By L. Boshuyzen
Eastern Afghanistan (Jan. 14, 2002) Credit: U.S. Navy
It
was on the 21st of May this year, loosely four years after the United States
Navy SEALS single-handedly and without informing any Pakistani officials flew
into Abbottabad, took down Osama bin Laden and buried him at sea according to
Islamic tradition, that Seymour M. Hersh published an article in the London
Review of Books stating that much of this were “blatant lies”. Quite a bold
statement—but not new for Hersh, who in 1970 won a Pulitzer Prize for his
exclusive disclosure of the Vietnam War tragedy at the hamlet of My Lai and 35
years later exposed the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Not unlike the articles
previously mentioned, this article provoked controversy, governmental denial
and accusations of ‘conspiracy theory’ but it is not sure if his most recent
exposé will be included in this list of highly acclaimed articles. Not
uninterestingly, all articles Hersh is most heralded for were published in the
New York Times. This time round the newspaper told Hersh that his bin Laden
story wasn’t quite ready for print yet –aka in need of more research, but
instead of continuing the investigation that stretched over several years
already Hersh published the article in London Review of Books instead.
And does Hersh really make statements that
his sourcing leaves us to believe on a leap of faith? The tricky part is, that
like all journalists Hersh also needs to make sure not to compromise his
sources. And this becomes difficult—with major claims are made by anonymous
sources, in this case on the USA side a retired American intelligence official’
the incentives of this source remain unclear. Also the sheer number of sources,
Hersh only identifies one American, and a few Pakistani sources, are not the
ample evidence that readers would like to be persuaded with. But the same
scrutiny needs to be applied towards the US government, who do not offer much
proof. Were Pakistani military officials informed about the mission? It is hard
to refute Hersh for making this claim if we take a look at improbability that
the sophisticated Pakistani secret service (ISI) and their technology wouldn’t
have noticed the helicopters coming in and one crashing in the backyard. And
then there’s the account of the villagers that lived near Abbottabad, claiming
that the local police instructed them to stay in and not talk to any
journalists.
Still, in all of his major claims, there is
a robust narrative but sourcing remains thin. He does mention Robert Gates’
memoir and refer to a few external sources. But the major claims are all
shrouded by anonymity. That the ISI and not the CIA’s own intelligence provided
the whereabouts of Osama takes it a step further, and would discredit the CIA
of its most victorious moment of the decade. Some point to leaked documents to
disprove Hersh’s statements about the CIA’s ignorance of Bin Laden’s
whereabouts, and why Hersh wouldn’t have been able to substantiate his story
with some documents remains an unanswered question. Especially as Hersh points
exactly to this as a weak point in relation to the burial, claiming that there
is no proof the traditional burial at sea even took place. What it in the
end of the day all seems to come down to is trust—trust in Hersh’s legacy and
intuition and trust in the fact-checkers of London Review of Books. Not only
the incentives of anonymous sources should be taken into account, but also the
reasons of journalists to take a certain stance. And self-evidently the same
goes for the government. And when it comes to refutation of the official story,
it seems that Hersh isn’t the only one who finds that the puzzle pieces didn’t
fit together. Read Mahler’s take on Hersh’s piece- a thoughtful background
story and critical evaluation of its sources that was published in the New York
Times here.
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