Osama Bin Laden is dead.

[TenEightyOne]

Is it a beautiful lie or an ugly truth?

Both... but the actual balance is hard to ascertain

 

[prisonermonkeys]

He wouldn't last long on GTPlanet for sure

Clearly - if the compound was indeed being used to hold bin Laden captive, the first thing everyone here would do is ask Guy Pearce about it.

 

[niky]

One thing's for sure: He could give Tom Clancy a run for his money in terms of book writing.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

It's not hard. Clancy peaked early in his career.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistanis-knew-where-bin-laden-was-say-us-sources-n357306

NBC news confirms Pakistan told US where it was keeping OBL.

 

[Tornado]

It always seemed like it was kind of assumed that Pakistan knew he was there anyway.

 

[Dotini]

It always seemed like it was kind of assumed that Pakistan knew he was there anyway.

That seems pretty obvious now.

But the US administration, news media and Hollywood like to paint a different picture, a more useful lie.

 

[Dotini]

Support from several sources for Hersh's controversial assertions:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-uncomfortable-mystery-behind-osama-142900306.html

I've been following Hersh since his reportage of the My Lai massacre. He had more credibility than the US government then, and I trust that he does so now.

Nixon lied about Watergate.
Reagan lied about Iran-Contra.
GW Bush lied about Iraq WMD.
Obama lied about keeping your insurance.

These are just a few examples of Presidents lying. I'm not saying their lies are without their reasons, their utility or necessity in the minds of the liars. Just that they are proven liars.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Support from several sources for Hersh's controversial assertions:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-uncomfortable-mystery-behind-osama-142900306.html

I've been following Hersh since his reportage of the My Lai massacre. He had more credibility than the US government then, and I trust that he does so now.

Nixon lied about Watergate.
Reagan lied about Iran-Contra.
GW Bush lied about Iraq WMD.
Obama lied about keeping your insurance.

These are just a few examples of Presidents lying. I'm not saying their lies are without their reasons, their utility or necessity in the minds of the liars. Just that they are proven liars.

Umm... No, he really didn't. It was Saddam's friends in the Kremlin and Beijing that kept the UN circus in New York long enough for him to smuggle those weapons out of Iraq and into Syria. Granted, we will never know the truth about Saddam's WMDs, but this idiot called Hersh can't conclusively say that Bush lied about the WMD's when nuclear inspectors couldn't have inspected the country at least a few years before the US attack.

 

[Furinkazen]

Umm... No, he really didn't. It was Saddam's friends in the Kremlin and Beijing that kept the UN circus in New York long enough for him to smuggle those weapons out of Iraq and into Syria. Granted, we will never know the truth about Saddam's WMDs, but this idiot called Hersh can't conclusively say that Bush lied about the WMD's when nuclear inspectors couldn't have inspected the country at least a few years before the US attack.

Saddam didn't have any WMDs to begin with. If someones also going to invade you, you don't just get rid of your weapons that could defeat your enemies and pack them off to Syria.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Saddam didn't have any WMDs to begin with. If someones also going to invade you, you don't just get rid of your weapons that could defeat your enemies and pack them off to Syria.

You do if you intend to create an impression they were never there, hence the left's calling card. Regardless, the fact of the matter is taking out Iraq created a pincer attack on Iran should they actually moved forward on weapons development, something that actually happened. Their well-timed aggression on the Strait of Hormuz was no accident. It told the world that we will attack.

 

[squadops]

Saddam definitely had a good amount of WMDs, his nuclear work was not near completion but chemical weapons are a different story. He waged chemical warfare against Iran in the 80's, and against his own people twice in the late 80's and early 90's. I'm not talking about just a little bit either, he was making more than one kind and trying to advance beyond the battle field with warheads containing anthrax and botulism near the end of the Iran war.

It would not surprise me at all if some of that stuff ended up in Syria, weren't they found using chemicals against their own people also?

I don't think the existence of WMDs was needed to justify war against Iraq anyway, the U.S. should have finished the job during the first gulf war when Saddam invaded Kuwait. The environment would have been more conducive of democracy at that time, before the various jihadist groups gained a foothold as they have today. There would not have been near the amount of political backlash, and we might have improved relations with Iran.

Of all the woulda coulda shoulda, things could have been handled much better as hind sight is always 20/20 but this 'liar liar' deal is simply not accurate.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Saddam definitely had a good amount of WMDs, his nuclear work was not near completion but chemical weapons are a different story. He waged chemical warfare against Iran in the 80's, and against his own people twice in the late 80's and early 90's. I'm not talking about just a little bit either, he was making more than one kind and trying to advance beyond the battle field with warheads containing anthrax and botulism near the end of the Iran war.

These are bio-weapons though, they have a definite shelf life. If Saddam did indeed have "a good amount of WMDs" then a) Why weren't viable WMDs ever found and b) Why did the very governments who went to war on the WMD premise say that they never found any?

It would not surprise me at all if some of that stuff ended up in Syria, weren't they found using chemicals against their own people also?

While it's possible (and even likely) that Syria and Iraq collaborated on various programs there's no reason to think that Syria had neither the funds nor wherewithal to create their own bio-weapons. Why go to the trouble/risk of moving Iraq's elderly, unstable casings?

I don't think the existence of WMDs was needed to justify war against Iraq anyway, the U.S. should have finished the job during the first gulf war when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Perhaps so (UN 1441 gives a number of reasons including the existence of other weaponry) but the 48-hour WMD claim was the one that USUK used to justify quick action.

the U.S. should have finished the job during the first gulf war when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

No, that wasn't "the job".

The environment would have been more conducive of democracy at that time, before the various jihadist groups gained a foothold as they have today.

Really? Are you sure about that? Saddam was one of those who tried to suppress Taliban influence across the region. Interestingly it was the US ally who recognised the Taliban on a diplomatic level, not Iraq.

There would not have been near the amount of political backlash, and we might have improved relations with Iran.

I'm not sure that measuring a war in terms of the amount of Conservative froth generated ten years later is really meaningful. Taking Saddam out in the early 90s would have destabilised the region just as much as it did when they finally did so.

Iran has also changed in that time (just as the world has changed economically, politically and militarily). I don't think the kind of discussions that are ongoing now would have gained any foothold 25 years ago.

but this 'liar liar' deal is simply not accurate.

So why did Blair/Bush say there were no weapons? If they'd continued to maintain that the WMDs existed then that would be the lie and in their favour, no?

Where were the refinement/continuation programs that would have supported USUK's reasoning for war? Where were the transports equipped for moving the devices? As Blix cautioned, the potential for the program existing didn't mean that it continued to exist through the 90s and beyond.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/207753/lessons-thinnest-seymour-hershs-thinly-sourced-claims

Almost singlehandedly, Hersh uncovered the secret conspiracy of the bombing of Cambodia.

 

[Dotini]

BBC interviews Hersh on Bin Laden.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33152315

 

[Dotini]

http://www.alternet.org/world/exclu...-oil-money-bribes-and-killing-osama-bin-laden

Ken Klippenstein: In the book you describe Saudi financial support for the compound in which Osama Bin Laden was being kept in Pakistan. Was that Saudi government officials, private individuals or both?

Seymour Hersh: The Saudis bribed the Pakistanis not to tell us [that the Pakistani government had Bin Laden] because they didn’t want us interrogating Bin Laden (that’s my best guess), because he would’ve talked to us, probably. My guess is, we don’t know anything really about 9/11. We just don’t know. We don’t know what role was played by whom.

KK: So you don’t know if the hush money was from the Saudi government or private individuals?

SH: The money was from the government … what the Saudis were doing, so I’ve been told, by reasonable people (I haven’t written this) is that they were also passing along tankers of oil for the Pakistanis to resell. That’s really a lot of money.