Cidersomerset
12th May 2015, 13:23
With all our new catagories I still have trouble finding the right one at times..LOL
All though this is a new story on the BBC news headline page , it is from last year.
So may have been already posted , interesting article though it is still implausible
it happened either way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.83.4/orb/4/img/bbc-blocks-dark.png
Seymour Hersh: US version of Bin Laden raid is 'full of lies'
Anthony Zurcher
North America reporter
11 May 2015
From the section US & Canada
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/82922000/jpg/_82922874_827895.jpg
Osama Bin Laden delivers on a recorded message.
The charges are explosive - and cut against a heroic narrative that defined, in part,
arguably the greatest foreign policy success of President Barack Obama's first term in
office.According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh, the US raid that killed
al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not a secret, risky US action, it was a joint
operation between the US and Pakistani military intelligence. The allegation has many in
the US - and Pakistan - crying foul, and pointing to what they see as insufficient
attribution and questionable conclusions throughout Hersh's lengthy piece.
"The notion that the operation that killed Osama bin Laden was anything but a unilateral
US mission is patently false," said White House spokesperson Ned Price, adding that the
piece was riddled with "inaccuracies and baseless assertions".
At the heart of Hersh's article is the allegation that, starting in 2006, Bin Laden was
under Pakistani control, kept in Abbottabad with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia.
Hersh says high-level Pakistani officials consented to allow the US to conduct its "raid"
on the compound - a de facto assassination - after the US found out about Bin Laden's
whereabouts through a source in Pakistani intelligence (and not, as reported, after
interrogation of al-Qaeda detainees and extensive investigation into a Bin Laden
courier). A deal was then struck that included allowing the US to set up detailed
surveillance of the area, obtaining DNA evidence confirming Bin Laden's identity and
even providing a Pakistani agent to help guide the operation - in exchange for continued
US financial support of the nation's intelligence service and its leaders.
President Obama announces Osama Bin Laden's death.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920786_113349528.jpg
Hersh says Mr Obama was supposed to wait a week to announce Bin Laden's death
As part of the agreement, according to Hersh, the US would hold off on announcing Bin
Laden's death for a week, and then only say that he was killed in a drone strike in
Afghanistan. Mr Obama double-crossed the Pakistanis, however, after one of the US
helicopters crashed during the operation and the White House feared they could not
contain the story.Instead Mr Obama spoke to the nation that night, announcing that US
Navy special forces had conducted a daring attack based on months of secret
intelligence-gathering, without the knowledge of the Pakistanis, concluding in a fire-fight
in which Bin Laden - and other militants - were killed.
In the following days, further details - sometimes conflicting and later disavowed -
leaked out from the White House, angering US special forces commanders and defence
officials.
Author Seymour Hersh
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920788_51324917.jpg
Seymour Hersh says he "understands the consequences" of his article
"The White House's story might have been written by Lewis Carroll," Hersh writes in the
latest issue of the London Review of Books, referencing the author of Alice in
Wonderland. His piece ends with a broad-based condemnation of the Obama
administration's foreign policy operation.
"High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with
secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of
command and cutting out those who might say no," he writes.Word of Hersh's story
spread quickly, dominating political conversation on social media and repeatedly
crashing the London Review of Books' website due to the heavy volume of traffic.
It also didn't take long before some of Hersh's fellow journalists began questioning the
story, most notably Max Fischer of Vox and Peter Bergen of CNN. The critiques fall into
a few major categories:
• Unreliable sources. Much of Hersh's article is based on the claims of unnamed
intelligence officials in the US and Pakistan, none of whom were directly involved in the
operation. The only named source, Asad Durrani, served in the Pakistani military
intelligence more than two decades ago and says only that "former colleagues" of his
back up Hersh's claims. Durrani was later contacted by CNN's Bergen, and he would
only say that Hersh's account was "plausible".
• Contradictory claims. Hersh disregards the fact that two of the Navy Seals involved in
the attack on Bin Laden's compound have come out with details of the raid that directly
contradict his account. Bergen, who visited the compound after the operation, writes
that there was clear evidence of a protracted fire fight, as the location was "littered
almost everywhere with broken glass and several areas of it were sprayed with bullet holes".
• Unrealistic conclusions. Why would the Saudis support a man who wanted to
overthrow the Saudi monarchy? Why, if US support for Pakistan was part of the bargain,
did US-Pakistani relations deteriorate in the years after the raid? If the US and Pakistan
were co-operating, was a staged raid really the simplest possible way to ensure that Bin
Laden was killed?
As is often the case with conspiracy theories, perhaps the sharpest criticism of Mr
Hersh's narrative is that it relies on a large cast of characters operating effectively while
maintaining universal secrecy. Vox's Fischer accuses Hersh - who won a Pulitzer in 1970
for exposing the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the hands of US soldiers -
of producing a growing number of difficult-to-believe exposes based on tenuous evidence.
Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920790_113640405.jpg
Hersh says Bin Laden's compound was under the control of Pakistani military intelligence
In the last three years, for example, he has penned pieces alleging the George W Bush
administration trained Iranian militants in Nevada and that Turkey was behind chemical
weapons attacks in Syria.
"Maybe there really is a vast shadow world of complex and diabolical conspiracies,
executed brilliantly by international networks of government masterminds," Fischer
writes. "And maybe Hersh and his handful of anonymous former senior officials really
are alone in glimpsing this world and its terrifying secrets. Or maybe there's a simpler
explanation."
Meanwhile, conservative commentators in the US, who have long chafed at some of
Hersh's accusations about US actions during the Bush administration, celebrated the
criticism - while noting what they saw as the key motivating factor.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82922000/jpg/_82922872_113383674.jpg
A man holds up a sign reading: "Obama-1, Osama-0"
Americans celebrated when they heard Bin Laden was dead
"When Seymour Hersh manufactures crazy against Obama, suddenly he's a crank, not
an elder statesman," tweets Breitbart's John Nolte. "With Bush he was a media GOD."
In a television interview on Monday, Hersh tried to turn the tables, saying that the US
account of the operation is the one that's unbelievable.
"Twenty-four or 25 guys go in to the middle of Pakistan, take out a guy with no air
cover, no protection, no security, with no trouble - are you kidding me?" he said.
"Look, I'm sorry it goes against the grain," he added. "I've been doing this my entire
life, and all I can tell you is I understand the consequences."
There's a bit of internet shorthand, frequently used on Twitter, to preface an allegation
that seems explosive but questionable: "Whoa if true".
It seems the reaction to Hersh's piece so far has included a lot of "whoa" - but with a
heavy emphasis on the caveat, "if true".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32698016
======================================================
======================================================
Democracies always ‘led by people that push for more war’ - Seymour Hersh
U5ovbvXb4fo
Published on 8 Dec 2014
Afshin Rattansi goes underground on the war against ISIS. Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Seymour Hersh says there is a fatal flaw in democracies that leaves them
pushing for war, and says the US and its allies have for years funded the extremist
groups which became ISIS, and fed us a narrative that is very hard to change. Sculptor
Davide Dormino talks about his project to create bronze sculptures in tribute to
Assange, Manning, and Snowden, men that ‘break the system’ and change everything.
We take a look at some of the more questionable views of David Cameron’s poverty
tsar, co-author of a paper soon to be released on hunger and food poverty. And we look
at the headlines in breaking views, with flags, bombs, torture and whiskey hitting the
headlines.
=====================================================
=====================================================
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/sitelogos/logo_mol.gif
Obama LIED when he said U.S. pulled off bin Laden raid without help: Report
claims President kept quiet about major role played by Pakistan to seize glory for himself
Journalist Seymour Hersh claims 'lying' is common in US counter-terrorism
Quoted ex-CIA high-level source in article for the London Review of Books
Alleges Obama's speech was put together in a rush and created 'chaos'
Source added there was an 'agreement with the Pakistanis' before operation
Has also tried to poke holes in issues such as NSA spying and drone attacks
By Wills Robinson For Dailymail.com
Published: 23:41, 10 May 2015 | Updated: 19:27, 11 May 2015
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3075995/Obama-LIED-Bin-Laden-raid-Report-claims-president-s-speech-created-chaos-intelligence-community-forced-advisers-make-cover-story-fly.html#ixzz3Zvj6r4vs
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
All though this is a new story on the BBC news headline page , it is from last year.
So may have been already posted , interesting article though it is still implausible
it happened either way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.83.4/orb/4/img/bbc-blocks-dark.png
Seymour Hersh: US version of Bin Laden raid is 'full of lies'
Anthony Zurcher
North America reporter
11 May 2015
From the section US & Canada
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/82922000/jpg/_82922874_827895.jpg
Osama Bin Laden delivers on a recorded message.
The charges are explosive - and cut against a heroic narrative that defined, in part,
arguably the greatest foreign policy success of President Barack Obama's first term in
office.According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh, the US raid that killed
al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not a secret, risky US action, it was a joint
operation between the US and Pakistani military intelligence. The allegation has many in
the US - and Pakistan - crying foul, and pointing to what they see as insufficient
attribution and questionable conclusions throughout Hersh's lengthy piece.
"The notion that the operation that killed Osama bin Laden was anything but a unilateral
US mission is patently false," said White House spokesperson Ned Price, adding that the
piece was riddled with "inaccuracies and baseless assertions".
At the heart of Hersh's article is the allegation that, starting in 2006, Bin Laden was
under Pakistani control, kept in Abbottabad with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia.
Hersh says high-level Pakistani officials consented to allow the US to conduct its "raid"
on the compound - a de facto assassination - after the US found out about Bin Laden's
whereabouts through a source in Pakistani intelligence (and not, as reported, after
interrogation of al-Qaeda detainees and extensive investigation into a Bin Laden
courier). A deal was then struck that included allowing the US to set up detailed
surveillance of the area, obtaining DNA evidence confirming Bin Laden's identity and
even providing a Pakistani agent to help guide the operation - in exchange for continued
US financial support of the nation's intelligence service and its leaders.
President Obama announces Osama Bin Laden's death.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920786_113349528.jpg
Hersh says Mr Obama was supposed to wait a week to announce Bin Laden's death
As part of the agreement, according to Hersh, the US would hold off on announcing Bin
Laden's death for a week, and then only say that he was killed in a drone strike in
Afghanistan. Mr Obama double-crossed the Pakistanis, however, after one of the US
helicopters crashed during the operation and the White House feared they could not
contain the story.Instead Mr Obama spoke to the nation that night, announcing that US
Navy special forces had conducted a daring attack based on months of secret
intelligence-gathering, without the knowledge of the Pakistanis, concluding in a fire-fight
in which Bin Laden - and other militants - were killed.
In the following days, further details - sometimes conflicting and later disavowed -
leaked out from the White House, angering US special forces commanders and defence
officials.
Author Seymour Hersh
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920788_51324917.jpg
Seymour Hersh says he "understands the consequences" of his article
"The White House's story might have been written by Lewis Carroll," Hersh writes in the
latest issue of the London Review of Books, referencing the author of Alice in
Wonderland. His piece ends with a broad-based condemnation of the Obama
administration's foreign policy operation.
"High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with
secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of
command and cutting out those who might say no," he writes.Word of Hersh's story
spread quickly, dominating political conversation on social media and repeatedly
crashing the London Review of Books' website due to the heavy volume of traffic.
It also didn't take long before some of Hersh's fellow journalists began questioning the
story, most notably Max Fischer of Vox and Peter Bergen of CNN. The critiques fall into
a few major categories:
• Unreliable sources. Much of Hersh's article is based on the claims of unnamed
intelligence officials in the US and Pakistan, none of whom were directly involved in the
operation. The only named source, Asad Durrani, served in the Pakistani military
intelligence more than two decades ago and says only that "former colleagues" of his
back up Hersh's claims. Durrani was later contacted by CNN's Bergen, and he would
only say that Hersh's account was "plausible".
• Contradictory claims. Hersh disregards the fact that two of the Navy Seals involved in
the attack on Bin Laden's compound have come out with details of the raid that directly
contradict his account. Bergen, who visited the compound after the operation, writes
that there was clear evidence of a protracted fire fight, as the location was "littered
almost everywhere with broken glass and several areas of it were sprayed with bullet holes".
• Unrealistic conclusions. Why would the Saudis support a man who wanted to
overthrow the Saudi monarchy? Why, if US support for Pakistan was part of the bargain,
did US-Pakistani relations deteriorate in the years after the raid? If the US and Pakistan
were co-operating, was a staged raid really the simplest possible way to ensure that Bin
Laden was killed?
As is often the case with conspiracy theories, perhaps the sharpest criticism of Mr
Hersh's narrative is that it relies on a large cast of characters operating effectively while
maintaining universal secrecy. Vox's Fischer accuses Hersh - who won a Pulitzer in 1970
for exposing the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the hands of US soldiers -
of producing a growing number of difficult-to-believe exposes based on tenuous evidence.
Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82920000/jpg/_82920790_113640405.jpg
Hersh says Bin Laden's compound was under the control of Pakistani military intelligence
In the last three years, for example, he has penned pieces alleging the George W Bush
administration trained Iranian militants in Nevada and that Turkey was behind chemical
weapons attacks in Syria.
"Maybe there really is a vast shadow world of complex and diabolical conspiracies,
executed brilliantly by international networks of government masterminds," Fischer
writes. "And maybe Hersh and his handful of anonymous former senior officials really
are alone in glimpsing this world and its terrifying secrets. Or maybe there's a simpler
explanation."
Meanwhile, conservative commentators in the US, who have long chafed at some of
Hersh's accusations about US actions during the Bush administration, celebrated the
criticism - while noting what they saw as the key motivating factor.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/82922000/jpg/_82922872_113383674.jpg
A man holds up a sign reading: "Obama-1, Osama-0"
Americans celebrated when they heard Bin Laden was dead
"When Seymour Hersh manufactures crazy against Obama, suddenly he's a crank, not
an elder statesman," tweets Breitbart's John Nolte. "With Bush he was a media GOD."
In a television interview on Monday, Hersh tried to turn the tables, saying that the US
account of the operation is the one that's unbelievable.
"Twenty-four or 25 guys go in to the middle of Pakistan, take out a guy with no air
cover, no protection, no security, with no trouble - are you kidding me?" he said.
"Look, I'm sorry it goes against the grain," he added. "I've been doing this my entire
life, and all I can tell you is I understand the consequences."
There's a bit of internet shorthand, frequently used on Twitter, to preface an allegation
that seems explosive but questionable: "Whoa if true".
It seems the reaction to Hersh's piece so far has included a lot of "whoa" - but with a
heavy emphasis on the caveat, "if true".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32698016
======================================================
======================================================
Democracies always ‘led by people that push for more war’ - Seymour Hersh
U5ovbvXb4fo
Published on 8 Dec 2014
Afshin Rattansi goes underground on the war against ISIS. Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Seymour Hersh says there is a fatal flaw in democracies that leaves them
pushing for war, and says the US and its allies have for years funded the extremist
groups which became ISIS, and fed us a narrative that is very hard to change. Sculptor
Davide Dormino talks about his project to create bronze sculptures in tribute to
Assange, Manning, and Snowden, men that ‘break the system’ and change everything.
We take a look at some of the more questionable views of David Cameron’s poverty
tsar, co-author of a paper soon to be released on hunger and food poverty. And we look
at the headlines in breaking views, with flags, bombs, torture and whiskey hitting the
headlines.
=====================================================
=====================================================
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/sitelogos/logo_mol.gif
Obama LIED when he said U.S. pulled off bin Laden raid without help: Report
claims President kept quiet about major role played by Pakistan to seize glory for himself
Journalist Seymour Hersh claims 'lying' is common in US counter-terrorism
Quoted ex-CIA high-level source in article for the London Review of Books
Alleges Obama's speech was put together in a rush and created 'chaos'
Source added there was an 'agreement with the Pakistanis' before operation
Has also tried to poke holes in issues such as NSA spying and drone attacks
By Wills Robinson For Dailymail.com
Published: 23:41, 10 May 2015 | Updated: 19:27, 11 May 2015
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3075995/Obama-LIED-Bin-Laden-raid-Report-claims-president-s-speech-created-chaos-intelligence-community-forced-advisers-make-cover-story-fly.html#ixzz3Zvj6r4vs
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook