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Friday, May 13, 2016

In Search of Unicorns

The Killing of Osama Bin Laden – Seymour M. Hersh (Verso Books)

Merriam-Webster define journalist as: “a writer or editor for a news medium”. I would tend toward including the fact that a journalist is a dogged pursuer of the truth

Aside from Watergate duo Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, perhaps no man alive has been lauded more for being a journalist than Seymour Hersh, Sy to his friends. While so many praise Hersh for being a dogged seeker of the truth, I hate to burst the bubble and break the news that this guy is at best a liberal opinion-ist and at worst out right delusional.
 
The Killing of Osama Bin Laden is so larded down with un-named “sources” and so chock full of convoluted conspiracy theories it will make your head spin. Hersh goes so far as to create a mythical unicorn;  “moderate Taliban” members who are apparently on the side of the United States. Show of hands…anyone buying that one?

Early in the book Hersh lays claim to quoting a former Navy SEAL commander as saying, “let’s face it, we’re going to commit murder.” Sorry, but NO, and I mean NO Navy SEAL commander would have said, that in battle they are committing murder!

The problem with this, and most conspiracy theories is they fall apart, collapse under the sheer weight of the number of people involved standing up to any level of scrutiny.

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