Posted on 05/10/2015 12:44:03 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
An expose published on Sunday alleges that President Obama deceived Americans with his narrative of the 2011 assassination of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Author Seymour M. Hersh accuses Obama of rushing to take credit for bin Ladens death.
This decision, Hersh argues in the London Review of Books, forced the military and intelligence communities to scramble and then collaborate the presidents version of events.
High-level lying nonetheless remains the modus operandi of U.S. policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no, Hersh wrote of the Obama administrations counterterrorism policies.
Hersh based his report on a single, anonymous source.
This individual, he said, is a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Ladens presence in Abottabad.
Hershs source alleged that the Pakistani government had an active role in approving and implementing the raid on bin Ladens compound.
In addition, the source said that the Obama administration originally agreed to announce bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike rather than shot during an active Special Forces mission.
Obamas speech was put together in a rush, Hersh wrote of Obamas announcement of Operation Neptune Spear to Americans.
This series of self-serving and inaccurate statements would create chaos in the weeks following, he added.
This was not the fog of war, Hersh quoted his anonymous source as saying.
The fact that there was an agreement with the Pakistanis and no contingency analysis of what was to be disclosed if something went wrong that wasnt even discussed, Hersh quoted his source as saying.
And once it went wrong, they had to make up a new cover story on the fly, the source said of Obamas advisers response to his speech on the raid, Hersh wrote.
Hershs report also accuses the Obama administration of embellishing the details of the raid itself and presenting al Qaeda as a bigger threat than it actually was before bin Ladens death.
The White House did not comment on Hershs claims.
That is him, try to hog the credit.
“.... but the one place he isnt is at the bottom of the ocean.”
Agreed
WWTCIALN? (What will the CIA leak next?)
Hersh based his report on a single, anonymous source.*cough Leon Panetta *coughThis individual, he said, is a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Ladens presence in Abottabad.
When will Hersh investigate Valerie Jarrett’s sending jihadis to shoot down the Seal Team 6 Chinook?
Obama opened up his fat trap, that’s how I knew he was lying
I guess they didn’t count on that stealth chopper going down, eh?
I will never stop being amazed at how many people genuinely bought that considering the 10,000rpm spinning that went along with it.
In secret. Muslim sailors/person ell handled the body. roll of towels ejected in front of the entire crew to witness and PROVE it all. If you question our military you hate America and puppies.
Good God.
The sheer volume of conflicting stories coming out of the O administration from day one made it clear there was substantial deception involved. This is a presidency founded on deceit that practices deception as its basic modus operandi. That much is obvious to a third grader.
The biggest lie is he ordered it. Obama cancelled the raid twice.
Leon Panetta was the one who had the guts to order it under his name. Of course Obama swooped in for the credit being the egomaniac he is.
Well, first they had to collaborate, to get their stories straight; then they could corroborate.
That's how Democrats do it.
LOL.
I still do not believe it was the real Bin Laden. The guy was probably a body double. An imposter.
There was no good reason not to show the body like Bush did with Saddam’s boys.
I noticed the same thing. An epidemic of illiteracy among journalists.
A real leader would have stayed in the background on May 1, 2011.
A press conference initially would have been held by a low-level functionary in a Pentagon basement conference room. Slightly later, higher level generals or JCS would have gone public with more details, and praised the SEAL team for their success. The White House would issue similar statements, but a real President would not speak about it publicly for 3 days.
Obama the PR whore, in his rush to gain any political capital he could, rushed out that evening in suit and tie, to get the most credit he could for himself. At the same time, giving UBL much more status than he deserved.
As a side note, My kid worked with him on the doomsday plane. It was after any of this. For what its worth and his obvious political crap aside, she said he was a serious dude and respected the people he worked with. Not at all how he appears in the media. Based on that I’d tend to think he did indeed make the call to bypass Barry if any of that even happened.
FWIW.
???
What was in the “roll of towels” ?? Blood? Blood and guts? How does that “prove” Bin Ladin was killed in the raid?
So, at the end of WWII, Hitler’s bunker was attacked, he was killed, and his body taken out of Berlin. On the way, it was burned so no Germans would locate the grave, right?
I wouldn’t trust any report from a leftist jerk like Hersh. There’s a chance he might be right...a stopped clock and all that.
Unfortunately for giving this report full credibility, Sy Hersh has gone to press using basically only one source before and a lot of his account turns out to be bogus. The account of the Israeli Nuclear program ‘the Sampson Option’ I think is its name was based almost entirely on a dissident scientist named Mordecai Vanunu who also, unfortunately for Sy, turned out to be the biggest deception peddler and hoax spinner since Baron von Munchhausen. so take his account with a lot of salt. Interestingly the UK source is ‘temporarily unavailable.
I'm not convinced he's dead....but I like conspiracy theories.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.