Schmidle Muddle?

C. Christine Fair questions the authenticity of the New Yorker article on the SEALs Abbottabad raid by Nicholas Schmidle I linked to on Monday.

I think the writing/editing of the story is misleading in some ways I didn't notice at first, as there are a few passages which clearly imply he had interviewed the SEALs themselves, which he apparently didn't.  As Paul Farhi notes in yesterday's Washington Post:

The SEALs, he writes of the raid’s climactic moment, “instantly sensed that it was Crankshaft,” the mission’s name for bin Laden, implying that the SEALs themselves had conveyed this impression to him.
He also writes that the raiders “were further jostled by the awareness that they were possibly minutes away from ending the costliest manhunt in American history; as a result, some of their recollections — on which this account is based — may be imprecise and, thus, subject to dispute.”
Except that the account was based not on their recollections but on the recollections of people who spoke to the SEALs.

 But I think Fair overreaches in her conclusion about the implication of this lapse.  First, given the prevalence of conspiracy theories in the Muslim world, I don't think any account, no matter how well-sourced or footnoted will dispel all unresolved questions about the Abbottabad raid.  When Fair says "Mr. Schmidle's is the first (and so far only) account of the drama," she apparently is forgetting the multiple conflicting accounts offered by the White House in the week after the raid, as well as Kim Dozier's comprehensive piece on the raid.

Second, I think it is a major leap to say that any inaccuracies in the story will undermine the effectiveness of U.S. Cyber Command.  (Schmidle's father is Marine Lt. Gen. Robert E. Schmidle, Jr., deputy commander of CyberCom).  The story Schmidle outlines conforms largely to the previous accounts of the raid that have been published, albeit with much greater detail and dramatic flourish.  But there is nothing so earth-shattering in his account, in my opinion, to make it appear to be propaganda or disinformation.  Again, those who are predisposed to believe CyberCom is part of some vast U.S.-imperial conspiracy do not need a loosely sourced essay in the New Yorker to lead them to this conclusion.

Fair may have something of a point regarding how Schmidle has the shooter saying "For God and For Country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo" may be perceived in the Muslim world.  This is new information compared to previous accounts (which I cite in Wanted Dead or Alive) which could alter some perceptions.  But again, I think that having U.S. black helicopters invade a suburb 130 miles into Pakistan would likely, in and of itself, be enough to fuel concerns about U.S. imperialism.  Really, would Muslims be less offended had the SEAL shooter had yelled Allahu Akbar ("God is Great!") before shooting an unarmed bin Laden?  (Seriously, if anybody knows the answer to this I'd really be interested in hearing your thoughts).

None of this is to say that The New Yorker shouldn't have edited the piece more carefully, or at least explicitly noted somewhere that none of the SEALs were interviewed for the article.  As evidenced by the excerpts Farhi notes, the result is misleading at best.  However, I think the policy conclusions that Fair (who is undoubtedly a leading scholar on Pakistan) go too far in placing sole attribution for Pakistani or Muslim paranoia on American actions.