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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 exa

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 11y 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 11y 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
tootie 11y ago
I feel like the truth is somehwere in between. The Pakistani civilian government has a tenuous grasp on power. The military and ISI can do whatever they want. The government has been cooperating with US drone strikes while also publicly denouncing them. I can totally believe that 1) the ISI was harboring Bin Laden without the approval of the PM 2) the government facilitated the raid on the condition of no one knowing about it 3) Obama is willing to lie about it to protect his relationship with Pakistan cuz nukes.
Natsu 11y ago
We do have contemporaneous tweets about choppers from a person in the area who was apparently wondering what was going on.

tzs 11y 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 11y 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

tootie 11y ago

I feel like the truth is somehwere in between. The Pakistani civilian government has a tenuous grasp on power. The military and ISI can do whatever they want. The government has been cooperating with US drone strikes while also publicly denouncing them. I can totally believe that 1) the ISI was harboring Bin Laden without the approval of the PM 2) the government facilitated the raid on the condition of no one knowing about it 3) Obama is willing to lie about it to protect his relationship with Pakistan cuz nukes.

Natsu 11y ago

We do have contemporaneous tweets about choppers from a person in the area who was apparently wondering what was going on.