Summary: Seymour Hersh’s new article about the bin Laden hit is important. Most political news provides entertainment for the outer party but makes no difference in their lives. But sometimes we get a teachable moment that rips aside the narrative fed to us by government officials and journalists, revealing truths that can inspire us to change ourselves. It’s our choice. {1st of 2 posts today.}
That’s almost the only part of the story that was correct.
Contents
- Truth about the bin Laden hit.
- Fruits of the bin Laden hit.
- Conclusions.
- Other posts in this series.
- For More Information.
(1) The truth about the bin Laden hit
Today’s vital reading: “The Killing of Osama bin Laden” by Seymour M. Hersh in the London Review of Books. It’s rich with important lessons for us.
First and most important, the various stories about the bin Laden raid by government officials (formal and leaked, quite contradictory, often unrealistic) remind us how far we’ve come since Eisenhower regretted getting caught lying to us about the Russia shooting down our U2. Now they lie light-heartedly and frequently, with no consequences when caught. Hersh pulls together and supplements what we learned from previous articles — that they lied about almost every important detail about the raid.
The information from torture played no role in locating bin Laden. Unlike what we saw in about the film Zero Dark Thirty, CIA intel played no role. A former senior Pakistani intelligence officer sold us bin Laden’s location for the $25 million reward.
The SEALs did not run a daring penetration into Pakistan. The Pakistan military knew of the raid and allowed them in and out. There was no resistance. Bin Laden did not use a woman as a shield and shoot at them; he was a sick prisoner.
It was planned as a hit, the assassination of a sick old guy. Lies were constructed afterwards to conceal this ugly truth.
The SEALs did not collect a “treasure trove” of documents and computers which gave insight into global terrorism. They gathered little, and what they gathered was proved of little use.
Bin Laden’s compound was not a nerve center for al Qaeda, fed by “a network of couriers coming and going with memory sticks and instructions” with bin Laden “providing strategic, operational and tactical instructions” and “throwing operational ideas out there and … specifically directing other al-Qaida members.” But in fact, as Hersh explains…
These claims were fabrications: there wasn’t much activity for bin Laden to exercise command and control over. The retired intelligence official said that the CIA’s internal reporting shows that since bin Laden moved to Abbottabad in 2006 only a handful of terrorist attacks could be linked to the remnants of bin Laden’s al-Qaida
This brings us to one of the big lies of post-9/11 America: the power of al Qaeda. The data from the bin Laden raid confirmed the large body of evidence showing that the collective action of the world’s police and intel agencies dismantled AQ in the years after 9//1 (as I showed in 2011 and many times since then). The lurid tales of the powerful secret organization with sleeper cells across America were propaganda designed to keep us fearful — willing to surrender our rights and feed the military, intel, and security services.
(2) Fruits of the bin Laden hit
We felt big for a moment, using our elite troops to assassinate a unguarded sick old guy based on information from a paid informer and bribed Pakistan officials. The strategic significance was nil or negative, as it should have been. For details see this post about the strategic significance of bin Laden’s execution, and the road not taken.
(3) Conclusions
The history of America since WWII has been one of American worked into a fearful frenzy about one boogeyman after another. First the Soviet Union (see How the Soviet Menace was over-hyped, and what we can learn from this), then Y2k, then al Qaeda, and now ISIS — all exaggerated into existential threats to America.
Why do we repeatedly fall for the same game? When will we see the pattern and learn skepticism? On that day political reform for America will become possible. The process begins with each of us.
(4) Other posts in this series.
- The most useful news story of 2015: the truth about the bin Laden hit.
- The day after Hersh: rebuttals & more evidence about the bin Laden hit.
- The first rule of American war is not to believe what we’re told.
- The debate about Hersh’s revelations reveals more than his article.
- Should we use our special operations troops as assassins? Is it right, or even smart?
(5) For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the film Zero Dark Thirty, about torture, about assassination, and especially the posts about lies by government officials — and about our tolerance for them, such as these…
- Our leaders have made a discovery of the sort that changes the destiny of nations.
- Look at past airliner shootings so we can learn about government lies.
- Why do we believe, when the government lies to us so often? When we change, the government also will change.
- Amnesia and anger: one is the problem, the other the cure.
- Government officials’ lies erode the Republic’s foundation. Do we care?
