[elemenopy]

Be careful about relying too heavily on Hersh's article. It makes some pretty bold claims about a conspiracy of eyewatering proportions that have never really been backed up. There has been a lot harshly critical responses to it. [1]

Historically Hersh has been a successful investigate reporter but his LRB piece hasn't really been widely accepted: [2]

> Were it not for the byline of Mr. Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who first gained notice more than 45 years ago for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the story would likely have been readily dismissed and gained little attention.

1. http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/seymour-hersh-article-a...

[duaneb]

Regardless of the US's actual involvement, the repercussions have been fairly damning for the vaccination of polio there.

[tripzilch]

Cool and thanks for the extra info, I'll check out those links.

You're right that the story comes off as incredibly one-sided, and some of the claims did indeed leave me with a feeling of "there's gotta be another side to this". On the other hand, many of the claims by themselves weren't that surprising either (of the type that makes people use the "I don't see why anyone is surprised"-non-dismissal).

But I'm always interested to try and balance that view somewhat.

That said, even without having read your links, I can't imagine any other interpretation of the events (as also corroborated by the US' PR themselves) that would not have caused the destruction of decades of building of trust in vaccination programs to the local populations. That part doesn't just come from Hersh, the US admitted as much themselves--well not the repercussions obviously, but that they did (ab)use the vaccination programs as cover for a conspiracy furthering US military interests.

As anyone remotely familiar with the difficulties for vaccination programs should know, that alone, well-substantiated rumours, are more than enough to ruin a local vaccination program entirely. I mean, obviously, the act of administering a vaccine to a person is not the hard part of these programs. It's the part to get them voluntarily choose to receive the vaccines.

Regardless of all the other bold claims and conspiracy surrounding the OBL operation, the US should have reconsidered thrice before involving the vaccination programs. The scales should have been abundantly clear:

One the one hand there's the possibility of a monumental achievement for the whole of mankind, the complete eradication of a terrible disease, saving who-knows how many lives, something that can without any reservations whatsoever be placed on the "good" side of just about anyone's moral compass. Those were the stakes, and they knew it.

And on the other hand, there's getting revenge on Osama Bin Laden, who didn't play a serious role any more in the wars the US is waging. Already when he was killed, the only reasonable reaction I could (sort of) understand was "yes of course it's just for PR and ego reasons alone. but eh, let them have it, maybe it'll provide some closure".

So yes, whoever made that call and went on with it, did it for extremely petty reasons. And yes it probably was not a single person that decided this, it was probably a rotten system stuck in a feedback loop of hate, like an ingrown toenail, that made it pretty hard for anyone involved not to go along with it. It's still petty, and they can still own it.