INVESTIGATIVE reporter Seymour Hersh has charged in the London
Review of Books that the White House narrative of the May 2, 2011, killing
of the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is
largely “false.”
In a 10,000-word account, Hersh wrote that when bin Laden was slain by
U.S. Navy Seals he had been a prisoner of Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency(ISI) since 2006 and that top Pakistani military officials
knew of the raid in advance and were complicit in bin Laden’s execution
by removing their guards from his compound and ensuring airspace
access for attacking U.S. helicopters.
President Obama said bin Laden and two of his men were killed in the
firefight during the raid, as well as a bin Laden wife used as a human
shield. He added that “no Americans were harmed.” (It’s a rather strange
“firefight” when all the dead and wounded are on one side.)
Moreover, the idea that bin Laden was killed when he resisted the assault
force, suggests that the ISI guards allowed their prisoner and his aides to
have weapons, also dubious. And the U.S. claim that Obama was not an
ISI captive is undercut by the location of bin Laden’s compound, in a
Pakistan military and intelligence community.
ISI was holding bin Laden hostage, threatening Taliban and al-Qaida
leadership with turning him over to the U.S. if they ran operations contrary
to ISI interests, Hersh said.
“Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial
insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defense,” a Hersh source
told him. “Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an
unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defense?” the source
scoffed.
Hersh pointed out that “The White House press corps was told in a
briefing shortly after Obama’s announcement that the death of bin Laden
was ‘the culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence
work,'” when, in fact, the U.S. learned of his whereabouts from a walk-in
informer. This man was an ex-Pakistani intelligence officer “who betrayed
the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the
U.S…”
Then there’s the matter of Obama’s alleged burial at sea. Although Rear
Admiral Charles Gaouette said the funeral service followed “traditional
procedures for Islamic burial,” Hersh pointed out “there was no indication
of who washed and wrapped the body, or of which Arabic speaker
conducted the service.”
What’s more, the Navy refused to make the carrier’s log of daily events
available to reporters and skipper Bruce Lindsey told them he was unable
to discuss the burial. And Rear Admiral Samuel Perez, commander of the
carrier group’s strike force, told reporters “the crew had been ordered not
to talk about the burial.” Sound a bit fishy? Maybe that’s because two
“longtime consultants” to Special Operations Command(SOC) told
Hersh,”the funeral aboard the Carl Vinson didn’t take place.”
Over and again, we find the Administration ordering its officials not to talk
about the raid. As Hersh pointed out, every member of the Seals hit team
and some members of the Joint SOC leadership “were presented with a
nondisclosure form drafted by the White House’s legal office; it promised
civil penalties and a lawsuit for anyone who discussed the mission, in
public or private.”
Readers attempting to decide which account of bin Laden’s death to
believe might also consider that the Administration shifted its story on key
points.
“Within days (of the raid),” Hersh said, “some of the early exaggerations
and distortions had become obvious and the Pentagon issued a series of
clarifying statements. No, bin Laden was not armed when he was shot
and killed. And no, bin Laden did not use one of his wives as a shield.” The
fact that bin Laden had no weapons adds strength to the argument he was
an ISI prisoner, not a free man shielded by guards bristling with guns.
White House National Security spokesman Ned Price, brushed off the
Hersh article with, “There are too many inaccuracies and baseless
assertions in this piece to fact check each one.” (So how many did he fact
check?) And a CIA official dismissed the Hersh account as “utter
nonsense.” (This from an agency with a track record for lying stretching
from Viet Nam to Iraq.)
In point of fact, while Obama has built a reputation for lying and breaking
his promises, Hersh has a reputation for honesty and repertorial
excellence. He won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the My Lai massacre
story in 1969. He’s also won two National Magazine awards and five
coveted Polk awards. Plus UK’s prestigious George Orwell Award for
political writing.
By contrast, numerous observers have concluded that President Obama
lies systematically to the public. Attorney John Whitehead, President of the
non-profit Rutherford Institute, of Charlottesville, Va., a defender of civil
liberties, writes:
“When it comes to the NSA, Obama has been lying to the American people
for quite some time now. There was the time he claimed the secret FISA
court is ‘transparent.’ Then he insisted that ‘we don’t have a domestic
spying program.’ And then, to top it all off, he actually insisted there was
no evidence the NSA was ‘actually abusing’ its power.”
Pacifist writer David Swanson, author of “War No More: The Case for
Abolition,” found no fewer than 45 lies in Obama’s September 24, 2013,
speech to the United Nations. Just one example: Obama said, “we have …
worked to end a decade of war.”
To the contrary, Swanson says, “Obama expanded the war on
Afghanistan. Obama expanded… drone wars. Obama has increased global
U.S. troop presence, global U.S. weapons sales, and the size of the
world’s largest military. He’s put ‘special’ forces into many countries,
waged a war on Libya, and pushed for an attack on Syria. How does all of
this ‘end a decade of war’?”
We also need to consider how much Obama had to gain if he could show
voters he could “get” bin Laden. In his 2012 re-election bid, the Obama
campaign milked the bin Laden slaying for all it was worth, even making a
video narrated by actor Tom Hanks about it. The “Huffington Post’s” Ben
Feller at the time wrote an article headlined, “Obama Campaign Using
Osama Bin Laden Killing As 2012 Campaign Tool.”
If the Hersh account is accurate, and bin Laden was unarmed, it begs the
larger question of why the Pentagon ordered an elite unit to assault his
compound with guns blazing when he could have been taken prisoner?
Isn’t there a question or two the American people might have liked to ask
bin Laden about the 9/11 massacre?
In retrospect, the Obama White House achieved its goals. President
Obama improved his re-election chances by killing bin Laden rather than
bringing him to justice, even if he had to stamp out the truth to do it. In the
process, he fixed things so the Seals can’t talk, the sailors can’t talk, the
admirals can’t talk and, above all, Osama bin Laden can’t talk.
