What Do We Really Know About Osama bin Laden’s Death?

So, in other words, he'd be Rush Limbaugh?

 

I guess that's one way of putting it.

 

Maybe Bowden got played by a source.

But let's review, real quick, some of the various claims Hersh has made over the years.

-That hundreds of Mossad agents were waging a covert war in Syria and Iraq. No evidence, years later, this was true.
-That a U.S. ambassador was involved in a coup in Chile. Time Magazine published a 3,000 word retraction.
-That Kennedy paid hush money to keep Marilyn Monroe quiet and conspired with the mob to overthrow Castro. Turns out documents were a hoax.
-That Ari Ben-Manashe WITNESSED George H.W. Bush convincing Iran to withhold American hostages until after the election.
-That Jews in the United States had convinced both Clinton and Obama to launch a full-scale war with Iran and the Islamic Republic.


I mean... on one hand we have My Lai and Abu Graib. Hersh, at his best, has done some seminal works of American journalism.

But so has Bowden, and without all the b.s.

 

Certainly an interesting perspective, and I am sure that not all the stories line up, but this is the key to me:

‘‘It’s always possible,’’ Bowden told me. ‘‘But given the sheer number of people I talked to from different parts of government, for a lie to have been that carefully orchestrated and sustained to me gets into faked-moon-landing territory.’’

I mean, if it's not exactly the way it went down, it sure seems like it would be pretty damn close considering how many people have told the story. And yes, Bowden should have said, "according to a source who viewed the photos," or something similar.

 

Bowden replies, fairly convincingly, I think.

There’s Just One Problem with Those Bin Laden Conspiracy Theories

 

That's much better than Howard's response to Whitlock /crossthread

 

Yes. It's a masterful job of tearing down a strawman.

As Bowden points out, Mahler never says Hersh's story is factual:

Mahler is careful not to side with either Hersh or me...

Bowden then spends the rest of his time pointing out all the problems with Hersh's piece.

The problem is that even if Hersh's story is false, that doesn't make Bowden's true. It doesn't mean he wasn't spun. It doesn't mean he wasn't sold a narrative.

It doesn't mean that elements of Hersh's story could be true -- like a "walk-in" being how we learned of bin Laden's whereabouts -- while others -- like the burial at sea -- could be wrong.

And, it doesn't change the fact that Bowden gave us detailed descriptions of photos that he never saw, and didn't tell us were based on the word of source (a source that, since we didn't know existed, and we have no description of, we have no ability to gauge).

And, pathetically, he doesn't even address this. He doesn't say it was wrong. He doesn't justify it. He doesn't tell us now a little bit about the source. He just ignores it.

 

What do your sources at CNN say?

 

Haha!

Ok. Bowden's a better journalist than I am.

Now, what's his excuse for describing pictures he never saw, for not telling us, and for not addressing it in the follow up piece, now that we've learned this from Hersh and the New York Times Magazine?

 

I agree on the pics. But I think he addresses the idea of being spun or sold a narrative. And does to pretty thoroughly. I don't know how else he should explain that part that would satisfy all readers. Which becomes the issue with conspiracies, no matter what you say in reply, it's treated as proof of the continuing conspiracy.

 

The Osama conspiracy theories are based on one presumption: that every single thing the Mooslim Neegro says is a lie.

But we're not talking about Donald Trump here.

 

What "theories" do you mean? You've shown no evidence that any beyond Hersh's are even a thing. Do you think Seymour Hersh's motives are based on mooslim negro-ness?