As you are surely aware Seth Rich has made the headlines again. As a reminder, Seth Rich was the DNC staffer that was murdered last year and many people believe that he was the source for the DNC leak. The case has completely stalled and there hasn't been much development since last May, when Sean Hannity was pushing the case hard.
The story had faded into the background but exploded again today. An NPR report shows that one of the bit players in the drama, Rod Wheeler, a PI hired by the Rich family is suing Fox News for putting words into his mouth. The lawsuit though is largely irrelevant. If anything it doesn't disprove the idea that Rich was the leaker or the idea that he was murdered because of that fact. It does make both Rod Wheeler and Fox News look like tools, but mostly it's just a run of the mill case of a guy getting pissed that words were being put into his mouth and that he wasn't getting the attention he feels he deserves.
The media frenzy over the NPR report has largely overshadowed by other developments. Two audio tapes were leaked. The first one was of Rod Wheeler discussing the Seth Rich case and he claimed that the FBI had proof that Seth Rich had e-mailed Wikileaks. In the second one, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh claiming that Rich was the source of the DNC Leaks.
Normally those two unsourced audio clips wouldn't mean much at all. But here is the thing. Wikileaks itself has tweeted out both of those videos.
I have always said that without Wikileaks pushing the story, nobody would think that Seth Rich was the DNC leaker. But this is only the latest example of Wikileaks pushing the theory. Almost a year ago Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich. There is also this clip where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange all but admitted, unprompted, that Seth Rich was his source.
None of this is proof that Seth Rich was the DNC leaker. But it is proof that Wikileaks either thinks he was or is trying to make everyone think that he was. In my original post on the subject, I speculated that Assange was either trying to protect a source, was mistaken about who is source actually was or that Rich was their source and they want to get to the bottom of the murder.
What do I think? I think there is a fair chance that Rich really was the leaker. That doesn't mean that he was killed for it. Indeed, there is some evidence that goes against the hitman theory, most notably that Rich died in the hospital and not on the street. Any hitman worth his salt would have made sure that he was dead before leaving the scene, unless he has been sacred off.
Still, I base that mostly on the fact that Wikileaks is pushing the story. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Wikileaks will not clamp down on the speculation either way. All they need to do is confirm or deny that Rich was their source. Doing so would either prove the Seth Rich case to be a conspiracy theory or a true story. I call on them to release that information as soon as possible. I know that they have a policy of never revealing sources, but in this case there really needs to be an exception.
Osama Bin Laden. Wikimedia Commons/canadafreepress.com
Seymour Hersh, the man that broke the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib stories, has accused the Obama administration of lying about the death of Osama Bin Laden. London Review of Books. Hersh claims that Pakistan always knew of Bin Laden's location and essentially traded him for a resumption of military aid. Bin Laden was essentially under house arrest and was being guarded by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI). Hersh also claims that the story about how Bin Laden was found was a total fabrication as well. Instead of finding his courier, Hersh claims that a Pakistani turncoat walked into the CIA station chief's post in Islamabad and turned over Bin Laden in exchange for the $25 million dollar reward.
The raid that killed Bin Laden was done with full knowledge of the Pakistani Military and the ISI. The original plan was to claim that Bin Laden was killed in a drone strike, but that fell apart when one of the helicopters crashed, necessitating a new cover story. Hersh also claims that Bin Laden's body was not buried at sea, but was instead thrown out of the helicopter due to the fact that it was mostly destroyed in the raid. Hersh has received criticism for his use of confidential sources in this and other stories but a high ranking general from the Pakistani Military went on the record to confirm the story.
My Comment:
I've talked about Hersh before. Last year he released devastating report about the U.S. role in the Syrian conflict and what really happened during the terror attack at Benghazi. That report, among other things, claimed that the CIA station in Benghazi was a front for an arms smuggling ring to supply weapons for the rebels in Syria and that Turkey gave chemical weapons to the Al-Nusra front in Syria for a false flag operation. Hersh got scathing criticism for his use of anonymous sources back then, just like he is getting now. Though in both cases I think Hersh, despite his lack of check-able sources, got closer to the truth then the mainstream media likes to admit.
The fact of the matter is that you aren't going to find to many people that would go on the record about these kinds of things. Given how the Obama administration treats people who talk to the media about classified secrets, talking about the death of Bin Laden on the record would be at the very least a career killer. More likely it would result in a prosecution and some serious prison time. The mainstream media, which seems incapable of cultivating their own sources, have to rely on the government for comment. And you know they aren't going to fess up to any wrong doing.
So is the story credible? Some parts ring true for me and others do not. I always assumed that the government was lying about not having permission from Pakistan for the raid. It never made any sense to me because of course the Pakistanis would shoot down or at least intercept the helicopters. With the twin threat of terrorism and war with India, they would take any unidentified aircraft entering their airspace would have drawn some kind of response. Sure, the initial helicopters were stealthy, but the Chinooks they sent in as reinforcements would have been picked up on radar.
I also think that the fact that there wasn't a major firefight from the police and soldiers responding to reports of a helicopter crash and gunfire shows pretty clearly that the Pakistanis knew what was happening. I don't know how competent the Pakistani police but even the most incompetent police force in the world would respond to a helicopter crash and reports of shooting. They might not have gotten into a firefight with the Navy Seals but they would have approached the crash site to see what was going on within minutes. The fact that they didn't tells me that they were told to stand down.
As for the claims about a walk-in agent at the CIA station in Islamabad, I have no idea. Frankly, the idea that the CIA would use a cover story that involved faking vaccinations and finding couriers through torture seems stupid. I understand the need to protect sources but you would think that they would try to make up a story that made them look good. Still, stupid things happen all the time, so either story is at least plausible.
One thing I don't believe is the claim that there wasn't enough of Bin Laden left to bury. That just doesn't happen with small arms fire. Even if the Navy Seals unloaded a whole magazine into Bin Laden, his body would be mostly intact. For that kind of destruction, you need either heavy weapons or a bunch of guys shooting at him at the same time. Navy Seals are known for fire discipline, and would not waste ammo wantonly, even on a scumbag like Bin Laden.
But it also seems clear to me that Bin Laden probably never made it to the USS Carl Vinson. Nobody has leaked any photos of the burial and nobody has really talked about what happened. The amount of censorship and secrecy around the burial tells me that it probably didn't happen like the officials claimed. I do think it is probably completely untrue that they threw pieces of him outside of the helicopter that was carrying him. My guess is that they put him on ice afterwards before they decided what to do with him.
So will this story have an impact? My guess is that it won't matter all that much. Seymour Hersh is a respected journalist but when he relies so much on unnamed sources it is easy to dismiss what he says, even if he is 100% right. I'm thinking this story will go the way of his Benghazi story. Already some news outlets are trying their best to debunk it, and others are defending but it's all speculation because since they don't have any sources of their own. Even if it is true, it probably won't be believed and it really can't be proven at this point. What we need is another Edward Snowden to release some data but I doubt anyone would do that over the death of Bin Laden...
I think that much of Hersh's story is probably true, or at least is more true then what we have been told about the death of Bin Laden. But some of it is probably false as well. And there is no way at this point for us to tell what is real and what isn't, short of his sources coming forward and going on the record. That's not going to happen so this will probably just end up as a footnote in history until the files on Bin Laden's death are released, probably long after everyone reading this is dead...
The victims of the Benghazi attack return home -AP
The attack on the consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya resulted in hundreds of articles and opinion pieces, the vast majority of which were politically motivated. Even today conservatives and liberals are arguing about who was responsible for what and whether or not Obama handled it correctly. Some of this reporting was important. The fact that the maker of a terrible movie, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, spent time in jail over this is a serious 1st amendment issue. Whether or not there was a stand down order and whether or not the attacks were motivated by The Innocence of Muslims are also relevant. But many, perhaps more important questions have largely been unasked and unanswered.
Most of you probably know the story of Benghazi by now but just in case I will recap it again. After the brief civil war where Muamarr Gaddafi was overthrown the United States established a consulate in Benghazi Libya. The Ambassador to Libya, Christoper Stevens, by all accounts beloved and very effective in his job, was visiting the consulate on 9/11/12 when it came under attack but militants. In the ensuing battle Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith died after the compound was lit ablaze by the militants.
Hours later a second compound came under attack in the same city. A CIA annex, the purpose of which has never been publicly revealed was assaulted by more militants. In a destructive and intense battle two more U.S. Citizens were killed, former Navy Seals and current CIA officers Glen Dohrety and Tyrone S. Woods, and an undetermined number of people were wounded. Dohrety and Woods were killed in a mortar strike while they were providing overwatch on the roof of the CIA annex.
In the aftermath of the attack there was an insane rush to blame or defend the president. Questions were asked about what motivated the terrorists, could help have arrived in time, was it the fault of a stupid video, was there a cover up and eventually what does it even matter? But very few people asked why the CIA was there in the first place. Amazingly the CIA annex was revealed accidentally in a session of congress. Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz objected to a satellite image (warning, biased source, but it was the best i could find) revealing that there was a second compound that had been attacked. Until this point it was not known that the two former Navy Seals had been killed at this secret facility.
Still, very few people noticed or questioned the existence of a second instillation in Benghazi. All the focus was on either smearing or defending Obama. Nobody ever seemed to ask why there was a CIA facility there and what they were doing. Such questions were politically inappropriate and given how classified the CIA annex was very few people know the truth. But the CIA annex will have far more of an impact then anyone gave it credit for. It's a story of backhanded politics, global warfare, gun running, terrorism and, worst of all, secrecy.
What was the purpose of the CIA annex? It has to do with so called MANPADS (man portable air defense system), specifically Libyan SA-7's. After the fall of Gaddafi the massive amount of military equipment, including MANPADS were left unsecured. This was a huge problem. MANPADS are specifically designed to destroy airplanes and if they were to fall into the wrong hands it would be the perfect terrorist weapon. Part of the CIA operation was to collect these weapons and control them. And if that was all that had happened it would have been fine. But it has been accused of being far more than that.
Syrian Rebels fire a SA-7 at a Helicopter
Seymour Hersh, famed journalist who exposed the Mai Li massacre in Vietnam, and exposed military abuse in the Iraq War at Abu Ghraib prison, suggests a much darker motive. In his amazing article, The Red Line and the Rat Line, Hersh accuses, among a great many other things, that the Benghazi consulate and the CIA annex were primarily a gun running operation. And some of those guns ended up being MANPADS.
After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, much was made of U.S. support of the rebels. In the build up to the aborted war and after it was called off, the United States provided weapons and other support to the FSA. It was claimed at first that it was only small arms and non-military equipment. However, a ship called Al Entisar was received in the Turkish port of Iskenderun on 9/6/12. On board this ship were 400 tons of supplies... and heavy weapons including the SA-7's and RPG's. Apparently, the last meeting Ambassador Stevens had was with a Turkish Diplomat about these weapons.
After the destruction of the CIA annex and the death of Stevens the CIA operation was terminated. Control of the gun running fell to the Turks, who according to Hersh, have very different priorities in Syria then the United States. At the time the first priority was to destroy the Syrian government. Hersh made the shocking allegation that NATO member and U.S. ally Turkey used a false flag chemical attack through Al-Nursra front proxy soldiers in an effort to bring the United States into the war. Such an explosive accusation did not go unchallenged and I won't comment on it further since I don't have the expertise to determine the veracity of the report . But the so called "rat line" seems plausible. And the Turks are now in control of it and they have been accused with working with terrorist groups.
And that brings up the worst case scenario. Libyan MANPADS, smuggled into Syria have fallen into the hands of, at the very least, Al-Queda. Since the FSA have recently been transferring over to ISIS as well according to some reports, it's possible that an even more brutal terrorist group has access to these weapons as well. Every airport in the Middle East, and perhaps even Europe, is now at risk of a missile attack from these MANPADS.
That is if you believe Hersh. He has been accurate before and the "rat line" explanation does explain a lot. But he has been roundly criticized by other journalists for only using anonymous sources. The MANPADS found in Syria haven't been proven to be from Libya and it's possible that the gunrunning could have happened without CIA help. Turkey and the United States of course deny everything. As it stands right now it's impossible to know the truth.
But it does raise questions. First and foremost, are Hersh's allegations true? That would have a huge impact on U.S./Turkey relations, the role of NATO and would completely alter the public's perception of the Benghazi scandal. Second, if it is true, what the hell were the CIA and the Obama administration thinking? Even back then it was clear that fundamentalist groups were running around, bringing more heavy weapons into that environment was a horrible idea.Third, if it wasn't the "rat line" what was the CIA doing there? Securing MANPADS? So if their operation was destroyed is nothing being done to secure the weapons?
We might never know the truth about what happened in Benghazi in our lifetimes. All I know for sure is that a major CIA operation got burned and burned badly. This was a major tactical and strategic defeat, and if Hersh's allegations are true then a major intelligence and foreign policy blunder as well. That, not the video, the "stand down order" or "why does it matter" is the real story of Benghazi...
