If Sy Hersh Is Mostly Wrong . . . Is Any Part a Little Bit Right?
Here's what's troublesome about that Sy Hersh article suggesting that everything we know about the Navy SEAL raidd that killed Osama bin Laden is wrong: What if some part of it is right? Yes, Sy Hersh has earned every single grain of salt that readers are required to take with his work:  And that's just for the first paragraph. But the general thrust of the piece -- that the administration's version of events leading up to and during the OBL raid was inaccurate, sugar-coated, and obscured hard truths that would have interfered with Obama's reelection . . . well, it's not like any of us would rush forward and say the concept is unbelievable. This is the administration of, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." And "some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet." This is the administration that called ISIS a "JV team." And said that "Bowe Bergdahl served with honor and distinction." Lying about really important, life-and-death matters is not unprecedented for this administration. For a long while, some people asked the question, is it really possible that the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, could spend five years living in a large compound that was about one kilometer from Pakistan's military academy? Now NBC News -- hardly a news institution inclined to take a whack at President Obama, particularly about something as sensitive and important to the Obama presidency as the OBL raid -- is saying some sources are verifying some pieces of Hersh's story: The NBC News sources who confirm that a Pakistani intelligence official became a "walk in" asset include the special operations officer and a CIA officer who had served in Pakistan. These two sources and a third source, a very senior former U.S. intelligence official, also say that elements of the ISI were aware of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. The former official was emphatic about the ISI's awareness, saying twice, "They knew." Another top official acknowledged to NBC News that the U.S. government had long harbored "deep suspicions" that ISI and al Qaeda were "cooperating." And a book by former acting CIA director Mike Morrell that will be published tomorrow says that U.S. officials could not dismiss the possibility of such cooperation. None of the sources characterized how high up in ISI the knowledge might have gone. Said one former senior official, "We were suspicious that someone inside ISI . . . knew where bin Laden was, but we did not have intelligence about specific individuals having specific knowledge." Hmmm. Eli Lake, writing back in 2011: To survive for six years in the posh Islamabad suburb of Abbottabad, bin Laden almost certainly relied on what might be called a "deep state"—a network of current and retired intelligence and military officers who are actively undermining the official policy of Pakistan's government. "I have no doubt that members of Pakistan's military and intelligence services knew of bin Laden's whereabouts," says Representative Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the House subcommittees that fund the military and foreign-aid budgets and who has attended top-secret briefings on the May 1 raid. "The question remains, however, how far that knowledge went up the command chain in Pakistan." If it is true that significant elements of the Pakistani government -- not just one or two rogue ISI types, but a coordinated effort -- effectively protected OBL from 2006 or so to 2011 . . . well, that pretty much has to have dire consequences, starting with cutting off all aid, breaking off relations, ejecting all of their diplomats, and building from there, right? I mean, we toppled the Taliban for protecting OBL. How could we ever say "no big deal" to the Pakistanis? For what it's worth, the administration and Pentagon are pushing back hard on this: "If you were to believe Sy, you would have to believe this massive conspiracy that President Obama, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Mike Morell were all lying to you," said Bill Harlow, the agency's former top spokesman, referring to two recent secretaries of defense and a former acting CIA director. "It makes absolutely no sense." Forget what you think of Obama, Gates, Panetta, or Morell. For the Hersh account to be true -- at least as he wrote it -- quite a few people at the CIA would have to know that some elements of the Pakistani government protected bin Laden, helped hide him from the world for years, kept him from justice, and didn't pay a price. CIA employees take oaths to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The CIA had a clandestine station in the World Trade Center that was destroyed on 9/11. The first American killed in combat in Afghanistan after 9/11 was Johnny Mike Spann, a CIA paramilitary operations officer. You really think CIA personnel are going to be okay with an official administration story that covers up Pakistan hiding bin Laden for several years? Nobody's going to leak that, except for a few of Sy Hersh's buddies? Separately: Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell on Monday dismissed a report from veteran journalist Seymour Hersh that claims Pakistani officials were harboring Osama bin Laden before his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. "It's all wrong," Morell told CBS. "I started reading the article last night. I got a third of the way through and I stopped, because every sentence I was reading was wrong. The source that Hersh talked to has no idea what he's talking about." Our David French: While I think it's highly likely — likely to the point of near-certainty — that the Obama administration has either fabricated some elements of the story or (to be charitable) placed the most favorable possible reading on conflicting and confusing reports, I find it implausible — to the point of near-impossibility — that Seymour Hersh and his single source have the God's-eye-view on both the raid and the pre-raid intel. It's hard to overemphasize how pervasive and opaque the fog of war truly is. The SEALs actually on the ground all experienced different things from different perspectives, so even if we were able to hear from them individually historians would still argue about the exact chain of events on the ground in Abbottabad. Regarding the pre-raid intelligence, it will take mass-scale declassification for any of us to feel comfortable asserting what the CIA or Pentagon knew or should have known about bin Laden's whereabouts and Pakistani (or Saudi) complicity. I'll let Rick Wilson have the last word on this: "A story that's completely outrageous and beyond the pale presents a question; how did it keep this long?" We Need a Real Debate about American Immigration Levels A thought on Monday's piece about Scott Walker, Jeff Sessions, and legal immigration . . . As noted in the article, the United States brings in about 1 million legal immigrants per year, a level that is at or near record levels. A lot of Americans, asked for their ideal immigration policy, would envision no illegal immigration, and a smooth, fast-moving, efficient system for legal immigration. I suspect a lot of people would say, "as long as you haven't committed any crimes and you're willing to work hard and play by the rules, if you want to be an American, we'll let you become an American citizen." That's a nice and heartwarming philosophy. It's a policy of rarely if ever saying "no." For anyone who's a descendant of immigrants, it means never shutting the door on anyone else. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote, in 1984 and again in 2001, that the U.S. should adopt a constitutional amendment declaring, "There shall be open borders." The problem is there are millions -- probably tens of millions -- of foreign citizens who would like to become Americans if they were given the chance. And no matter how much we love immigrants, the country couldn't take them all in at once without going through a wrenching social and economic upheaval. That 2001 Journal editorial saluted the country's capacity for assimilating new immigrants, and I suspect that a lot of Americans aren't so confident in our ability to do that in 2015. (Do we even have a common, unifying culture anymore?) How many new jobs per year can our economy generate? If you say that the million-a-year rate should be reduced to some lower level… does that ipso facto make you a xenophobe? Hateful? Racist? The boss has a column about illegal immigrants working in New York City's nail salons and concludes . . . There has been booming growth in nail salons in New York City during the past 15 years, and prices haven't really changed since the 1990s, according to the Times. This is a boon to women who want an affordable reverse-French manicure. In this case, and in many others, illegal immigration is a subsidy for the upper-middle class that can enjoy cheaper services than it would if the country had a strictly legal labor market and lower levels of overall immigration. No one wants to hear it, though. When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker suggested that the effect on wages of American workers should be the first concern in considering levels of immigration, the political class recoiled in horror. Surely, one reason that salons can pay so poorly is that the supply of illegal workers is so plentiful. And this supply of labor must, at least at the margins, crowd out workers already here who might consider working in salons if pay and conditions were better. The country deserves a serious, hard-minded debate about what level of legal immigration is appropriate for our economy -- and how well we can bring legal immigrants into the full embrace of American culture. But we're probably not going to get that. We're going to get a lot of accusations about "xenophobia." At What Point Does My Maniacal Laughter Become a Problem? New England Patriot fans, you should probably skip this section. Everyone else, commence evil cackling as we read Dan Shaughnessy's Boston Globe column: This will stick with Tom Brady and the Super Bowl champions forever. The NFL dropped the hammer on Brady and the Patriots late Monday afternoon. In the wake of Ted Wells's 243-page "Deflategate" report, the league suspended Brady for four games, fined the Patriots $1 million (largest in NFL history), and took away two draft picks, including the club's No. 1 selection in 2016. The penalties were stiffer than the Patriots and their fans expected. As recently as January, owner Robert Kraft was asking for an apology from the league for raising the issue and embarrassing the team during Super Bowl week. Now the league has determined that the Patriots are serial cheaters. In the eyes of the NFL, and much of Football America, the Patriots are A-Rod. For the second time in eight years, New England is being punished in the name of "the integrity of the game.'' Blindly loyal fans can continue to bay at the moon, but unless the Patriots secede from the NFL, this doesn't go away for Brady and the team . . . This is bad, folks. Your football dynasty is no longer credible. The Patriots are a punchline across America. Try wearing your Bruschi jersey next time you fly out of town. It might be time to stop minimizing the actual infraction in question. It doesn't matter that New England won the AFC Championship game, 45-7. What matters is the notion that perhaps the Patriots were in position to crush the Colts because of systematic cheating over the course of the season, or perhaps longer. A deflated football is easier to pass, catch, and secure. Ask the Ravens how they feel about losing the playoff game in Foxborough, in bad weather, a week before the AFC title game. Remember that one? That's when the Patriots used goofy formations (since outlawed), confused the Ravens, then suggested Baltimore coach John Harbaugh study his rulebook. New England trailed in that game by 14 points but pulled it out. Prepare now for more study of the Patriots' amazing play at home in horrible weather through the years . . . not to mention the staggering lack of Patriots fumbles since rules changes regarding preparation of your own footballs. ADDENDA: Quin Hillyer grapples with my question of whether the presidency is really the ideal role to influence American culture. Oh, Hugh!  | 
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