, because jungle, it would still have been amazing to find UbL living in that house.
- tptacek 8y agoYou missed my subtext. If you look at the map for West Point, I think you'll find that there is absolutely no way the US military knows everyone who lives within a couple miles of the US Military Academy.