According to veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the story the Obama Administration told about the killing of Osama bin Laden was just that- a story.
Hersh claims that the Pakistani military knew of the U.S. mission; that bin Laden was a prisoner in Abbottabad since 2006; that an ex-Pakistani official told the U.S. where bin Laden was in exchange for $25 million; and that there was no fire fight in bin Laden’s alleged compound.
The White House calls the claims baseless with too many inaccuracies to check each one.
Some have noted that it’s difficult to dismiss Hersh’s claims. “You don’t believe a story until it’s officially denied,” said Afshin Rattansi on RT.com.
The mainstream media has been aiming to discredit the story.
“The United States media won’t have it,” added Rattansi, who pointed out that Hersh had to get it published in the London Review of Books. “He can’t get them published in the land of the free.”
Hersh is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker.
In an article in New York magazine, Hersh said his relationship with The New Yorker has been tense and that they had already written a long-form feature about the killing of bin Laden, which focused on the action movie narrative from the administration.
Is Hersh’s story true? What do members of the U.S. military think of Hersh’s claims?
TruthInMedia.com’s Joshua Cook talked to a high ranking officer in the U.S. Army who said, “The Hersh article seems quite credible.”
One former Navy Seal told Cook, “Everyone in politics kills each other off with facts and fantasy.”
But it seems, according to Hersh, that the Bin Laden raid was just that- pure fantasy. “White House cooperated with Zero Dark Thirty. They did not cooperate with Seymour Hersh,” said Rattansi, pointing out that the Obama Administration provided guidance to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty, a Hollywood film about the mission to kill bin Laden.
One of the most disturbing points in Hersh’s article is the claim that the Pakistanis captured Osama bin Laden in 2006 in the Hindu Kush and the Saudis were financing the Pakistanis to keep him from the U.S.
Hersh told Scott Horton in an exclusive interview that Saudi Arabia financed this imprisonment, so Bin Laden wouldn’t reveal who was funding him (Listen here at 10:45).
The New York Times makes an important point: if Pakistan knew where bin Laden was or were holding him in prison as they claim, they were complicit in hiding a man charged with international terrorism and on the United Nations sanctions list.
It certainly makes one wonder even more about those censored 28-pages of the 9/11 report. What lengths will the U.S. government go to protect the Saudi royal family and our so-called allies who finance global terrorism?
For more on this story, click here.
To see RT America’s full interview with Seymour Hersh, watch here: