Whose version of the killing of Osama Bin Laden do you believe?

[EX500rider]

57. BBC's take on it:

• Unreliable sources. Much of Hersh's article is based on the claims of unnamed intelligence officials in the US and Pakistan, none of whom were directly involved in the operation. The only named source, Asad Durrani, served in the Pakistani military intelligence more than two decades ago and says only that "former colleagues" of his back up Hersh's claims. Durrani was later contacted by CNN's Bergen, and he would only say that Hersh's account was "plausible".

• Contradictory claims. Hersh disregards the fact that two of the Navy Seals involved in the attack on Bin Laden's compound have come out with details of the raid that directly contradict his account. Bergen, who visited the compound after the operation, writes that there was clear evidence of a protracted fire fight, as the location was "littered almost everywhere with broken glass and several areas of it were sprayed with bullet holes".

• Unrealistic conclusions. Why would the Saudis support a man who wanted to overthrow the Saudi monarchy? Why, if US support for Pakistan was part of the bargain, did US-Pakistani relations deteriorate in the years after the raid? If the US and Pakistan were co-operating, was a staged raid really the simplest possible way to ensure that Bin Laden was killed?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32698016

As is often the case with conspiracy theories, perhaps the sharpest criticism of Mr Hersh's narrative is that it relies on a large cast of characters operating effectively while maintaining universal secrecy. Vox's Fischer accuses Hersh - who won a Pulitzer in 1970 for exposing the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the hands of US soldiers - of producing a growing number of difficult-to-believe exposes based on tenuous evidence.
In the last three years, for example, he has penned pieces alleging the George W Bush administration trained Iranian militants in Nevada and that Turkey was behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
"Maybe there really is a vast shadow world of complex and diabolical conspiracies, executed brilliantly by international networks of government masterminds," Fischer writes. "And maybe Hersh and his handful of anonymous former senior officials really are alone in glimpsing this world and its terrifying secrets. Or maybe there's a simpler explanation."