Popular Thug Drink posted:

why do you hate investigative journalists

Flocons de Jambon posted:

People are taking issue with the wording of a third hand characterization of how shot up bin Laden was while still admitting "Sure, I bet they shot him a lot, but..."

There might be some overlap in the amount of damage done to a human body that is described third hand as "torn to pieces" or leaving "not much left" and the amount of damage done by people who admit to shooting him multiple times.

It's absurd.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

People are taking issue with the wording of a third hand characterization of how shot up bin Laden was while still admitting "Sure, I bet they shot him a lot, but..."

There might be some overlap in the amount of damage done to a human body that is described third hand as "torn to pieces" or leaving "not much left" and the amount of damage done by people who admit to shooting him multiple times.

It's absurd.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

People are taking issue with the wording of a third hand characterization of how shot up bin Laden was while still admitting "Sure, I bet they shot him a lot, but..."

There might be some overlap in the amount of damage done to a human body that is described third hand as "torn to pieces" or leaving "not much left" and the amount of damage done by people who admit to shooting him multiple times.

It's absurd.

quote:

Isaac Chotiner: If the plan until the night of the raid was to use the cover story that he had not been killed in a raid but in a drone strike, then why have the raid at all? Why not just have the Pakistanis kill him? Why risk Obama’s presidency?

Seymour Hersh: Of course there is no answer there because I haven’t talked to any of the principals. But I can just give you what the people who were in the process believed to be so, which is that for [Gens.] Pasha and Kayani, the chance of something like that getting leaked out would be devastating. America was then running at about 8 percent popularity in Pakistan, and Bin Laden was running at 60, 70 percent. He was very popular. [Editor’s note: This 2010 opinion poll says that Bin Laden’s popularity was at 18 percent in Pakistan.] You couldn’t just take a chance, because if someone ratted you out—I can only give you a basic theory.

Chotiner: It just seems like a huge raid with Pakistani complicity brings up just as many problems for the Pakistanis.

Seymour Hersh
Hersh: If you believe, as a smart guy said to me, if anybody, if anyone didn’t think the president was going to gently caress [the Pakistani military] they are out of their mind. He was always going to gently caress them.

Chotiner: OK. In your piece you call into question that the Americans got valuable documents in the raid. But Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current head of al-Qaida, himself seemed to confirm that this was true. How do you handle that contradiction?

Hersh: I handle it pretty easy. [Laughs] The issue for me is the treasure trove issue. Did the SEALS take out piles of computers? There were claims they found computers and disks and sticks, what do they call those sticks?

Chotiner: I don’t know.

Hersh: You’re not as old as I am. You should know that. Anyway, the SEALs mission was to go kill the guy. They did pick up some papers, but most of the papers were delivered by the ISI. He was a prisoner under their control. He wasn’t beaten and could walk around but it was a prison. He couldn’t get out. They kept encouraging him to write stuff. And he did. But I am bothered by the contradictions. [The] president said it was a treasure trove so there had to be a treasure trove. Is it real? I don’t know. It was used in a trial. Is it real? Is it not? I don’t know.

Chotiner: You seem slightly annoyed that Obama double-crossed the Pakistanis.

Hersh: Double-crossed is your word.

Chotiner: OK fine. I want to understand why you seem bothered by that, aside from the lying. Turning our back on the worst elements in Pakistan who we have long nurtured doesn’t seem so bad. We have supported them forever.

Hersh: Why do we do that?

Chotiner: Because we see it as being in our own interest.

Hersh: Well no, we do it for nukes.

Chotiner: Fine, we see that as being in our interest.

Hersh: In my experience in the last 30 years, one of the major worries was about the “Islamic bomb,” about Pakistan. If you knew the lengths to which we go, working with the ISI, to make sure some ultranationalist or ultrajihadist doesn’t get [control of nukes].

Chotiner: Yes, although you could argue that if we hadn’t nurtured these elements for so long, the country would be less of a threat.

Hersh: You could argue anything.

Chotiner: I want to—

Hersh: Swing away fella.

Chotiner: You sent me—

Hersh: You probably don’t know that NBC reported, and now they have reported it on one of these dopey afternoon shows with that woman, what’s her name, the NBC woman who claims to have some knowledge of foreign policy, married to Alan Greenspan.

Chotiner: Andrea Mitchell.

Hersh: She’s comical. On her show the administration is acknowledging walk-ins but saying the walk-ins aren’t necessarily linked to Bin Laden.

Chotiner: The AFP piece, which you sent me approvingly, says the same thing, that there is no evidence the walk-in led to Bin Laden, and that the walk-in did not even know the target was Bin Laden.

Hersh: Uh huh, OK.

Chotiner: OK but here is my question about journalism, since you have been doing this longer than I have—

Hersh: Oh poor you, you don’t know anything. It is amazing you can speak the God’s English.

Chotiner: Are you hoping with this piece to say that you made no mistakes, or that OK there were mistakes because I am getting the ball rolling? You have quoted two pieces very approvingly, from NBC and AFP, that differ from key points in your own story. I want to know how accurate you think your story now is.

Hersh: [Laughs loudly] Well I will tell you one thing: At one point a copy editor in England confronted me about the SEALs training in Nevada and changed it to Utah, and the line made it because according to her they were sort of the same.

Chotiner: The AFP piece contradicts your piece but you aren’t running around worried about that.

Hersh: I sent it approvingly because it crossed my desk and it does say there were walk-ins. [Laughs] You can read it any way you want. The White House has been very clever about this. They have gone after me personally. They don’t like me boo hoo hoo. But they have been very careful to hedge everything, they quote Peter Bergen. Bergen or Berger, is that his name?

Chotiner: Bergen.

Hersh: They quote him. He views himself as the trustee of all things Bin Laden.

Chotiner: I just want to talk to you about your piece and journalism.

Hersh: What difference does it make what the gently caress I think about journalism? I don’t think much of the journalism that I see. If you think I write stories where it is all right to just be good enough, are you kidding? You think I have a cavalier attitude on throwing stuff out? Are you kidding? I am not cavalier about what I do for a living.

Chotiner: I don’t think you are cavalier. That was not my question.

Hersh: Whatever it is, it’s an impossible question. It’s almost like you are asking me to say that there are flaws in everybody. Yes. Do I acknowledge that not everybody can be perfect? But I am not backing off anything I said.

trapped mouse posted:

Seymour Hersh just gave the best interview ever.


It took all the restraint I had not to bold everything. And this is just the first psge. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...journalism.html

Flocons de Jambon posted:

The White House at the time said their intent was to capture him. They might have felt it was easier to explain an Islamic burial at sea then a shot to pieces old man collected without casualties by a small squad.

This is a decision that would've been made over a few hours, and since they were including false statements in Obama's speech anyway (if you believe the stuff NBC has corroborated, the walk-in, the couriers), why reveal something that could lead to other awkward questions about the raid itself?

Flocons de Jambon posted:

Maybe 26.

EDIT: Possibly 25. 25 SEALS went in. They made the correct tactical decision to only allow one shot each. They wanted to conserve ammo because they're loving ice cold, trigger-pulling, life-taking, heart-breaking warriors.

Bip Roberts posted:

That is you made two confusing posts. I'm not sure what the point of either one is. Are you confused about something?

ErIog posted:

How does Hersh explain the controversy over shots of OBL's dead body? Didn't congress people see those? Does he think the pictures were fake?

Series DD Funding posted:

Only to people who've gotten all their gun knowledge from video games.

Full-Bodied Flavor posted:

I'm glad Osama bin laden died.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

Maybe 26.

EDIT: Possibly 25. 25 SEALS went in. They made the correct tactical decision to only allow one shot each. They wanted to conserve ammo because they're loving ice cold, trigger-pulling, life-taking, heart-breaking warriors.

Popular Thug Drink posted:

heck, if you have just like a few ziploc baggies left of the notorious terrorist mastermind's mortal remains, say he was wearing a suicide belt or you shot him with a rocket while he was getting into a jeep or something. hersh is just inventing needless skullduggery and "just asking questions" for kicks it sounds like

Flocons de Jambon posted:

The White House at the time said their intent was to capture him.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

The White House at the time said their intent was to capture him.

Bip Roberts posted:

That is you made two confusing posts. I'm not sure what the point of either one is. Are you confused about something?

evilweasel posted:

as well as that everything is much, much easier with Osama as a corpse instead of a prisoner who creates all sorts of problems (do you try him in the criminal courts, military tribunal, does it create a terror threat, does it give him a platform, do you torture him, etc). And if you consider him a combatant (lawful or unlawful) it is perfectly legal to attempt to kill him - it's just a violation of numerous international laws and US military law to kill him after he surrenders.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

People are taking issue with the wording of a third hand characterization of how shot up bin Laden was while still admitting "Sure, I bet they shot him a lot, but..."

There might be some overlap in the amount of damage done to a human body that is described third hand as "torn to pieces" or leaving "not much left" and the amount of damage done by people who admit to shooting him multiple times.

It's absurd.

evilweasel posted:

Dilkington posted:

I don't have private messages so I'll just ask outright- can I link to a video of an ISIL execution?

evilweasel posted:

I'd rather you didn't, as I think the forum software would make it auto-display even if you tried to link it and nobody needs to see that by surprise (or, if it's a clickable link, you could accidentally click on it) If you really want to post something like that to put it in some way that people can reconstruct the link, but it's not clickable (like this: https://www.goo[remove]gle.com ) but I don't think anyone's going to change their minds. They'll just move onto some other explanation.

Nonsense posted:

Not related to wanting to post execution videos, but I haven't seen an embedded video on SA in forever, is there an option to make youtube/video links displayable as you say?

Nonsense posted:

Not related to wanting to post execution videos, but I haven't seen an embedded video on SA in forever, is there an option to make youtube/video links displayable as you say?

evilweasel posted:

Not quite. The White House said that if he surrendered they would have taken him alive. It is doubtful that's true. However nothing I saw indicated that they said their goal was to take him alive: instead they merely said if he was clearly not a threat and surrendered they wouldn't have killed him anyway. It's doubtful they would have because of the possibility of a suicide vest, as well as that everything is much, much easier with Osama as a corpse instead of a prisoner who creates all sorts of problems (do you try him in the criminal courts, military tribunal, does it create a terror threat, does it give him a platform, do you torture him, etc). And if you consider him a combatant (lawful or unlawful) it is perfectly legal to attempt to kill him - it's just a violation of numerous international laws and US military law to kill him after he surrenders.

That's why the administration said that they would have taken him alive if he surrendered - it would be illegal if they didn't. But I don't think that anyone pretended the goal was to take him alive: I think everyone was pretty clear they were perfectly happy he was dead and it wasn't any sort of mission failure.

Discendo Vox posted:

Yeah, don't post that.

evilweasel posted:

I'd rather you didn't,