# Hersh: Obama lied about bin Laden raid **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 11, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791 "2015-05-11T16:58:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/21 "2015-05-11T23:16:28Z")
Tracking down and killing bin Laden has been something that just about everyone wanted to see done, but it’s been the particular wet dream of militaristic conservatives who love these sorts of action-movie heroics. Yet what they got in real life was a conservative chickenhawk who said that he “didn’t really give bin Laden much thought” followed by a liberal President who directed the CIA to give it their top priority, took a big risk, and got the job done. Wait, did I say “liberal President”? Make that **black** liberal President. The whole thing sticks in the Republican craw like a chicken bone in a dog’s gullet. In short: I’m surprised it took this long for the moon-landing-hoaxers and 9/11-truthers to come up with “didn’t happen”. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/22 "2015-05-11T23:22:14Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Lying politicians concerning national security issues on a global stage? Say it ain’t so! The end result here is: Is obl a dead man? UBL hasn’t come on the net to say I’m alive. AQ confirmed in a statement that he was dead. Nobody from Pakistan or the US has leaked anything that makes it look like he’s alive. If he’s living and bagging groceries with Elivs in Kalamazoo nobody who’d know better wants to share. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/23 "2015-05-11T23:57:48Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [Pakistani Asset Helped in Hunt for Bin Laden, Sources Say](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistanis-knew-where-bin-laden-was-say-us-sources-n357306) > > Hersh is not alone in this. NBC News has it as: > > **Pakistanis Knew Where Bin Laden Was, Say US Sources** There’s a big difference between Pakistan knowing where Bin Ladan was and Pakistan telling the U.S. about it. Even at the time, it seemed unlikely that Pakistan knew nothing, given that Bin Ladan was living in a compound in the shadow of a large Pakistani military base, and not, as we’d always assumed, a cave in the mountains somewhere. If that’s all Hersh was claiming, then his book probably wouldn’t be in the news, or even the topic of an SDMB thread. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/24 "2015-05-12T00:01:35Z")
Leaving aside the details of his narrative, which I agree are inconsistent, and make no sense—e.g., bullets don’t usually chop a body into bits—in his own words, Hersh’s points are the following: > [@](#): > > …that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Kayani and Pasha knew of the raid in advance and had made sure that the two helicopters delivering the Seals to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms; that the CIA did not learn of bin Laden’s whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the US, and that, while Obama did order the raid and the Seal team did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration’s account were false. As I see it, there are three main points here, as well as the bombshell not in the above quote that members of the Saudi ruling faction were bankrolling OBL’s stay in Abbottabad: [ol] [li]OBL had been under house arrest in Abbottabad, with the connivance of elements of Pakistan’s government;[/li][li]Elements of the ISI and Pakistani military knew about the raid in advance, and deconflicted it from other Pakistani military and police units. It’s unstated, but they also made sure that Pakistan did not treat this as a raid against either its command and control, or its strategic assets;[/li][li]Someone in the ISI sold OBL out for 25 million USD (and probably a bunch of spots in Witness Protection).[/li][/ol] I don’t find any of the above list particularly crazy to believe. Rather the opposite, actually. The alternative is that one of the world’s most hunted men and his family lived right under the nose of Pakistan’s elite for several years. He was ferreted out not by a traitor, but by a combination of signals intelligence (that his circle had years of experience avoiding), and his family voluntarily getting injections from some random doctor. When the US found this out, instead of demanding him, or just causing the villa to explode, sent multiple helicopters with commandos into an area where they’d done little reconnaissance and could have only limited backup. For all they knew, they were headed into a SAM/AAA trap, or through no fault of their own, another Black Hawk Down situation. And might have to shoot their way out through the Pakistani Army battalion, garrisoned a mile or so down the road. T The phrase for that, incidentally, when one nation sends military men and helicopters into another, several hundred miles from the border between the two, is Act Of War, something the U.S. had cleverly avoided with Pakistan up until that point. Oh, and the villa is only 40 or so miles from a country that frequently engages in open hostilities with Pakistan. Did I mention that both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons? Hey, maybe the Obama Administration’s foreign policy apparatus is dumb enough to potentially provoke two nuclear-armed countries into thinking either is out to get the other, and sending nearly two dozen commandos to go play Desert One, but I can’t see USSOCOM going along with it. As full of shit as Seymour Hersh frequently is, has been, and despite some frankly bizarre things mentioned in the lengthy article—I can’t see the SEALs chumming the slopes of the Hindu Kush with pieces of OBL—I think his story is quite a bit more believable than the official cover story. What I can’t figure out, and Hersh’s explanation on why they didn’t is unsatisfactory, is, when the ISI figured their cover was blown, why they didn’t cart OBL and his family’s corpses to some hut in the NWTA and dropped a 2000 pounder on it. Then pretend not to notice as a SOCOM long range surveillance team scooped up whatever bits they needed in order to call it good. The only thing I can think of off hand is that the bits of ISI that felt OBL’s usefulness were at an end, were not the same bits of ISI that could roam freely through Waziristan. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/25 "2015-05-12T00:20:56Z")
I should think if the Pakistani government was in league with the US government in specific incident, the SEALs would have taken bin Laden to Gitmo, alive. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/26 "2015-05-12T01:08:08Z")
So does this mean we can retire once and for all the idea that torture provided the key intelligence that led to Osama? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/27 "2015-05-12T01:14:37Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > As I see it, there are three main points here . . . . To me there was one main point: Barack Obama ordered the “homicide” of an an “unarmed elderly civilian” under house arrest. I’m six years older than bin Laden was when killed, and had been thinking I was middle aged. I guess now I know better. As to whether the President did that, I hope not. As for the truth of Hersh’s article, I’m thinking that the periodical he placed it in (London Review of Books) isn’t known for fact-checking. Did the New Yorker turn this down? Here’s one reason I’m not ruling out the general picture Hersh presents: > **[Operation Vengeance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vengeance)** > > 13th Air Force > 11th Air Fleet > Operation Vengeance was the American military operation to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 18 April 1943 during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed near Bougainville Island when his G4M1 transport aircraft was shot down by United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft operating from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal. > The mis... ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/28 "2015-05-12T01:18:18Z")
Isn’t this the guy who predicted the last 5 times we were going to invade Iran? I’m afraid the old boy has gotten a bit dodgy in his old age. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/29 "2015-05-12T01:46:28Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Why would Obama’s administration lie about it? Looking at it from 50,000 feet, the United States has been fighting what amount to a war against Al-Qaeda and affiliates for many years. Truth is not only the first casualty of war, but a continual casualty. Looking at it from ground level, if Hersh is right (a very big if), then bin Laden was living in house arrest for five years during which the American people were led to believe he was on the run. Admitting this at the first point where US intelligence became aware of it would have created big problems for both the US and Pakistan government, with Pakistan facing great internal pressure to stand up to America and free the man, and great external pressure to extradite him. Lying would have solved those problems. Once you lie about it at the start, then you are forced to keep on lying to prevent even bigger public relations difficulties. Personally, I make life just a little less frustrating by accepting that lying is part of human nature. Compared to waging war, it’s an extremely minor sin. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/30 "2015-05-12T02:51:03Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > Man, I have been out of touch with his recent efforts. That is pretty sad. I’ve actually had a difficult time believe Seymour Hersch ever since he wound up taking Ari Ben Menasche seriously in The Sampson Option. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/31 "2015-05-12T02:52:54Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > What I can’t figure out, and Hersh’s explanation on why they didn’t is unsatisfactory, is, when the ISI figured their cover was blown, why they didn’t cart OBL and his family’s corpses to some hut in the NWTA and dropped a 2000 pounder on it. Then pretend not to notice as a SOCOM long range surveillance team scooped up whatever bits they needed in order to call it good. The only thing I can think of off hand is that the bits of ISI that felt OBL’s usefulness were at an end, were not the same bits of ISI that could roam freely through Waziristan. The story is a crock, but this is the easiest to answer; if the tale is true then they are in deep trouble irregardless of what they do to Bin Laden. If they kill him, many personnel could well face a murder charge down the line (rightly), he was a prisoner who was killed, while under arrest. Putting him on trial is a no no This way they do not face possible criminal charges down the line. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/32 "2015-05-12T04:21:06Z")
> **[Video shows civilian deaths](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2010/10/1/pakistan-army-accused-of-killings)** > > Video appears to show Pakistani troops lining up civilians and shooting them dead, raising concerns over army’s conduct. > [@AK84](#): > > The story is a crock, but this is the easiest to answer; if the tale is true then they are in deep trouble irregardless of what they do to Bin Laden. If they kill him, many personnel could well face a murder charge down the line (rightly), he was a prisoner who was killed, while under arrest. Putting him on trial is a no no > > This way they do not face possible criminal charges down the line. In that vein, whatever became of the allegations that the Pakistani Army had committed over 280 extrajudicial killings in the Swat Valley during the Summer of 2009? For example, see the Al Jazeera link above your quote, mentioning the Human Rights Watch report, and videos showing a massacre. I wouldn’t be surprised if the arrests and trials of those responsible had smaller headlines than the bad acts themselves, but I hadn’t heard of how it all turned out. I’d think OBL’s alleged minders’d be in a lot more trouble if they’d let him be taken alive. Jeez, you think the Tsarnaev trial’s a circus… ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/33 "2015-05-12T06:17:59Z")
A few years ago, Hersh [gave a speech](http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/18/seymour-hersh-unleashed/) in which he claimed that many high-level people in the U.S. military were secretly members of Opus Dei. Yes! Just like in _The Da Vinci Code_! The guy has gone off the deep end. ---
**Author:** ![MorphinePoet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morphinepoet/32/7315_2.png) [@MorphinePoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MorphinePoet)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/34 "2015-05-12T08:16:02Z")
I don’t think that either Obama or any of his staff would risk running a lie this big, especially that involves so many people who could fuck up any number of years down the line. The alleged plan would have the following people lie and keep on lying for years: Obama, secretaries of state and defense, many other people in the White House and Pentagon, all the Marines that supposedly participated in the fake operation, all the Pakistani counterparts on the other side of this and all the Saudi officials involved. Does this sound like a plausible - or even possible - process to you? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/35 "2015-05-12T08:59:32Z")
Seymour Hersh hasn’t been a decent journalist for a long time. And no, he didn’t stop being a good one on Jan. 20, 2009. But it’s well established that the administration’s account was not totally factual from the beginning and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if more lies have been told. Which means little to me, since lying about foreign policy events is what they are supposed to do to protect secrets. What they revealed was already too much, as Robert Gates points out in his memoir. But as with any issue, they wanted the political credit, so they embellished some things and glossed over some others. One thing Hersh is right about in all likelihood: bin Laden was not going to be taken alive. This administration doesn’t capture terrorists, because capturing terrorists creates political problems. They kill them. Which is probably the better policy and the better politics, but the adminstration isn’t just going to come out and say that straight up. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/36 "2015-05-12T11:21:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > This administration doesn’t capture terrorists, because capturing terrorists creates political problems. They kill them. Which is probably the better policy and the better politics, but the adminstration isn’t just going to come out and say that straight up. Mohammad Al Farkeh? That was just a few weeks ago. Abu Anas Al Libi? He was snatched right off the street in Tripoli by Special Forces. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/37 "2015-05-12T11:35:18Z")
**Ravenman** , those wouldn’t be _facts_, would they ? You know how we feel about facts. Clutter up the discourse, muddy up the bullet points. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/38 "2015-05-12T12:00:05Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One thing Hersh is right about in all likelihood: bin Laden was not going to be taken alive. Well, \*candidate \*Obama, in the 2008 debates, pretty much announced the policy would be to go kill bin Laden if he was found in Pakistan, if the locals could not or would not take care of the issue themselves. So that was not really “news”. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/39 "2015-05-12T13:06:43Z")
Hersh seems to have gone into a Fred Hoyle-style crazy old man phase. Maybe he’ll call out the administration for hiding evidence of canals on Mars next. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791/40 "2015-05-12T13:51:41Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Well, \*candidate \*Obama, in the 2008 debates, pretty much announced the policy would be to go kill bin Laden if he was found in Pakistan, if the locals could not or would not take care of the issue themselves. So that was not really “news”. I’m not doubting you, but do you have an exact quote? ISTM that **if** Hersch’s story is true (and that is a pretty big If) the “lie” would come in because the locals had bin Laden under house arrest, and neutralized. But Obama killed him anyway. As mentioned, this hardly matters since I fully support Obama in killing bin Laden. This is pretty much the only thing I can think to argue in retrospect that I should have voted for Obama over McCain, because Obama said he would go into Pakistan to get bin Laden and McCain said he wouldn’t (IIRC). And as mentioned, suppose Obama lied about everything - bin Laden was killed deliberately, the Pakistanis tipped them off, bin Laden was neutralized, they bribed someone instead of following a courier, the Pakistanis knew all about it in advance, etc. I still don’t care. bin Laden sleeps with the fishes. Good. A loud thumbs up to Obama and the SEALs and all the folks who made it happen. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hersh-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/719791.md?page=3)