New Yorker Tale of the End of Bin Laden; Suspect?

[SrWoodchuck]

http://www.registan.net/:


by Joshua Foust on 8/4/2011

A special guest post by C. Christine Fair


On Monday, August 1, the New Yorker ran a piece by Nicholas Schmidle, a young freelance journalist, which proffered a breathtakingly detailed account of the Bin Laden Take-down in May of 2011. I have known Schmidle since the summer of 2006, when we met at my office at the United States Institute of Peace. He explained that he had a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs that would allow him to live in Pakistan and write about his experiences for two years.

Mr. Schmidle had one serious problem: he was not an accredited journalist, which meant the Pakistani government was disinclined to give him a journalism visa. He sought my advice. I explained to him that visa issues are not my bailiwick but I outlined some of the key issues he could consider if and when he sets out upon his newfound adventure. Though he didn’t know much about Pakistan, Mr. Schmidle struck me as a fast study.

In the end, Dr. Shireen Mazari (an outspoken, anti-American polemicist) agreed to host Mr. Schmidle at the think-tank she ran at the time. However, it was a bargain with the devil: he still was not a journalist and he got his visa at the behest of a dubious shill for Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

Over the next few years, I watched Mr. Schmidle’s reporting. He had an eye for the key issues and he covered many important stories that others overlooked. I met him episodically in Islamabad when I came to Pakistan. In January 2008, Mr. Schmidle published a piece in the New York Times Magazine called the “Next-Gen Taliban.” In that article, he ventured into Quetta to attend an opening ceremony for the campaign office of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), which he described in anodyne terms as a “a hard-line Islamist party.”

Mr. Schmidle wrote that the men in attendance mostly spoke Pashto but “knowing Urdu, I could understand enough [of their Pashto] to realize that they weren’t rehashing the typical J.U.I. rhetoric.” That made the rest of the article immediately suspect. I knew Mr. Schmidle, and knew that his language skills in Urdu were functional at best and, even if he had superb Urdu skills (and he did not), this would not render Pashto comprehensible in the slightest. (It is not an Indo-Aryan language like Urdu and therefore has a grammar and syntax that is starkly different from Urdu.) While one may recognize some Urdu words, without grammar and syntax the content of the discussion would have been opaque to Mr. Schmidle. Indeed, Pakistanis who have spent their entire life in the country speaking Urdu cannot understand Pashto and would never make the absurd claim to do so. How could Mr. Schmidle understand, must less interpret, what was going on without knowledge of Pashto or a translator? It seemed to me that things were not as they were reported.

Mr. Schmidle then recalls, in riveting detail, the harrowing movements of the helicopters and how “the interior of the Black Hawks rustled alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered.” When the first helicopter encountered problems, Schmidle exposits how the pilot reoptimized his plans and aimed for “for an animal pen in the western section of the compound.” He next tells his readers how the SEALs in the ill-fated bird “braced themselves as the tail rotor swung around, scraping the security wall. The pilot jammed the nose forward to drive it into the dirt and prevent his aircraft from rolling onto its side. Cows, chickens, and rabbits scurried.”

He even describes how the translator Ahmed hollered in Pashto at the locals that a security operation was ongoing to allay their suspicions about the nature of the cacophony in the cantonment town. (This detail caught my eye as the majority of persons in Abbottabad, where the raid took place, speak Hindko rather than Pashto.) He account is replete with quotes and other minute details obtained from persons seemingly involved directly in the assault and presumably speaking to him in person.

The article was in fact so detailed that it left the unmistakable impression that Mr. Schmidle had interviewed at least a few of the SEALs involved in the raid. During an NPR interview, Steve Inskeep explains that indeed Schmidle had spent time with the SEALs who were on the mission to get Bin Laden. NPR subsequently issued a correction for reasons noted below.

Schmidle has demurred from tackling this serious issue of credibility, integrity and veracity directly. During a “live chat” with Mr. Schmidle on the New Yorker’s website yesterday, several persons including myself tried to ask Mr.Schmidle to explain this egregious oversight. (I posed the question four times throughout the course of the “live chat.” The moderator did not post a single one. (Earlier in the day, Schmidle and I exchanged emails wherein I expressed my dismay at his reportage.)

Many of us were following this in real time via twitter. I was not alone: others—including other journalists—tried to ask other tough questions but the moderator did not post them either. I also tried to post a comment to this effect along with other readers’ comments. That comment has not yet been posted.

Finally, after a volley of fatuous queries to which Schmidle responded with a peculiar degree of detail, the moderator finally let one person raise the issue that he neither met any of the SEALS involved nor indicated as much in his report.

Unfortunately for the credibility of this exercise, this person was Erin Simpson—a friend of Mr. Schmidle. Ms. Simpson had earlier defended him during a twitter exchange with me wherein she responded to my vexed queries that “he’s a good friend.” She further intimated that someone involved in the operation may have spoken to him because he is a “GO’s kid.” The latter point references the fact that his father, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Robert E. Schmidle Jr., is the deputy commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.

What’s at Stake?

One may ask at first blush why a feel-good story about the Bin Laden raid is problematic or even merits sustained critique. From an American point of view, the story reads like the film script Schmidle may well aspire to write. It confirms all that we wanted to know about the raid and the bravado of our SEALS. The shooter, who finally killed Bin Laden, even managed to mutter “For God and Country” in the femtoseconds that his synapses took to pull the trigger, according to Schmidle.

However, there are implications that go well beyond Mr. Schmidle’s limits of journalism integrity and his own personal aggrandizement and professional aspirations.

C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and the author of Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States.
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I'm left wondering WTH, after Anne Barnhardt posts this article at iOTW.com: The Execution of SEAL Team Six (Part 1)

[Geee]

Good article SrWC.

[Valin]

SrWoodchuck

 

A. Thanks for looking into this.

B. If what C. Christine Fair writes is true, it will not be the first time we (and I include myself) have been suckered in.

C. Has Tampa or any former SEALs had any comments of this? I'm thinking guys like Richard Marcinko & Don Shipley.

[pollyannaish]

I've briefly looked this over and while I tend to eschew conspiracy theories, I'm left wondering a few things.

 

First, why on earth would Obama publicly identify and thank a covert group? I wondered that at the time. It seems to LOUDLY declare "Get these guys" to our enemy and didn't make any sense.

 

Second, the whole New Yorker article that glorifies Obama (along with the upcoming movie) is profoundly disturbing. It goes beyond media bias into out and out propaganda. I know that the government produces a lot of propaganda during the administrations of all presidents, but what bothers me about this is that it looks to be self aggrandizement for Obama himself, rather than a rallying cry for the country. That is dear leader territory.

 

In any case, something very weird is going on.

[Valin]

I've briefly looked this over and while I tend to eschew conspiracy theories, I'm left wondering a few things.

 

First, why on earth would Obama publicly identify and thank a covert group? I wondered that at the time. It seems to LOUDLY declare "Get these guys" to our enemy and didn't make any sense.

 

Second, the whole New Yorker article that glorifies Obama (along with the upcoming movie) is profoundly disturbing. It goes beyond media bias into out and out propaganda. I know that the government produces a lot of propaganda during the administrations of all presidents, but what bothers me about this is that it looks to be self aggrandizement for Obama himself, rather than a rallying cry for the country. That is dear leader territory.

 

In any case, something very weird is going on.

 

 

If true, it's not the first time...and a doubt it'll be the last time we see this kind of thing from the MSM.

[pollyannaish]

I also want to add: The left is having a much more difficult time understanding the need for us to make this a SECULAR war and to separate Islam from Islamic terrorists. That's ironic. Many on the right have a difficult time with that, as one would expect. But to see the "nuanced" left be so tone deaf in situations like this because they appear so desperate to appear tough would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

[pollyannaish]

I've briefly looked this over and while I tend to eschew conspiracy theories, I'm left wondering a few things.

 

First, why on earth would Obama publicly identify and thank a covert group? I wondered that at the time. It seems to LOUDLY declare "Get these guys" to our enemy and didn't make any sense.

 

Second, the whole New Yorker article that glorifies Obama (along with the upcoming movie) is profoundly disturbing. It goes beyond media bias into out and out propaganda. I know that the government produces a lot of propaganda during the administrations of all presidents, but what bothers me about this is that it looks to be self aggrandizement for Obama himself, rather than a rallying cry for the country. That is dear leader territory.

 

In any case, something very weird is going on.

 

 

If true, it's not the first time...and a doubt it'll be the last time we see this kind of thing from the MSM.

 

True that! Oh well. Can't do anything about it, but sure doesn't make me trust the press any more than I already did. Which was not at all.

[Valin]

I've briefly looked this over and while I tend to eschew conspiracy theories, I'm left wondering a few things.

 

First, why on earth would Obama publicly identify and thank a covert group? I wondered that at the time. It seems to LOUDLY declare "Get these guys" to our enemy and didn't make any sense.

 

Second, the whole New Yorker article that glorifies Obama (along with the upcoming movie) is profoundly disturbing. It goes beyond media bias into out and out propaganda. I know that the government produces a lot of propaganda during the administrations of all presidents, but what bothers me about this is that it looks to be self aggrandizement for Obama himself, rather than a rallying cry for the country. That is dear leader territory.

 

In any case, something very weird is going on.

 

 

If true, it's not the first time...and a doubt it'll be the last time we see this kind of thing from the MSM.

 

True that! Oh well. Can't do anything about it, but sure doesn't make me trust the press any more than I already did. Which was not at all.

 

 

 

OTOH.....

 

Connecting The Dots

 

Patterico has been connecting some dots in the horrific news out of Afghanistan today.

 

* Back in May, right up until the beginning of the raid, the Obama administration and the Pentagon were in agreement: there would be no release of details of the raid. The reasons were many: to protect methods and sources we used in finding him, to prevent giving the enemy any useful intelligence, and to protect the operators from retaliation.

 

* That agreement lasted less than a day: President Obama identified them as SEAL Team Six, and Vice President Biden identified their commander by name. Further, we were immediately treated to a near blow-by-blow of the raid (the details of which kept evolving, as the Obama administration kept trying to find the version of the truth that would make them look best), as well as a full rundown of just how we found him.

 

* Three months later, in our single worst day in the entire 10-year war in Afghanistan, a helicopter is shot down, killing 25 members of SEAL Team 6, the air crew, and seven Afghan allies.

 

 

 

Of course, this all could be coincidence. The Taliban, after ten years of fighting, actually scored their single greatest victory. Of all the helicopters they’ve seen and targeted, they just happened to pick the one filled with members of the unit that killed Bin Laden, just barely three months after he became fish food.

 

 

 

This could be just coincidence. Or it could be a combination of good intelligence, good planning, a healthy dose of luck, and the benefit of the (expletive deleted) in the Obama administration who couldn’t keep their (expletive deleted) mouths shut and put his re-election over basic operational security.

[pollyannaish]

One other thing:

 

I've always thought that leftists were quite condescending to our enemies. They have no respect for them. They think they are a bunch of backward, stupid, robed trogladytes who just get lucky sometimes and wouldn't do so without our help.

It's quite racist actually.

 

The right (well many on the right) understand that our enemies can be creative strategists who are fully capable of taking us out without spending much money at all. And therefore, we lack respect for our enemies at our own peril. Money isn't everything in war, it is the ability to creatively exploit your enemies weaknesses that wins a war.

 

Once again, the money god is the focus of the left. Even when sizing up our enemies. Maybe we can use that in the next election.

[SrWoodchuck]

In various spots around the net.....DougRoss@ Journal, for one....the blame for the shootdown of the Chinook with our SpecWarriors, is being laid at the feet of VP Joe Biden & his big mouth; along with the Pakistani ISI. The ISI was incredibly embarassed by the violation of Pakistani airspace & the UBL/ISI "shelter" theories that were traded back & forth after UBL's "demise." The story being promoted is one that has Biden blabbering operational details; and the ISI using their Afghani "humint" assets, to shadow SEAL team 6. They then concocted a scenario to draw them into a "kill-box."

 

 

 

H/T:iOTW.com

[SrWoodchuck]

Excerpt from article @ iOTW.com [from Free Republic]:

 

But here’s what the legendarily verbose and loose-lipped Vice President Joe Biden said at a dinner at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel last night to mark the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic Council:

 

"Let me briefly acknowledge tonight’s distinguished honorees. Admiral James Stavridis is a, is the real deal. He can tell you more about and understands the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday."

 

And:

 

"Folks, I’d be remiss also if I didn’t say an extra word about the incredible events, extraordinary events of this past Sunday. As Vice President of the United States, as an American, I was in absolute awe of the capacity and dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs. It just was extraordinary."

 

 

Biden and SEALS

[Pepper]

Bizarre story woven by this Schmidle character, SrWoodChuck

 

Chickadee posted also on how Hollywood is giving TOTUS a campaign promo in 2012 on how fearless TOTUS killed Bin Laden.

 

Leave it to Hollywood and Obama to capitalize on the risks taken over 10 years of efforts to capture or kill him.

[Valin]

Bizarre story woven by this Schmidle character, SrWoodChuck

 

Chickadee posted also on how Hollywood is giving TOTUS a campaign promo in 2012 on how fearless TOTUS killed Bin Laden.

 

Leave it to Hollywood and Obama to capitalize on the risks taken over 10 years of efforts to capture or kill him.

 

 

Wow! A Seal and a community organizer!