Photo at right is of LTG(Ret) Mike Flynn, former Director, DIA and source of the Hayes/Joscelyn WSJ article.
In spring 2012, a year after the raid that killed bin Laden and six months before the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration launched a concerted campaign to persuade the American people that the long war with al Qaeda was ending. In a speech commemorating the anniversary of the raid, John Brennan , Mr. Obama's top counterterrorism adviser and later his CIA director, predicted the imminent demise of al Qaeda. The next day, on May 1, 2012, Mr. Obama made a bold claim: "The goal that I set--to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild--is now within our reach."
The White House provided 17 handpicked documents to the Combatting Terror Center at the West Point military academy, where a team of analysts reached the conclusion the Obama administration wanted. Bin Laden, they found, had been isolated and relatively powerless, a sad and lonely man sitting atop a crumbling terror network.
It was a reassuring portrayal. It was also wrong. And those responsible for winning the war--as opposed to an election--couldn't afford to engage in such dangerous self-delusion.
Now, with this in hand, will someone please take it one step further and investigate the political theater that we know as the Abbattaba raid and the scapegoating of Pakistani Dr. Shakeel Afridi ?
LTG Flynn's Keynote Address: National Defense Industrial Association, 26th Annual SO/LIC Symposium, Wash, D.C. 28 Jan 2015.