The Real Danger in Trump Touting a Baseless Bin Laden Conspiracy Theory

It obscures that Iran and al-Qaeda sometimes do work together.

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I had intended to write this week about North Korea’s provocative missile display, or China’s role in facilitating the opioid crisis inside the U.S., but both of those topics will have to wait. Earlier this week, a conspiracy theory went viral. It gained traction, in large part, because President Trump retweeted it. 

While it is generous to call it a “theory,” it goes something like this: The CIA and the Obama administration conspired to cover up Osama bin Laden’s presence in Iran. The U.S. then paid Iran to release bin Laden to Pakistan, so that President Obama could manufacture the triumphal raid in Abbottabad in May 2011. In other words, bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad wasn’t discovered after years of sleuthing by the CIA. Instead, the whole bin Laden raid was a staged affair for political purposes. And here’s the kicker: Obama had members of Navy SEALs Team Six, which conducted the raid, assassinated to cover up the conspiracy. 

This is, in a word, nonsense. 

For starters, the Navy SEALs who conducted the raid dispute the claim that they are dead. One of them, Robert O’Neill, is a prominent Trump supporter and active on Twitter. O’Neill claims he personally shot and killed bin Laden. After Trump retweeted the conspiracy theory, O’Neill expressed his disapproval:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Kmregan7

    "Dispute the claim that they are dead"....I wish THAT were an actual headline. I comment only to laugh and shake my head in disbelieve....

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  2. Tim Johnson

    Here's the explanation from our leader:

    "Why would you send a lie like that to your followers?" Guthrie asked.

    "I know nothing about it — that was a retweet, that was an opinion of somebody," Trump said. "I'll put it out there, people can decide for themselves, I don't take a position."

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  3. The original Optimum.net

    Excellent column. It almost made my head stop hurting. Almost.

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  4. Ingenero.lux

    Just when you think the rank stupidity couldn’t possibly get any more stupid, along comes our President to prove it can. It always can.

    I need a drink. At least it’s almost five...

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  5. Raincheck

    How does a conservative support this man?

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    Old Dane

    Good article—thanks!

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  7. AJ Waller

    Yikes. Heres an idea from someone who hates the idea of limiting free speech on the internet but also hates social media:
    How about a law requiring all internet communications to be delayed, such that a facebook post from one ip address would not reach another ip address until the same amount of time elapses as it would take a horse and buggy to travel between the two addresses?

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    1. John Cheyney

      I have a better idea. Each 'like' costs you 25 cents and each forward or retweet costs you 50 cents. Now we are going to find out how many people believe in this and how many are just passing on mindless trash.

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        TimNYC

        That is honestly a pretty good idea. Maybe not in the sense of actual money — that would rapidly lead to a situation where the richest people, who are the ones who can afford to be socially active, dominate networks.

        But something like this with "social currency" that is decoupled from real life effects might be workable. You'd have to structure it carefully to ensure it doesn't just, again, become a popularity contest... but there's something there, I think, where if you reblog enough mindless trash or post enough *really* bad takes, there are online consequences.

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      2. AJ Waller

        Id defibitely pay 25 cents to like that idea

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  8. Avatar photo
    Butch Earl

    An excellent piece, Mr. Joscelyn. I thank thee.
    Another effect of this asininity is recruiters of Jihadists are going to use it as evidence from high American sources that al-Qaeda leadership are divinely impervious to American military might and the bad news they're hearing about the state of their movement is merely propaganda.
    I suspect like most people in the world, I've been struggling to find a silver lining to this 2020 dark cloud. I've come up with one: the COVID pandemic and associated strife has exposed the desire of Trump and his most fervent loyalists to deny and avoid crises rather than accept and tackle them. This personality cult thing is not working and needs to end soon.

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    Farhall

    Nothing is more emblematic of our current problems with reality than the following sentence:

    "For starters, the Navy SEALs who conducted the raid dispute the claim that they are dead."

    If we cannot even agree on whether or not someone is actually alive, how can we talk about policy?

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    1. David D

      In all fairness, Biden doesn't even know if he's alive so that's a plausible question to ask...




      /s just in case

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    Chadmccune.13

    Thank you for this. It must be frustrating on some level, having to refute crazy things like this, but alas, certain things are necessary these days. I am very interested in all things SEALs, so I couldn't help but dive down the rabbit hole a bit, listening to and reading the various threads on Twitter and YouTube about this. His conflation/confusion of "SEAL Team 6" is more than a little odd; DEVGRU Red Squadron were the ones that killed UBL; DEVGRU Gold Squadron (and others) were the ones tragically shot down in Extortion 17, hence O'Neill's sarcastic comment about still being alive---he was in Red Squadron, not Gold. It's just insane (though not surprising, unfortunately) that POTUS would retweet something like this.

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