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The media’s reaction to Seymour Hersh’s bin Laden scoop

369 points by Alex3917 12y ago

mark_l_watson 12y ago
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 12y ago
  > 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.
  - mark_l_watson 12y ago
    I was referring to TV news and local news, but you make a good point.
    - hackuser 12y ago
      > I was referring to TV news and local news Come to think of it, I'm always surprised by how many people still get their news that way.
      - mark_l_watson 12y ago
        A little off topic, but I like to get my news from Google News. If there is a story I am interested in I try to read the same story from two or three random countries. This might filter out some noise/bias. I also like Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Almost all of my friends however seem to have a favorite TV news show. The liberal ones like MSNBC and the conservative ones like Fox News. So, I think a lot of people do watch TV news. In 2013 the authors of Dollaracracy spoke at Google and they really laid into TV news, especially local news that just do not cover important topics.
        mark_l_watson 12y ago
        BTW, here is a Democracy Now! Interview with Hersh: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/12/seymour_hersh_details_explosive_story_on http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/12/seymour_hersh_details_... Worth listening to if you care much about this story.
        cma 12y ago
        Interestingly, democracy now is banned from hacker news (for submissions).
        steveax 12y ago
        Really? That's a pity. Amy has serious cred in my book. The front half of the show is probably the most information dense international news out there.
        igravious 12y ago
        Is this true? Why would that be the case? That's like saying that HackerNews blocks one of the few accurate news sources out there. Which is worrying.
        sukilot 12y ago
        The Federal government sends taped propaganda pieces to local TV news stations, and they air those pieces without citing their source.
  - kangarookourt 12y ago
    The USA news sources are owned by multinational corporations. Murdoch owns large news publicationa in both US and UK. The elite capital in most Western countries have a common agenda
  - MisterBastahrd 12y ago
    Speaking of the WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-fact-from-seymour-hershs-fiction-about-bin-laden-1431714139 http://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-fact-from-seymour-her...
    - Rapzid 12y ago
      It's a bit dubious that main stream media outlets trot out ex-whatever(in this case ex-intelligence) shill to effectively smear whoever. Every. Time.
  - Synaesthesia 12y ago
    Yes, with regard to the agenda setting news corporations it's true.
  - whoopdedo 12y ago
    > 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 12y ago
      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?
  - deleted 12y ago
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- tormeh 12y ago
  Well, media has three sources of income: 1. Consumer subscriptions 2. Advertising 3. Mouthpiece money With the first dying and the second moving to non-news on the internet, the third is where it has to go. Sponsored articles, that's probably the more ethical part of the industry. PR pays - news doesn't.
  - StillBored 12y ago
    Blah, most of the mainstream news pieces are simply regurgitation of press releases anyway (whitehouse or otherwise). Investigative journalism is dead because it was a cost center. Good interviewing is dead because interviewers are scared to death that they won't get guests if they are seen as combative (aka ask hard questions). Even Charlie Rose seems to be tossing nothing but softballs for more than a decade. I stopped watching a few years ago because he stopped asking the questions that needed to be asked. The perfect example of how broken the western media is can be seen on their treatment of the WMD in iraq claim, for which the US went to war, spent Billions and killed tens if not hundreds of thousands. When the question of WMD in Iraq comes up, its all about the CIA's intelligence failures. But if you go rewatch the Colin Powell speech in front of the UN, its a joke. I remember watching it with a coworker, and we couldn't believe that the best evidence of WMD in iraq was artist renderings of hearsay. Yet, the media took it all like it was ironclad with pictures of the actual weapons, chemical analysis of what they contained, and first person witnesses. Not a single first or second tier news organization called it for what it was, BS. EDIT: I guess what I'm trying to say is that if all the traditional news outlets disappear its not really any loss at this point. The loss has already happened, the news is just a hollow shell of its former self. Which is why twitter provides a replacement. If all you do is repeat press releases, then what matters is who gets it out first. Thoughtful analysis, filtering the BS, fact checking, etc were the value add. But its gone, so the news isn't worth paying for. Those things were gone long before the internet started killing the zombies of the media.
mml 12y ago
if any of this surprises anyone, they haven't been paying attention for decades.
ipsin 12y ago
Unfortunately I get a page with no scrollbar, and I can't seem to scroll in Google Chrome 42.0.2311.135 (Linux).
- stdgy 12y ago
  I had to refresh before it would allow me to scroll. Not sure what the issue is.
- gkoberger 12y ago
  I had to refresh to fix this.
- 51Cards 12y ago
  Same here, scroll wheel also wouldn't work.
- GSimon 12y ago
  weird how so many people had this issue, myself included
- rullgrus 12y ago
  I get the same error with Firefox 37.0.2 (Win7).
- DonGateley 12y ago
  Yeah, I got that on Firefox too. There was something going on in the background that interfered and after 5-10 seconds it stopped doing so for me and then acted normally. Some ill behaved script on the page I think.
- clw8 12y ago
  I had the same in Chrome and IE and just used inspect element to banish the orange image to the netherworld of terrible web design.
asuffield 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
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- foobarqux 12y ago
  Read and watch quality independent news? Use critical thinking?
nyolfen 12y ago
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-professor-reported-basics-hershs-bin-laden-story-2011-seemingly-different-sources/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/11/former-profess...
- binxbolling 12y ago
  Slight addition/correction from Hillhouse: "I did not accuse Hersh of plagiarism." http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/05/logic-escapes-the-press-i-did-not-accuse-hersh-of-plagiariam.html http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/...
- GabrielF00 12y ago
  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.
hackuser 12y ago
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.
- csdrane 12y ago
  Gary Webb was the first thing that came to my mind as well. I don't have a cite for it but my recollection is that the government worked closely with rival papers to discredit both the story and Webb personally.
  - hackuser 12y ago
    From The Intercept, which links to other sources: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-night... (I haven't read it closely enough to say how much I believe it myself.)
    - csdrane 12y ago
      That's what I was thinking of.
- MBCook 12y ago
  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.
  - meowface 12y ago
ape4 12y ago
But I saw the movie /s
- sheensleeves 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    at the time of this writing, this post is at the bottom of the page. and it's probably the best one written.
GabrielF00 12y ago
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/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...
- binxbolling 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
- barrkel 12y ago
  As mentioned in this article, Slate published 5 stories critizing Hersh within 36 hours of its publishing. It would be unusual for an organization with such an agenda to make Hersh look balanced in an interview.
- deleted 12y ago
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sesutton 12y ago
>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?
- pera 12y ago
  "infiltrated"? may I have some source for that?
- sroerick 12y ago
  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.
  - twic 12y ago
    Eric, Prince of Blackwater? Sounds at least a little bit Crusade-ish.
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suprgeek 12y ago
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 12y ago
  > 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 12y ago
    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_11a_robert%20baer.mp3 http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/bbriefing_2015_05_...) at 09:55
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- markdown 12y ago
  English is descriptive, not prescriptive. Conspiracy theory no longer means what it says on the tin.
- navait 12y ago
  What are you trying to argue? Using the phrase "conspiracy theorist" literally is not super helpful - it has a specific meaning in the popular lexicon and media. Just because it's pedantically correct doesn't mean it wasn't used as a personal attack to imply that Mr. Hersh is insane. If we're going to criticize his theory(and I don't believe it at all), the media should avoid personally attacking him. He's earned some respect as a journalist, it's not like he's on the level of Alex Jones, to be dismissed automatically.
- sroerick 12y ago
  Investigative Journalism is Conspiracy Theory. Period. End of story. If people didn't conspire to do things there would be no investigative journalism. So quit bandying about terms that are used to discredit important journalists.
greenyoda 12y ago
"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.
- jakeogh 12y ago
  It is a commonplace that "you can't keep secrets in Washington" or "in a democracy," that "no matter how sensitive the secret, you're likely to read it the next day in the New York Times." These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. --Daniel Ellsberg - Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
  - fixxer 12y ago
    Or, alternatively, you aren't living in a democracy.
    - krick 12y ago
      Or "a democracy" is just a word that means nothing.
      - deleted 12y ago
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      - johnchristopher 12y ago
        Oh no, no, no. Democracy has a real meaning and we shouldn't let the politicians and opinon leaders force us to go along with their double speak.
Synaesthesia 12y ago
>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 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - rhizome 12y ago
    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.
beaner 12y ago
I remember the response here on HN was generally similar to that of the mainstream media.
- MBCook 12y ago
  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.
jokoon 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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-cover-up.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-cia-torture-co...
guard-of-terra 12y ago
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 12y ago
  Not to mention that he was conveniently "dumped at sea" after being reported dead by the PM of Pakistan long ago.
dmix 12y ago
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".
sroerick 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
anonsource 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
abalone 12y ago
Link to the priceless Slate interview, for anyone who missed it: 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 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...
- hackuser 12y ago
  I highly recommend reading this as context; it's almost essential to understanding Hersh.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    That he is cranky and hates he Slate interviewer?
joesmo 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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?!
deleted 12y ago
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leroy_masochist 12y ago
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.
xyzzy123 12y ago
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-sayyaf-isis-commander-killed-by-us-forces-pentagon-says.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/world/middleeast/abu-sayya... "... 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."
jugad 12y ago
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?
golergka 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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?
guymullins 12y ago
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.
guymullins 12y ago
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.
thomashabets2 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
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/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

369 points by Alex3917 12y ago

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 12y ago
> 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.
- mark_l_watson 12y ago
  I was referring to TV news and local news, but you make a good point.
  - hackuser 12y ago
    > I was referring to TV news and local news Come to think of it, I'm always surprised by how many people still get their news that way.
    - mark_l_watson 12y ago
      A little off topic, but I like to get my news from Google News. If there is a story I am interested in I try to read the same story from two or three random countries. This might filter out some noise/bias. I also like Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Almost all of my friends however seem to have a favorite TV news show. The liberal ones like MSNBC and the conservative ones like Fox News. So, I think a lot of people do watch TV news. In 2013 the authors of Dollaracracy spoke at Google and they really laid into TV news, especially local news that just do not cover important topics.
      - mark_l_watson 12y ago
        BTW, here is a Democracy Now! Interview with Hersh: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/12/seymour_hersh_details_explosive_story_on http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/12/seymour_hersh_details_... Worth listening to if you care much about this story.
        cma 12y ago
        Interestingly, democracy now is banned from hacker news (for submissions).
        steveax 12y ago
        Really? That's a pity. Amy has serious cred in my book. The front half of the show is probably the most information dense international news out there.
        igravious 12y ago
        Is this true? Why would that be the case? That's like saying that HackerNews blocks one of the few accurate news sources out there. Which is worrying.
      - sukilot 12y ago
        The Federal government sends taped propaganda pieces to local TV news stations, and they air those pieces without citing their source.
- kangarookourt 12y ago
  The USA news sources are owned by multinational corporations. Murdoch owns large news publicationa in both US and UK. The elite capital in most Western countries have a common agenda
- MisterBastahrd 12y ago
  Speaking of the WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-fact-from-seymour-hershs-fiction-about-bin-laden-1431714139 http://www.wsj.com/articles/separating-fact-from-seymour-her...
  - Rapzid 12y ago
    It's a bit dubious that main stream media outlets trot out ex-whatever(in this case ex-intelligence) shill to effectively smear whoever. Every. Time.
- Synaesthesia 12y ago
  Yes, with regard to the agenda setting news corporations it's true.
- whoopdedo 12y ago
  > 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 12y ago
    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?
- deleted 12y ago
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tormeh 12y ago
Well, media has three sources of income: 1. Consumer subscriptions 2. Advertising 3. Mouthpiece money With the first dying and the second moving to non-news on the internet, the third is where it has to go. Sponsored articles, that's probably the more ethical part of the industry. PR pays - news doesn't.
- StillBored 12y ago
  Blah, most of the mainstream news pieces are simply regurgitation of press releases anyway (whitehouse or otherwise). Investigative journalism is dead because it was a cost center. Good interviewing is dead because interviewers are scared to death that they won't get guests if they are seen as combative (aka ask hard questions). Even Charlie Rose seems to be tossing nothing but softballs for more than a decade. I stopped watching a few years ago because he stopped asking the questions that needed to be asked. The perfect example of how broken the western media is can be seen on their treatment of the WMD in iraq claim, for which the US went to war, spent Billions and killed tens if not hundreds of thousands. When the question of WMD in Iraq comes up, its all about the CIA's intelligence failures. But if you go rewatch the Colin Powell speech in front of the UN, its a joke. I remember watching it with a coworker, and we couldn't believe that the best evidence of WMD in iraq was artist renderings of hearsay. Yet, the media took it all like it was ironclad with pictures of the actual weapons, chemical analysis of what they contained, and first person witnesses. Not a single first or second tier news organization called it for what it was, BS. EDIT: I guess what I'm trying to say is that if all the traditional news outlets disappear its not really any loss at this point. The loss has already happened, the news is just a hollow shell of its former self. Which is why twitter provides a replacement. If all you do is repeat press releases, then what matters is who gets it out first. Thoughtful analysis, filtering the BS, fact checking, etc were the value add. But its gone, so the news isn't worth paying for. Those things were gone long before the internet started killing the zombies of the media.

mml 12y ago

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

ipsin 12y ago

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

stdgy 12y ago
I had to refresh before it would allow me to scroll. Not sure what the issue is.
gkoberger 12y ago
I had to refresh to fix this.
51Cards 12y ago
Same here, scroll wheel also wouldn't work.
GSimon 12y ago
weird how so many people had this issue, myself included
rullgrus 12y ago
I get the same error with Firefox 37.0.2 (Win7).
DonGateley 12y ago
Yeah, I got that on Firefox too. There was something going on in the background that interfered and after 5-10 seconds it stopped doing so for me and then acted normally. Some ill behaved script on the page I think.
clw8 12y ago
I had the same in Chrome and IE and just used inspect element to banish the orange image to the netherworld of terrible web design.

asuffield 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
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foobarqux 12y ago
Read and watch quality independent news? Use critical thinking?

nyolfen 12y ago

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

binxbolling 12y ago
Slight addition/correction from Hillhouse: "I did not accuse Hersh of plagiarism." http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/05/logic-escapes-the-press-i-did-not-accuse-hersh-of-plagiariam.html http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/...
GabrielF00 12y ago
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.

hackuser 12y ago

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.

csdrane 12y ago
Gary Webb was the first thing that came to my mind as well. I don't have a cite for it but my recollection is that the government worked closely with rival papers to discredit both the story and Webb personally.
- hackuser 12y ago
  From The Intercept, which links to other sources: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-night... (I haven't read it closely enough to say how much I believe it myself.)
  - csdrane 12y ago
    That's what I was thinking of.
MBCook 12y ago
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.
- meowface 12y ago

ape4 12y ago

But I saw the movie /s

sheensleeves 12y ago
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 12y ago
  at the time of this writing, this post is at the bottom of the page. and it's probably the best one written.

GabrielF00 12y ago

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

binxbolling 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
barrkel 12y ago
As mentioned in this article, Slate published 5 stories critizing Hersh within 36 hours of its publishing. It would be unusual for an organization with such an agenda to make Hersh look balanced in an interview.
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sesutton 12y ago

>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?

pera 12y ago
"infiltrated"? may I have some source for that?
sroerick 12y ago
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.
- twic 12y ago
  Eric, Prince of Blackwater? Sounds at least a little bit Crusade-ish.

deleted 12y ago

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suprgeek 12y ago

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 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
  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_11a_robert%20baer.mp3 http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/bbriefing_2015_05_...) at 09:55

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markdown 12y ago
English is descriptive, not prescriptive. Conspiracy theory no longer means what it says on the tin.
navait 12y ago
What are you trying to argue? Using the phrase "conspiracy theorist" literally is not super helpful - it has a specific meaning in the popular lexicon and media. Just because it's pedantically correct doesn't mean it wasn't used as a personal attack to imply that Mr. Hersh is insane. If we're going to criticize his theory(and I don't believe it at all), the media should avoid personally attacking him. He's earned some respect as a journalist, it's not like he's on the level of Alex Jones, to be dismissed automatically.
sroerick 12y ago
Investigative Journalism is Conspiracy Theory. Period. End of story. If people didn't conspire to do things there would be no investigative journalism. So quit bandying about terms that are used to discredit important journalists.

greenyoda 12y ago

"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.

jakeogh 12y ago
It is a commonplace that "you can't keep secrets in Washington" or "in a democracy," that "no matter how sensitive the secret, you're likely to read it the next day in the New York Times." These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. --Daniel Ellsberg - Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
- fixxer 12y ago
  Or, alternatively, you aren't living in a democracy.
  - krick 12y ago
    Or "a democracy" is just a word that means nothing.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - johnchristopher 12y ago
      Oh no, no, no. Democracy has a real meaning and we shouldn't let the politicians and opinon leaders force us to go along with their double speak.

Synaesthesia 12y ago

>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 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
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- rhizome 12y ago
  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.

beaner 12y ago

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

MBCook 12y ago
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.

jokoon 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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-cover-up.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-cia-torture-co...

guard-of-terra 12y ago

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 12y ago
Not to mention that he was conveniently "dumped at sea" after being reported dead by the PM of Pakistan long ago.

dmix 12y ago

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".

sroerick 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.

anonsource 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.

abalone 12y ago

Link to the priceless Slate interview, for anyone who missed it: 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 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

hackuser 12y ago
I highly recommend reading this as context; it's almost essential to understanding Hersh.
- sukilot 12y ago
  That he is cranky and hates he Slate interviewer?

joesmo 12y ago

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 12y ago
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?!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

leroy_masochist 12y ago

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.

xyzzy123 12y ago

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

jugad 12y ago

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?

golergka 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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?

guymullins 12y ago

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.

guymullins 12y ago

thomashabets2 12y ago

> 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 12y ago

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