Burriss: Who shot bin Laden?

By LARRY BURRISS

I'm thinking of sponsoring a contest to finally determine who really shot Osama bin Laden. Here are the rules: you have to have been alive back in 2011 when the terrorist leader was shot. You can find your own witnesses, you can manufacture you own evidence, and your story doesn't even have to match the official version of what happened. As an added bonus, you get to refute the other applicants by simply saying, "Nah-nee, Nah-nee boo boo, your story isn't true!"

I have in front of me three different books dealing with killing of bin Laden. All three were written by so-called experts. And all three contain significant differences, including such things as how and where bin Laden was shot, where the helicopters were, and how the compound was entered.

Now CNN has aired an interview with former Navy SEAL, Robert O'Neill, who claims he was the shooter. The interview follows an earlier story in "The Washington Post" in which O'Neill gave his name, which followed a March 2013 interview in "Esquire" magazine, in which he gave details, but not his name.

Actually, "The Washington Post" wasn't the first source to link his name to the killing. That was done on a military blog earlier last week, which O'Neill says was done without his permission.

As you might expect, O'Neill's story is backed by at least two other sources, while other sources say the story is a complete fabrication. All of these sources claim to be familiar with the raid.

Many of these assertions have spawned their own tangential claims. There is one group that says the real shooter would never talk. Another group claims the authors are violating national security. And still another faction says the whole thing is a hoax anyway, so who cares.

Now, here's something to think about: what if they're all part of a conspiracy to throw us off the track. Nah. Who would do that?