Hersh: US misrepresented circumstances of bin Laden's death

[Eugen]

Hersh: US misrepresented circumstances of bin Laden's death

Well-known American journalist Seymour Hersh accused the US government of distorting the circumstances of the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.

According to Hersh, bin Laden was not hiding in freedom in Pakistan, as the official version of the American authorities says, but was a prisoner of the local interagency intelligence (ISI), which used him as a lever of pressure on al-Qaeda’s forces.
The location of bin Laden was reported to the American authorities by a Pakistani intelligence officer, who, according to a journalist, received $ 25 million for this information.
According to the official version of the United States, bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 during a special operation, after which the body of the al-Qaeda leader was buried in the Arabian Sea. Hersh claims that in fact bin Laden’s body with several bullet holes in his head was thrown from a helicopter over the Hindu Kush mountains.

• • "False statement"

According to Hersh, bin Laden was not hiding in freedom in Pakistan, as the official version of the American authorities says, but was a prisoner of the local interagency intelligence (ISI), which used him as a lever of pressure on al-Qaeda’s forces.
The location of bin Laden was reported to the American authorities by a Pakistani intelligence officer who, according to a journalist, received $ 25 million for this information.
According to the official version of the United States, bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 during a special operation, after which the body of the al-Qaeda leader was buried in the Arabian Sea. Hersh claims that in fact bin Laden’s body with several bullet holes in his head was thrown from a helicopter over the Hindu Kush mountains.
According to writer Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was not really a secret and risky move by the Americans, but a joint military intelligence operation between Pakistan and the United States.
The journalist says that he learned these details from an anonymous source, after which he consulted with two military men from the US Special Operations Command, as well as sources in Pakistan.
This exposure of the heroic raid, which became the apotheosis of Barack Obama’s foreign policy, triggered a wave of accusations against the author both in the USA and Pakistan: Hershu is indicated by insufficient evidence and controversial conclusions throughout his long narrative.
"The claim that the operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was not exclusively carried out by the Americans is completely false," said White House spokesman Ned Price, adding that Hersh’s work is replete with "inaccuracies and baseless conclusions."

The main message of Hersh's article, published in the London Review of Books, is the assertion that since 2006 bin Laden has been in Abbottabad under the control of Pakistan and with financial support from Saudi Arabia.

• • "Deal"

Hersh claims that senior Pakistani officials allowed the US to carry out this “raid”, which was actually a murder, after the Americans became the location of bin Laden is known.
After that, a deal was allegedly concluded, according to which the Americans were allowed to track the object, obtain DNA samples to confirm the identity of bin Laden, and even put them at the disposal of a Pakistani agent to help carry out the operation in exchange for continued funding for Pakistani intelligence and its leaders .

As part of this “deal," according to Hersh, the US was supposed to delay the announcement of bin Laden’s death for a week, while reporting that he was killed in a drone attack in Afghanistan.
However, Obama did not fulfill the agreement after one of the American helicopters crashed during the operation, and the White House was afraid that the whole story would be made public.
Therefore, that same evening, the US president told the people how, after several months of intelligence gathering, without notifying the Pakistani side, the marines' special forces carried out a risky raid during which Osama bin Laden was killed in a battle with his minions.
In the following days, the White House provided additional details, sometimes contradicting each other, which then had to be refuted, much to the displeasure of the special forces and representatives of the defense department.
“The story proposed by the White House could just as well be written by Lewis Carroll,” says Hersh, referring to the author of “Alice in Wonderland.”
And he ends his article in the London Book Review with stigmatizing the foreign policy of the American administration.
"Lies remain at a high level, the modus operandi of American politics, along with secret prisons, drones, special forces night raids, bypassing the leadership and excluding those who may say no," the author writes.

Criticism

Hersh’s article very quickly became the subject of political debate and debate on social networks, and the version of events he presented quickly cast doubt on many of his fellow journalists.
Criticism of Hersh is divided into several main areas:

• • Insecurity of sources

Hersh’s article is for the most part based on allegations by unnamed sources in US and Pakistani intelligence agencies that themselves were not directly involved in the operation. The only named source, Assad Durrani, served in Pakistani military intelligence a couple of decades ago and only says that his "former colleagues" support the version of events presented by Hersh. CNN later contacted Durrani, and he only confirmed that the version was "believable."

• • Conflicting statements

Hersh ignores the fact that the two "fur seals" involved in the raid reported details of the operation, which directly contradicted his version of events.
CNN employee Peter Bergen, after a raid in the residence where bin Laden was hiding, writes that he saw clear signs of a prolonged firefight, and “broken glass was almost everywhere, and there were prominent bullet holes in several places.”

• • implausible conclusions

Why would the Saudis need to support a man who sought to overthrow their monarchy?
Why, if Pakistan’s financial support was part of this “deal,” did Pakistan-US relations deteriorate after the raid?
If Pakistan and the United States did cooperate, was the production raid the easiest way to verify that Osama bin Laden was killed?

• • "Against the stream"

Well, as is often the case with conspiracy theories, the harshest criticism of Hersh (who, incidentally, received Pulitzer in 1970 for exposing the massacre of American soldiers of Vietnamese civilians in Songmi), is that he makes a bet in his conclusions a large number of participants who are effectively acting with strict observance of secrecy.
Hersha was also recalled that over the past three years he had already written that the Bush administration had trained Iranian fighters in Nevada, and that Turkey was behind the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“Maybe there really is a huge shadowy world of tangled, diabolical conspiracies that are brilliantly carried out by an international network of government schemers,” suggests Max Fisher of Vox. “And maybe only Hersh and his anonymous former senior officials capable of penetrating these terrible world secrets. And maybe there is a simpler explanation for all this. "
In a television interview that Hersh gave on Monday, he tried to launch a counterattack, stressing that the American version of the events cannot be believed.
“24 or 25 guys go deep into Pakistan, and there, without any cover from the air, without any protection and support, and without any problems, they eliminate a person, are you kidding?” Said Hersh. “Yes, I’m going against the stream, excuse me but I’ve been doing this all my life, and I can only say that I am aware of the consequences of my steps. "

 

[Матушкин Андрей Николаевич]

Thank.

 

[Плотников Юрий Михайлович]

Thank!

 

[Kuznecov.Igorj]

A country that cannot be trusted under any circumstances. The country is blamed, and ordinary people suffer, who have nothing to do with it. Shame !

 

[Администратор Форума]

Thank you for the article!
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the media will ever be able to fully interpret this issue.