I do not intend to keep writing about Hersh’s account of the killing of Osama bin Laden. There is going to be a large flow of articles about it, including many that criticize Hersh in various ways in order to undermine what he has reported. So far, I’ve run across 4 articles that I think help confirm Hersh’s reporting. Within them are some useful links too. These articles are here, here, here and here.

An additional hypothesis that I reject needs brief discussion. Several people think that a news report of bin Laden’s death and funeral that originated in Pakistan and was presented by FOX in 2001 is enough to make them discredit Hersh. There are others who think that any report by anyone, including Hersh, saying that bin Laden died in 2011 in any manner supports a government lie and coverup of his 2001 death. One can and should be skeptical of government stories, but it still takes discriminating skepticism in order to select a good alternative theory to the government’s. The 2001 death theory relies on a single unconfirmed source and there is no confirmation by physical evidence. The source cited is a Taliban leader. The date is after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban may have wanted to spread this story in order to end or curtail the American military operations. If this story had been true, then after the 2011 report and possibly before that, the Taliban at any time could have had an incentive to verify the death. They could have exhumed the body and provided DNA or other evidence to confirm the earlier death. This theory has a heavy burden to explain the events of 2011 in Abbottabad, no matter how they occurred. Generalized skepticism about government accounts is not enough.

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