"Nobody likes to get played."
October 21, 2015 11:01 AM   Subscribe

What do we really know about Osama bin Laden's death?
I saw this as more of a media story, a case study in how constructed narratives become accepted truth. This felt like a cop-out to [Seymour Hersh], as he explained in a long email the next day. He said that I was sidestepping the real issue, that I was ‘‘turning this into a ‘he-said, she-said’ dilemma,’’ instead of coming to my own conclusion about whose version was right. It was then that he introduced an even more disturbing notion: What if no one’s version could be trusted?
posted by Rustic Etruscan (96 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Welcome to the world of instantaneous online citizen journalism. (hey under 140!)
posted by sammyo at 11:22 AM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


Vanity Fair: There’s Just One Problem with Those Bin Laden Conspiracy Theories, Mark Bowden
Without a shred of evidence, without contradicting a word that I wrote, Jonathan Mahler in The New York Times Magazine this week suggests that the “irresistible story” that I told about the killing of Osama bin Laden in my 2012 book, The Finish (excerpted in Vanity Fair), might well have been a fabrication—“another example of American mythmaking.” He presents an alternative version of the story written by Seymour Hersh as, effectively, a rival account, one that raises serious doubts about mine, which is all but dubbed “the official version.” It’s not meant kindly.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:25 AM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm still not convinced that the guy killed in the raid was even Bin Laden, and not a replacement double following the real one's death from natural causes years ago.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:26 AM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


Welcome to the world of instantaneous online citizen journalism. (hey under 140!)

Does that describe the world of professional writers publishing, in mainstream outlets, stories which feature high-level anonymous sources?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:28 AM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


n+1: Evil but Stupid - Sy Hersh, secrecy, and paranoia
Hersh’s article solved several puzzles in the official report of bin Laden’s death. How could he have been hiding in a compound less than a mile from an elite military academy without Pakistan’s knowledge (a question raised in the days after the attack by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Dianne Feinstein, among others)? Why, when bin Laden’s neighbors called the Abbottabad police after the SEALs’ helicopter crashed, did the Pakistani military tell the police not to respond? Why had Obama, in his speech announcing the news, originally claimed that the raid was due to the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, only to refute this claim the next day? Why were the pictures of bin Laden’s supposed burial at sea at first kept classified and then said to have been destroyed?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:30 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


How was Bin Laden killed? Maybe the official story is just some white lies, no matter what neighbors say( more on Aamir Latif). Or maybe we're looking at shadows on the wall, part of the secret history of Seal Team 6.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:37 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm still not convinced that the guy killed in the raid was even Bin Laden, and not a replacement double following the real one's death from natural causes years ago.

Well that's why you don't throw the body off the side of a boat.
posted by Trochanter at 11:38 AM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


"Where does the official bin Laden story stand now? For many, it exists in a kind of liminal state, floating somewhere between fact and mythology."
Yeah, many think the same thing about the fall of the twin towers, the Kennedy assassination, vaccinations, the moon landing, and the Reptilioids. All hail the many!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:39 AM on October 21, 2015 [22 favorites]


This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
posted by Splunge at 11:46 AM on October 21, 2015 [13 favorites]


I'm still not convinced that the guy killed in the raid was even Bin Laden, and not a replacement double following the real one's death from natural causes years ago.

Maybe we ended up taking out the real-world Trevor Slattery. It seems vaguely possible that Iron Man 3 might be a truer account of this whole story than Zero Dark Thirty.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:53 AM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


professional writers publishing, in mainstream outlets, stories which feature high-level anonymous sources?

Judith Miller in the New York Times?
posted by mikelieman at 11:53 AM on October 21, 2015 [8 favorites]


It is not unreasonable to presume that the government lies to / withholds facts from its citizenry.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:53 AM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


America is the perfect place for conspiracy theories, because we're a naturally paranoid people, but we also have a government that constantly engages in conspiracies.

I'm not sure how knowing what actually happened to bin Laden will affect me in any way, except for a general sense that I would like more transparency from the people I elect.
posted by maxsparber at 11:54 AM on October 21, 2015 [14 favorites]


America is the perfect place for conspiracy theories, because we're a naturally paranoid people, but we also have a government that constantly engages in conspiracies.

How lucky we are to have found each other.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:57 AM on October 21, 2015 [17 favorites]


Judith Miller in the New York Times?

What I'm saying is that a joke about obviously, conventionally untrustworthy sources is a non sequitur under an article about stories which appeared in conventionally respectable publications.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:58 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


It is not unreasonable to presume that the government lies to / withholds facts from its citizenry.

It IS unreasonable to ever accept this without complaint.

The fact is, we always have been insulated from the truth by various levels of indirection and misdirection. Truth doesn't actually exist; it's always been a construction, an approximation to describe the world in a way that is useful to us. Plato's cave and all that. None of us were there at Osama Bin Laden's killing. Eyewitness accounts can be mistaken, video evidence can be forged, and official statements? Don't make me laugh. If you can control people's perceptions of reality, you can control people, a fact that governments, corporations and now even wealthy individuals make ever-increasing use of.

But... as a practical matter, we can speak of truth. What we know about the Obama Administration suggests that they wouldn't fabricate something like this -- they don't seem to be Machiavellian enough, and the danger of discovery would be too high. Going forward, I predict this, eventually, will be an important component of good government, the chances of a significant leak revealing deception, to the extent that a high level of secrecy itself will be seen as an indication that something is being hidden. Of course at that point the playfield will shift to creating the appearance of transparency without actually being transparent. This assumes you don't believe we're already there, of course.
posted by JHarris at 11:59 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


I thought a number of CIA officials had disavowed the idea that torture sessions led to bin Laden's capture and that part of Bigelow's movie was fabrication.
Pakistan, our putative ally in the war on terror and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer aid, would have provided refuge to our greatest enemy — the author of the very act that prompted us to invade Afghanistan. The audacious raid on bin Laden’s compound, our greatest victory in the war on terror, would have been little more than ‘‘a turkey shoot’’ (Hersh’s phrase). Above all, our government would have lied to us.
I am admittedly a cynic, but I assumed:
  1. Most people know a good chunk of the Pakistani military are buds with Islamic extremists and don't give a shit, same as with Saudi Arabia.
  2. Most people wouldn't give a shit about it being a "turkey shoot" versus an "audacious raid" provided bin Laden was dead at the end.
  3. Everyone already knows the government lies all the damn time and expects no "official" version of events like these to be 100% true.
posted by Anonymous at 12:00 PM on October 21, 2015


It’s hard to overstate the degree to which the killing of Osama bin Laden transformed American politics.
really? i don't remember it as important. it was footnote, long after the main story.
can you remember where you were when.... when they said they'd killed bin laden? no-one even asks that.
posted by andrewcooke at 12:01 PM on October 21, 2015 [10 favorites]


When there are competing narratives and people with career motivation work to destroy evidence and the possibility of an historical account ever coming out in any of our lifetimes, I stop paying attention to the stories and simply take it as still more evidence that my government doesn't respect me as a citizen. I'm not interested in any soap operas supporting that.
posted by rhizome at 12:03 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


I still wanna know how the WWE knew before most news agencies. "Compromised to a permanent end" indeed.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:03 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]




I grew up on Tom Clancy, which might color the fact that I don't really care about the veracity of the original story. Maybe he had already been dead for a few years. What's important is the symbol that was OBL was killed and discarded in a way that zealots couldn't find a way to reclaim him. I'm not exactly America's Biggest Fan, but this seemed to have mostly accomplished its goal.
posted by lownote at 12:06 PM on October 21, 2015 [10 favorites]


Andrew Cooke, I know where I was -- 10 minutes from leaving work that Sunday evening, already in my running clothes, when the reports came in around 10 p.m. I was there until 2 a.m. or so...
posted by AJaffe at 12:10 PM on October 21, 2015


Related: Rashomon Effect

Also, it doesn't seem as if there will ever be an easy way to untangle this mess and figure out the truth(s). There are so many competing and conflicting interests at play, and none of them say what they mean and/or mean what they say...
posted by nikoniko at 12:11 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


C'mon, it's pretty clear to everyone involved that "OBL" was really Elvis in disguise, and reptoid simulants killed him to stop him from helping Lee Harvey Oswald release a 2017 Christmas album which, when played backward, would immanentize the eschaton.
posted by aramaic at 12:19 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


For my part, I think we should stop doing so much conspiracy theory and start doing more conspiracy practice.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:19 PM on October 21, 2015 [29 favorites]


What's important is the symbol that was OBL was killed and discarded in a way that zealots couldn't find a way to reclaim him.

And in a way that any truth inconsistent with the official truth will be much harder to discover.

I dunno. I'm thinking that as an intelligence asset the guy was obviously worth more alive than dead. If the U.S. just wanted him dead they could have fired a cruise missile up his ass, or dropped a 500b bomb on the house, but they sent in a team of trained assassins with helicopters - into a foreign country with enormous risk - and those guys weren't ordered to at least try to take him alive?

It's OBL - you tell those sailors that if a few of them get killed that's what they signed up for - but the mission is for God and country. If the President orders Seal Team Six to bring him back alive, I'm guessing he comes back alive and then you need a cover story saying he's dead.

I find the official story just so incredible. Burial at sea is a honor. Neil Armstrong was buried at sea.

Giving that rat bastard a burial at sea makes no sense - unless you want everyone to think he's dead.
posted by three blind mice at 12:20 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


I remember exactly where I was. I was sitting in the basement at my parent's house. I heard Obama was going to make a statement, so I turned on the TV and watched. It wasn't any huge deal in my house (although my mom was oddly pumped.), but it was a huge, huge deal at my school. Big military sort of crowd.

It really depends where you are and what you're surroundings are in terms of how important an event that was. To me and most other people jaded or opposed to the war on terror, it didn't matter. To a good chunk of my schoolmates and neighbors, many of whom either will be joining the military, have been in the military or have a close family member in the military, it was an important symbol that their sacrifices were worthwhile, at least a little bit. It's kinda facile, sure, but it's not nothing to them.
posted by neonrev at 12:23 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


That "it's hard to overstate the impact" statement is more than a bit of a rhetorical stretch. Here are the points that Mahler makes in favor of that observation. (1) From a purely practical standpoint, it enabled Obama to recast himself as a bold leader, as opposed to an overly cautious one. Except that the people he was trying to convince he was bold have continued, down to the last year of his presidency, to cast him as both helplessly ineffectual and at the same time dictatorially overweening, the critics always trying to have it both ways. The killing of bin Laden had no appreciable impact on that noise other than for a few months. Obama's approval has never been above 50% since the killing of bin Laden other than for a short period after the killing of bin Laden and for the first month or so after the re-election. (2) This had an undeniable impact on the outcome of that [2012] election. It had basically nil impact on the 2012 election, other than as background noise. I don't recall bin Laden featuring as a major talking point in the election at all. Who else does? What I remember is "47%" and all the refutations thereof, not bin Laden. (3) Strategically, the death of bin Laden allowed Obama to declare victory over Al Qaeda, giving him the cover he needed to begin phasing U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Except that he just announced recently that troops will stay in Afghanistan. (4) And it almost single-handedly redeemed the C.I.A., turning a decade-long failure of intelligence into one of the greatest triumphs in the history of the agency. This assertion is so laughable it's not even worth responding to. CIA triumph and redemption? Has this dude never heard of the Snowden revelations?
posted by blucevalo at 12:24 PM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


I find the official story just so incredible. Burial at sea is a honor. Neil Armstrong was buried at sea.

Giving that rat bastard a burial at sea makes no sense - unless you want everyone to think he's dead.


Burial at Sea is not in accordance with Islamic burial tradition, it is totally not an honor for him.

Also, burying him on land anywhere would create a pilgrimage site for him as a martyr. Easier to dump his ass in the water and let the fishes deal with him.
posted by neonrev at 12:25 PM on October 21, 2015 [8 favorites]


I'm still not convinced that the guy killed in the raid was even Bin Laden, and not a replacement double following the real one's death from natural causes years ago.

It was actually his good twin, Amaso Bin Laden.
posted by bgal81 at 12:31 PM on October 21, 2015 [10 favorites]


Yeah, many think the same thing about the fall of the twin towers, the Kennedy assassination, vaccinations, the moon landing, and the Reptilioids. All hail the many!

Uhh, two of those things are not like the other. If you understand WTC-7 thoroughly I can't comprehend how you wouldn't have serious doubts about 9/11. People who use Kennedy's incredibly mysterious fucking-sealed-up-for-decades death as an example of a "goofy conspiracy theory" make me facepalm sooooo hard. And c'mon, WTC-7. Seriously
posted by aydeejones at 12:35 PM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


What's important is the symbol that was OBL was killed and discarded in a way that zealots couldn't find a way to reclaim him. I'm not exactly America's Biggest Fan, but this seemed to have mostly accomplished its goal.

None of this military jizz puddle matters because the zealots just shrugged their shoulders and continued on with ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/whatever. And that didn't even have to be a goal because the military already knows that's how it works.
posted by rhizome at 12:36 PM on October 21, 2015


The fact is, we always have been insulated from the truth by various levels of indirection and misdirection. Truth doesn't actually exist; it's always been a construction, an approximation to describe the world in a way that is useful to us.

Bull-fucking-shit. Truth is real, it just gets covered up, and then pardon me, useful crows crow about how important is to recognize that truth is not real.
posted by aydeejones at 12:37 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


and the danger of discovery would be too high

That's why bodies get disposed of in oceans.
posted by aydeejones at 12:38 PM on October 21, 2015


really? i don't remember it as important. it was footnote, long after the main story.

All it really did was serve as a sick burn on dumb-ass birther Donald J. Trump during a press dinner, who is leading polls of "dumb-ass people who are dumber than hammered shit" today.
posted by aydeejones at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm still not convinced that the guy killed in the raid was even Bin Laden ...

We should demand to see his long form birth certificate.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:40 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


People that conflate every conspiracy theory (you know, the thing our government has been doing far before MK-ULTRA and the Tuskeegee experiments) with reptoids are just as useful as the people who actually believe in reptoids at discrediting plausible explanations for what really is going on. Sy Hersh gets a lot of shit and I wish he would bat higher after the amazing My Lai work.
posted by aydeejones at 12:41 PM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


Giving that rat bastard a burial at sea makes no sense - unless you want everyone to think he's dead.

It's also probably one of the best ways to dispose of a body for good, especially if you weigh it down. And by probably I mean "absolutely"
posted by aydeejones at 12:42 PM on October 21, 2015


I think Oswald killed Kennedy and went after him on his own AND I think there was a whole lot of other shadiness surrounding his assassination.
posted by bgal81 at 12:48 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


If you understand WTC-7 thoroughly I can't comprehend how you wouldn't have serious doubts about 9/11

Conversely, if you thoroughly understand structural and fire engineering, you'd find the NIST report pretty convincing, the collapse ultimately unsurprising, and have no particular doubts about 9/11.
posted by aramaic at 12:49 PM on October 21, 2015 [46 favorites]


Uhh, two of those things are not like the other. If you understand WTC-7 thoroughly I can't comprehend how you wouldn't have serious doubts about 9/11. People who use Kennedy's incredibly mysterious fucking-sealed-up-for-decades death as an example of a "goofy conspiracy theory" make me facepalm sooooo hard. And c'mon, WTC-7. Seriously

Mmmmm, yeah, that's the good shit right there. It's missing the "Wake up, sheeple!" at the end, though, so I just appended it in my head.
posted by protocoach at 12:51 PM on October 21, 2015 [21 favorites]


As the article notes, "There’s simply no reason to expect the whole truth from the government about the killing of bin Laden." The key word there is whole. I see very little reason to doubt that OBL is dead and that his death was due to the raid.

However, there are plenty of reasons for the government to alter the story: to protect sources and governments. You get something of the blind men and the elephant syndrome. Take the issue of Pakistan being aware of either the raid or of OBL's presence; both could exist in a Schrodinger's cat-like state. A very small minority might have been aware of either. Information is compartmentalized, especially high-value or high-risk information. The idea that there as either/or situation, a One True Story, seems unlikely to me.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:54 PM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


The real Osama bin Laden has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:55 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


I thought these folks had pike-cams.
posted by clavdivs at 12:56 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


from that n+1 article: "THE KEY DIFFERENCE between Hersh’s and Obama’s accounts of the bin Laden raid is that in the President’s version, everything went according to plan. "

That seems like an odd assertion given the fact that an aspect of the "official" story and everyone else's version includes a very-much-unplanned helicopter crash and later detonation.

And to use the Dark Alliance series as a touchstone is probably right for the wrong reasons. Webb's fantastic story, based on some kernels of nuanced truth, are about as believable as Hersh's account. Not to derail.

Good for Mark Bowden for rebutting this crappy article by Mahler. Mahler's article leaves holes wide open for someone to drive a conspiracy in the opposite direction. Hersh doesn't want to talk to anyone about his LRB article anymore, he's been turning down people left and right and he's cranky as hell about it. But somehow Mahler gets him to spend a day with him and coincidentally Mahler's article ends up supporting Hersh's view that Bowden and the vast majority of the rest of the world got played by a conspiracy to promulgate lies about the death of OBL. Hmmm... something's fishy there. ;-)

I do hope someday we identify the brain malfunction that makes some humans see the image of long-dead rabbis on burnt toast and a conspiracy behind every world event. There are enough real mysteries to solve here on Earth without inventing new ones. Could the people convinced that WTC-7 was a demolition and the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders were actually just the work of child actors expend their (by their own accounts) massive intellects figuring out how to prevent all pancreatic cancer or developing new environmentally safe energy sources?
posted by Cassford at 12:58 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


protocoach:
Mmmmm, yeah, that's the good shit right there. It's missing the "Wake up, sheeple!" at the end, though, so I just appended it in my head.


Just goes to show how good of a job the mass media has done with equating anyone who questions an authority's official version of an event with moonbat conspiracy theorists who think that bubblegum is a communist plot.
posted by dr_dank at 12:59 PM on October 21, 2015 [7 favorites]


> moonbat conspiracy theorists who think that bubblegum is a communist plot.

Heh, yeah, those guys are crazy. you'd have to be a total moonbat to believe that bubblegum is a communist plot. how would that even work? bubblegum, a commie plot. Heee, that's a good one.

NO YOU DO NOT NEED TO SEE WHAT IS IN MY SHED YES IT IS SUSPICIOUSLY PINK AND STRETCHY IN THERE BUT YOU DO NOT NEED TO INVESTIGATE HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY THE WEATHER IS NICE ISN'T IT OH LOOK AT THE TIME YOU SHOULD GET GOING NO REALLY I INSIST.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:07 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


This felt like a cop-out to [Seymour Hersh]

Aaaaannnd that's where I stopped reading.

Hersh rightfully won a Pulitzer and then shortly afterward turned into your drunk uncle.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:07 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


The official story has the great advantage that Bin Laden really seems to be dead. He doesn't post speeches online, and Al Qaida seems to have lost influence. (it's only stupid racists who think Al Qaida and IS are the same thing). And from this point of view, who cares?
What we should be worrying about, in my view, is that while Bin Laden and Al Qaida is mostly gone, Saudi and Pakistani sponsored terrorism is much alive and kicking. And that the Hersh article actually supports the idea that Pakistani officials are our friends, in spite of all evidence and logic.
posted by mumimor at 1:08 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just goes to show how good of a job the mass media has done with equating anyone who questions an authority's official version of an event with moonbat conspiracy theorists who think that bubblegum is a communist plot.

"Suggests the United States government blew up an office building in New York and faked a terrorist attack to justify an illegal war" == "questions an authority's official version of an event". Right. Ok.
posted by protocoach at 1:09 PM on October 21, 2015 [12 favorites]


who think that bubblegum is a communist plot.

I for one do not intend to sleep by the light of a bubblicious moon.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:13 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


This thread is one of the weirdest I've ever seen on the blue.
posted by deadwax at 1:15 PM on October 21, 2015 [18 favorites]


I will not welcome the new Bubblegum Overlords.
posted by achrise at 1:15 PM on October 21, 2015


The official story has the great advantage that Bin Laden really seems to be dead. He doesn't post speeches online, and Al Qaida seems to have lost influence.

There's this book by Joseph Heywood where Hitler survives WW2, Stalin (who's no fool) suspects he's not dead, he has his agents hunt Adolph down, capture him, and Stalin keeps him in alive in a cage so he can torture him every day.

Such a scenario would also explain Bin Laden's lack of on-line presence, but the U.S. government would never do anything like that, lock people away for a lifetime in a secret prison. It would be absolutely unthinkable.
posted by three blind mice at 1:25 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


I don't think it's necessarily useful information to know whether or not Bush's pooh poohing of the "OBL determined to attack US" memo was because Bush/Cheney weren't smart enough for the job they were doing, or if they thought they'd benefit from running a "let it happen on purpose" strategy, or what. But I'm sort of a conspiracy-agnostic, at least as far as other peoples' conspiracies go — I assume that anything that happens with regard to war and international relations is vastly more complex and vastly more secretive than anything that gets reported in the press. If I want to know exactly what happened on 9/11 (or with the assassinations of the 1960s) I'd probably have to get a time machine and travel forward a hundred years or so, to when more documents are declassified and all of the main players are dead. Well, unless of course Cheney gets gradually turned into an immortal machine overlord, in which case all bets are off and may the absence of God have mercy on our absence of souls.

I mean, we know that Fred Hampton was gunned down in his bed by cops acting under the orders of the FBI, thanks to Chicago police ineptitude and the lucky breakin that revealed COINTELPRO. but in most cases, unless someone badly screws up somewhere, we have to accept that we won't ever know anything for sure.

Basically my takeaway really is that we should stop theorizing other people's conspiracies and start practicing our own.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:28 PM on October 21, 2015 [11 favorites]


Or maybe they shrunk him down and keep him in a tiny bottle.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:29 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


This thread is one of the weirdest I've ever seen on the blue.

mission accomplished. awaiting further orders.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:30 PM on October 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


whoops sorry meant to send that as a text instead of posting it to mefi!!!
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:37 PM on October 21, 2015 [11 favorites]


0-2-5-8-8. 0-2-5-9-8. 0-2-6-8-8. 0-2-4-8-8.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:39 PM on October 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


You'll probably want to use the contact form to ask a mod to eliminate that comment and assist you with extraction and handling any potential witnesses.
posted by frimble at 1:40 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


more like october revolution surprise amirite?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:41 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


octobersurprise: you can clear off some room in that transmission by pushing the 8s together to make a 32 and a 16. I have no idea what you're going to do with those 5s, 6s, and 9s, though.

also, remember to keep the highest numbers in your transmission in a corner. it's way easier that way.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:55 PM on October 21, 2015


nobody puts 8487 in a corner
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:57 PM on October 21, 2015 [9 favorites]


mattdidthat: Personally, I'm more concerned about the spread of Chewels.

An old colleague of mine dubbed Chewels "cum gum". A selling point, if I've ever heard one.
posted by dr_dank at 2:09 PM on October 21, 2015


C'mon, it's pretty clear to everyone involved that "OBL" was really Elvis in disguise, and reptoid simulants killed him to stop him from helping Lee Harvey Oswald release a 2017 Christmas album which, when played backward, would immanentize the eschaton.

I believe you're thinking of Osama Bing Crosby. Not to worry, they're easily confused.
posted by XMLicious at 2:20 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just goes to show how good of a job the mass media has done with equating anyone who questions an authority's official version of an event with moonbat conspiracy theorists who think that bubblegum is a communist plot.

You got your wires crossed somewhere, the bubblegum thing was an anti-communist plot.
posted by rhizome at 2:32 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


not mentioned in the NYTM piece, but noted elsewhere, is that another journalist independently backs up hersh's claims. and none other than NBC partially backs it
posted by p3on at 2:39 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


The Hersh version of events is actually a lot more comforting, in that the Pakistani government has enough control of the ISI and military to allow the raid to take place, and that our relationship with the Paks is still good enough to allow us to make such a deal.

You'd think if there was a support system inside of Pakistan capable of hiding OBL for several years that wasn't tied to the military or the government, we'd be a little bit curious about disrupting it, no?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:52 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't recall bin Laden featuring as a major talking point in the election at all. Who else does?

I think they got a good amount of mileage out of, "General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead."


But what they don't know is the real truth that GM was secretly sold to Pakistan in exchange for bin Laden's location. All new GM cars are built with ISI listening devices. You should coat the dashboard with tinfoil.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:41 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Fuck, shoulda just offered them AC Delco.
posted by clavdivs at 4:19 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


SEAL teams can't melt steel beams!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:22 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


p3on, actually that Intercept post you link to says "The Intercept cannot corroborate the reporting of either Hillhouse or Hersh, or their statements about the sources for their articles, nor can we rule out the possibility that Hersh’s sources based their beliefs on Hillhouse’s writing." So, that isn't what I'd call corroboration.

Also, vis a vis, NBC, the articles linked in do state that NBC at first corroborated the story of the "walk-in" and then later updated the story with "This story has been updated since it was first published. The original version of this story said that a Pakistani asset told the U.S. where bin Laden was hiding. Sources say that while the asset provided information vital to the hunt for bin Laden, he was not the source of his whereabouts." See the page on NBC's site.

Now, about the bubble gum conspiracy...as you probably know, bubble gum was invented by Walter Diemer nearly 90 years ago. he was an accountant for a chewing gum company who, supposedly, invented gum in his spare time. Sure, accountants are always inventing world-altering foodstuffs. If you believe that, you'll basically swallow anything (and an anything tree will grow in your tummy).
posted by Cassford at 4:32 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


People up in here acting like thinking it's possible that the US intelligence community pushed a misleading explanation of an assassination on foreign soil is at all equivalent to thinking the US government deliberately blew up three buildings, crashed 4 planes and killed thousands of Americans.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 5:04 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


SEAL teams can't melt steel beams!


Oh, wait- they totally can. I forgot they're all trained in underwater demolitions.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:06 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


shhhhh. fish don't really live in pants.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:13 PM on October 21, 2015


except in benghazi.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:15 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


p3on, actually that Intercept post you link to says "The Intercept cannot corroborate the reporting of either Hillhouse or Hersh, or their statements about the sources for their articles, nor can we rule out the possibility that Hersh’s sources based their beliefs on Hillhouse’s writing." So, that isn't what I'd call corroboration.

i was referring to hillhouse's reporting, not the intercept's; additionally hillhouse herself has stated that she believes her sources would not have spoken with hersh.
posted by p3on at 5:22 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


shhhhh. fish don't really live in pants.

That's just what Big Pants wants you to think.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:01 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hersh reams can't melt SEAL teams
posted by Anonymous at 6:09 PM on October 21, 2015


I'll go back to a comment that I made in the previous thread about Hersh's article (which this NYT article by Mahler tries to promote; Mark Bowden's rebuttal in VF, linked above, helps put it in perspective). If there's any conspiracy here, it's in the oddly-timed revival of this story, during an election cycle in which the second-most-prominent person in the Situation Room during the raid is poised to succeed the most prominent person, with the third-most-prominent person just having announced that he won't be running for president and the 2nd-MPP on the eve of possibly finally putting a politically-motivated investigation into another foreign incident to rest.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:15 PM on October 21, 2015


okay so is anyone else actually really pleased about how 9/11 to The Younger Generation is pretty much just an occasion to make "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" jokes? Like how that's the primary way they relate to it? I'm not sure exactly why that's pleasing to me. I guess it's just because I've never thought 9/11 really deserves its place in our national mythology — it's a shitty, shitty thing that happened, but massively worse things have happened to pretty much every country on Earth, including the U.S. itself, and almost all of the real damage wrought by the event was caused by our massive internal and external collective overreaction to it.

It's like the country got stung by a bee, and then as the result of an autoimmune disorder spent the next 10 years literally and metaphorically flailing around across the entire globe. "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams!" memes are a sign that the autoimmune overresponse is, maybe, finally over.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:16 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


OBL's death was more important and more meaningful to me than our long running campaigns of bombing the hell out of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even as a harsh death penalty opponent (who would have argued against capital punishment had OBL been captured alive), I was exhilarated to be alive to hear that fucker was gone from the Earth. (But I have a strong vengeful streak and knew someone killed on one of the planes.)
posted by sallybrown at 6:21 PM on October 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


I am not able to say that the White House is correct or that Hersh is right. However, that OSL was living close to a big military installation, with a mansion that clearly would raise questions, suggests that Pakistan, at some level, was aware of his living there. After all, when we have gone after Taliban biggies, they flee Afghanistan and end up safely in Pakistan...our people know this but say little or nothing about it.
posted by Postroad at 7:09 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


never-ending War on Arabs and Islam that we launched immediately after the twin towers fell

Didn't launch it, just got re-involved in it.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:41 PM on October 21, 2015


okay so is anyone else actually really pleased about how 9/11 to The Younger Generation is pretty much just an occasion to make "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" jokes? Like how that's the primary way they relate to it? I'm not sure exactly why that's pleasing to me. I guess it's just because I've never thought 9/11 really deserves its place in our national mythology — it's a shitty, shitty thing that happened, but massively worse things have happened to pretty much every country on Earth, including the U.S. itself, and almost all of the real damage wrought by the event was caused by our massive internal and external collective overreaction to it.

It's like the country got stung by a bee, and then as the result of an autoimmune disorder spent the next 10 years literally and metaphorically flailing around across the entire globe. "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams!" memes are a sign that the autoimmune overresponse is, maybe, finally over.



Speaking as a member of what I assume you mean to be the "Younger Generation":

So I remember being ten years old at the time, and sitting in a classroom at the other end of the school my mother taught at when an intercom call to lock down the school came in. At the time that just meant locking the doors. We sat around for a little while until school was called off at noon or so and parents came to pick the kids up. I went to my mom's room, but she had to stay in the building for the rest of the day (as far as they knew at the moment.). She called my father and he came from his work to pick me and my younger sister up from school and take us home. I vividly, vividly remember looking at the sloppily cut, generic pink printer paper notice we got telling us that school was called off for the time being. I remember seeing my dad scared for the first time in my life. I remember traffic jams in my hometown of 25,000 for the first time (and last time) ever. I remember my mom hugging me and crying.

I lived in a small town in South Dakota, and I remember people not at all connected to what happened being terrified about it. We were entirely safe, but sacred stiff. I know a couple of people fucking wounded by our military reaction to it. Childhood friends. Fucking wounded.

I agree, our response was horrible. A crime. But fuck you to the ends of the earth for being happy that people joke about the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of our citizens and those abroad caused by that tragedy and our government's reaction to it. Seriously, fuck that shit in its entirety. It's an embarrassment. People on both sides died, more on the civilian side of the non-US side. It's a travesty. Any fucking jokes about it are fucking disgusting. I can't believe I have to say this here. Memes can't heal this shit.
posted by neonrev at 10:05 PM on October 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


It was the highest death toll for a single terrorist attack in history. It was broadcast live to the entire nation and world with images of spectacular destruction. Terrorism is designed to create terror and fear and panic. Mission Accomplished, the US reacted with terror, fear, and panic. I fought against that reaction to the degree I could, like in opposing the Iraq War, but a portion of the blame for that irrational reaction has to go to the people who intentionally provoked it. The deaths OBL is indirectly partially responsible for via that provocation dwarf the number of direct casualties on that day. So, yeah, I was very happy when I learned Osama bin Laden was killed even though I would have preferred capture. I'm glad they made a capture attempt. They should do it more often with terrorist suspects.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:25 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Speaking as another member of the "Younger Generation" (just started 11th grade), I don't see the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" thing as a joke about 9/11, but about the asshole 9/11 conspiracy theorists who infuriate me beyond all reason. They get lumped in with Holocaust deniers in my brain. Making jokes at their expense is one of the few ways I can think about them without my brain exploding with rage.

I don't think 9/11 itself was funny. Not for its effects on me--there were largely none--but for all those who were hurt by the attacks. Both those in the attacks themselves, and the hundreds and hundreds of thousands (millions?) in the political aftermath. They allowed religious conservatives and hawks the political goodwill to set US politics down a course that still reverberates across the world today. There are beheaded children in Syria because of our response to those attacks. I don't find it funny and I don't think I ever will.

From what I've read al-Qaeda was already dead by the time bin Laden was killed. But I was happy when OBL died under Obama's watch because I hoped it would provide a spark of political capital to start turning the tide against the collective insanity that gripped a huge percentage of the electorate here. It didn't. If anything they dug in deeper.
posted by Anonymous at 10:30 PM on October 21, 2015


What if no one’s version could be trusted?

Isn't that the theme of Hamlet?
posted by not_on_display at 10:41 PM on October 21, 2015


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posted by Splunge at 11:28 PM on October 21, 2015


I'm bemused at people mocking the Kennedy thing when the CIA just came out and said they withheld information from the Warren Commission.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:14 AM on October 22, 2015 [6 favorites]


I'm much more concerned about the acceptance of this never-ending War on Arabs and Islam that we launched immediately after the twin towers fell.--b1tr0t

As always, in the Middle East, it is much more complicated than that. What we did was launch a war against Iraq, a secular government, which, by the way, was mostly hated by Al Qaida for being secular. We left a lot of Sunni military officers miserable and out of work. Hey, ISIS is mostly a Sunni organization (which is why they are enemies of Iran), and well organized militarily...hmm. So who is it we are at war with again? Who do we support? Are we for the Muslim Kurds or the secular Turks, or both, even though they hate each other? Are we against the secular Syrian government and in favor of the Muslim rebels? It isn't nearly as simple as you see it.
posted by eye of newt at 12:22 AM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are we for the Muslim Kurds or the secular Turks, or both, even though they hate each other?

Wait, I thought we we for the secular Kurds and against the fundamentalist Turks?

I haven't a clue who I'm supposed to like in Syria.

(Your point exactly I think.)
posted by neonrev at 12:48 AM on October 22, 2015


sometimes a terrorist is just a terrorist...
posted by judson at 12:36 PM on October 22, 2015


2 minute clip of interview with retired Admiral William McRaven, who planned and oversaw the raid, on Charlie Rose last night. The full episode (Season 24, Episode 224) will presumably show up on the show's site.
posted by XMLicious at 9:32 AM on October 30, 2015




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