Show the Bin Laden Corpse Photos (Update: Obama says no)
The country is still in a state of euphoric celebration from the May 1 assassination of Osama bin Laden, and America wants to see the photos of his corpse. Proof is required to put a dent in the still-popular 9/11 conspiracy theories and to maximize the demoralization of al-Qaeda and bin Laden’s sympathizers. The White House should not be deterred about concerns over Muslim “sensitivities” and should immediately release the photos that the world needs to see.
The White House has expressed fear that the publication of the photos could be “inflammatory” and has concerns over their “gruesome” nature. There are three sets of photos of Bin Laden’s corpse: one taken at the Pakistani compound, one at the airbase in Afghanistan after the raid, and one of his body prepared for burial at sea. The Obama administration is considering releasing video of the assault and is likely to release footage of bin Laden’s burial.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said, “I don’t think there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.” Chief counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan also said, “We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden.” The discussion right now appears to be about what photos to release and how to do it.
The Obama administration should not be spending so much time worrying about a backlash in reaction to the photos. There has yet to be anything near a major backlash in the Islamic world to bin Laden’s assassination. There are no mass protests or burnings of American flags, and there are few calls for retaliation. If the death of Osama bin Laden failed to cause an eruption in the Islamic world, it is highly doubtful a gory photo would be any more “inflammatory.”
The delay in releasing the photos fuels conspiracy theories. It is commonly believed in Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, that the entire incident has been staged. As one local lawyer said, “They’re just making it up. Nobody has seen the body.” The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military wing of Fatah, is also expressing doubts. The chairman of the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in Iran is also skeptical, saying that the U.S. has reported bin Laden’s death before. Another Iranian legislator says that the U.S. government killed bin Laden to prevent the world from knowing about his secret collaboration with it.
“The West was fully satisfied with bin Laden’s performance during the past years and today … it was obliged to kill him to prevent possible leakage of the priceless intelligence he had,” the Iranian official said.
No matter what happens, there will always be conspiracy nut jobs. I don’t necessary agree with the U.S. dumping the body into the sea but they had their reasons. But just because they did that doesn’t mean Osama is still alive. The photos will need to be released eventually. The world is undoubtedly a better place without Osama. The only thing I fear now is reprisal attacks from Al Qaeda and all the various other terrorist organizations out there.
Max Gentry
Zeiss scopes
How do you know they dumped the body? Do you trust their word? Has this administration said a single thing that turned out to be true? For what I know, he could still be alive. Maybe they captured him and are water boarding him as we speak.
“Another Iranian legislator says that the U.S. government killed bin Laden to prevent the world from knowing about his secret collaboration with it.”
This dumbest Conspiracy Theory ever. Osama has been at large for 10 years since the 9/11 attacks to claim he’s just a patsy or was ever in bed with our government before or after 9/11. He never did. Infact, Osama’s inconsistencies and later evidence all help confirm his responsibility for the 9/11 attacks without a shadow of a doubt. http://www.911myths.com/html/responsibility.html http://www.911myths.com/html/previous_claims.html
This theory defies all logic.
As for all the other bullcrap Osama says in those two links above it’s complete poppycock as well:
On 9/11 we were “occupying” exactly zero Muslim countries. We had a small presence in Saudi Arabia because that country had asked us for help against Saddam Hussein after he had invaded Kuwait. (Whether we should have aided the House of Saud is another issue).
As for “Palestine”, we had already been earnestly brokering the “peace process” for a couple of decades at that point. (Again, one can argue whether that was wise, but that is another issue as well).
What Osama et als really mean is that the United States was and is a prosperous Kaffir nation that isn’t so pro-Muslim that it is ready to intentionally destroy Israel. That’s enough in itself to mark her as the “Great Satan”.
I think the Muslims better concentrate on worrying about OUR backlash.
We can lash a lot harder and farther than they can…as the last few years have shown.
And we ought to start by deporting ALL Muslims from American soil – including those who are, or claim to be, born here, and especially including Barack Hussein Obama.
Who cares about the Muslim “backlash” . . . they’ll claim his burial was done disrespectfully whether he was dumped at sea, in the ground, shot from a cannon, cut up and used as slop for hogs, or ground up and canned as Alpo . . .
they’re perennially offended.
Bad BAD BAD idea to lose physical custody of the body….
We were worried about providing a “site of worship?” for the crazies?
We just GUARANTEED ONE by leaving his body unattended.
Sure as shit.
Especially when they have PICTURES of what went into the water.
Just you wait and see….the New Mythology
“The shroud of Bin Laden…floated majestically above the water….with a irredecent glow, and set itself into the hands of a humble Shepard Boy, who brought it to ME….The shroud and the BLOOD of the Lion spoke to ME and proclaimed ME master of the universe, warrior of the righteous, durka-durka-durka, mohammed jihad”
Lets see now…lots of blood to be mopped up at the house.
Sure as shit SOME of its his….
A piece of CLOTH with HIS blood on it (and independent DNA matches!) Peddaled as “the Shroud of Bin Laden”
Terrorists worldwide proclaiming victory, and “humilliation” to the infidel, as the Lion of The Land AND the Waters rises in spirit to anoint a New Leader?
Everything ABOUT these people is a lie.
Why would we give them the opportunity for something like this?
Stupid, stupid, stupid
Show the photos, and if there are any available, show any helmet cam video of bin Laden getting his skull ventilated . . . especially if there was a woman shielding him . . .
Show the photographs. I don’t think it will hurt at all and it will actually prove a point. You attack the United States and eventually this is what will happen to you. It may take a while, but we’ll keep coming after you and we will never forget. A message like that really couldn’t hurt us in the war on radical Islam.
In an ideal world the media, and the GOP establishment, would refer to those who (reasonably) demand the release of photos of the dead bin Laden as Deathers.
Also, there’s the suspicion/accusation that he’s actually been dead for a long time.
It’s a good promise for a Presidential campaign.
“We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden.”
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A live bin Laden would have done nicely. Unfortunately, given their stance about Bush administration policies, Obama and Holder have left themselves no options for holding captured terrorists.
Yes, if you ask me the mission parameters were that Bin Laden did not get captured alive. From what I can tell, he could have been brought in alive. They could have gone in there with tear gas if they had wanted to.
Agreed. Remember, however, that we’re dealing with politicians and bureaucrats. Making even a routine decision takes them forever. In this case, they’re dealing with a situation they’ve never been in before – no precedent to go by in their experience. They literally have no idea what to do. It’ll take time for them to sort it out.
Unfortunately, their bureaucratic minds are up against a lightning-fast Internet news-and-gossip machine that demands information NOW. They simply can’t keep up. We’ve seen the results when they try – erroneous first reports, backtracking, suspicions, conspiracy theories. Like it or not, I think everybody just needs to calm down and wait for the analog brains in the WH to do their thing. Stop expecting them to produce results at Internet speed.
Once the euphoria over the assassination of this Islamic fanatic subsides I hope that there is a dispassionate analysis of how the intelligence was developed which led to his killing. And I hope that there is at least one reporter with the courage to ask the Ditherer-In-Chief why he waited 16 hours to give the order.
There’s a story by an unnamed White House insider who claims that Panetta and Hillary and Gates pretty much went behind Obozo’s back to get it done.
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
This is undoubtedly the most schizophrenic administration I’ve ever witnessed in my entire lifetime. It’s constantly struggling with popular opinion, the polls, political demagoguery, correctness and spin. Obama makes a self-congratulatory speech about how fearless and astute he was to green-light OBL’s demise, yet does not have the cajones to show the world what happens when one wrongly decides to take on the might of the USA. It’s not about triumphalism, it’s about professionalism. Our resourcefulness and determination to deliver justice to our enemies. Our elite special ops and defense forces have these qualities plus more in spades, pity we can’t say the same about the chronic campaigner in chief and his sidekicks.
Actually, they should have used a stun gun on him, then a tranquilizer gun. Afterwards they could have brought him back to the U.S. to get all the info out of him, by any means necessary, and followed that by an execution. THEN they could have dumped his carcass in the ocean to feed the fishies.
And absolutely, show the pictures, and the videos, and let the whole world see for themselves what this low life deservedly got!
Of course, I wasn’t there, so nobody asked me.
Let me see if I get this straight.
NYT released details of a banking program to track terrorist money. Not inflammatory.
MSM releases photos from Abu Ghraib. Not inflammatory.
MSM won’t show Danish Muslim cartoons: Too inflammatory.
MSM does a false story of Koran desecration at Gitmo. Not inflammatory.
MSM won’t show pictures of people jumping to their death on 9-11. Too inflammatory.
Sending drones to kill people is OK. Not inflammatory, even with collateral damage.
Mustn’t show picture of a dead Bin Laden. Too inflammatory.
OK. I’ve got it now. These people are incoherent.
Heh! Yea; Can you believe it?
They’ve emptied the insane asylums and given them jobs as journalists at NPR and MSM institutions for being “handicapped”.
And continued their benefits to include the medications that they trade at lunch for a peanut butter sandwiches.
Some of them are Czars.
Obviously, as your comment would appear to infer, there’s a common thread that runs through the Mainstream Media’s otherwise seemingly incoherent fluctuations regarding whether to green-light or squash certain news stories based on the stories’ perceived likelihood of inflaming the Islamic world.
One can imagine the types of top-level conversations that inform the Times’ editorial decisions:
Pinch S. to editors: “Hey guys, just had lunch with Howard Dean/Tim Kaine/ Debbie Wassermann-Shultz and some top guns from the DNC. They’re going to frame the _____________ (insert issue) issue this way ____________ (insert way the DNC plans to frame the issue), and they want us to cut the Rethuglicans’ knees out with a week full of front pagers on ______________ (insert issue) where we spin it this way _________________ (insert way the DNC wants the Times to spin story).”
How can you tell the difference between everyday muslim behavior and “backlash”?
They all want to die killing someone else, anyway!
Do you think they really care what label you put on it?
America is entertaining the rest of the world with its autonomic brain washing traditions, while only confusing itself.
It seems that for the Obama administration killing our enemies is OK. Offending them is not. Hurting their feelings is not.
Why don’t they just say it? It’s nothing personal; it’s just the business of getting re-elected.
The Mohammadans are gonna be all pi$$ed off anyway. Eff ‘em. Regarding the hero that actually put the slug in him: I wish you’d kicked off the whole top of his head and took a sshht in it.
What would release of a photo prove? Those who refuse to believe it will insist it’s a fake. If we wanted something convincing, we should have had OBL stuffed and mounted for the Oval office.
I know what really got the muslim world pissed at the United States to begin with;
Those inconsiderate, offensive people in New York, constructed two excessively tall buildings directly in the flight paths of the two planes performing an acrobatic Islamic aeronautic exercise that killed several Islamic flying aces that were simply trying to exercise their Quranic privileges to perform an air show for the infidels in a populous American city.
Will we ever live it down?
Now that I’ve had time to mull it over; I’m convinced Usama consciously jumped in front of the two bullets fired in his direction, because he was sick and tired of living like a monk for the past ten years. I know it would drive me insane.
The only reason I see for not releasing soon the pics it’s to have the terrorist filled with doubts, thus slowing down any possible flight and scattering of the the bad boys.
It’s my guess that, as soon as Intelligence has results from the analysis of the hard disks, and many more hit operations going on, then it will be a good time to release the final proof.
I think this could be better managed, maybe, but that’s the way things are now. It’s very similar to when former Colombian president Uribe decided to bomb a terrorist nest inside Ecuador: the bombing in another supposedly good neighbour country, the computer and hard disks being captured, you really have a very limited time before defusing many problems.
How can you inflame a group that gets upset when you breathe in their general direction? Please, spare us the PC crap, release the pics and let the American people see who the enemy is when the muslims do their normal thing.
We should release the pics and inform the Muslim world that we will hold them all responsible if any of them commit an act of terror over this. I am sick and tired of hearing what the Muslim world thinks about anything.
FOIA lawsuit – I think good arguments can be made none of the exceptions apply.
No one has said that they have yet to release the photos because of fear of offending Muslims. Also, what is the connection between the photo, and dispelling the 9/11 conspiracies? The people who do not want to believe will not believe, even with a photograph.
Do I understand the White House correctly? It is more offensive to Muslims to see a photograph of a dead Muslim than it is to kill a Muslim? a photograph is more offensive than a death?
At first I agreed with everyone here. Now though, I kind of like the idea of generating uncertainty. Uncertainty creates doubt. Doubt creates indecision. The intelligence gathered from the computers, dvd’s, etc., and the pursuant acting on it will be the proof of the pudding. I think all the government honchos should just shut up and smile. It’s crazy that the head of CIA is giving interviews. Secret means secret.
Wh
Show ‘em. I need to know where to put the bullet hole in this year’s Halloween mask. Just for realism’s sake, ya know?
Better yet, claim the burial at sea was actually a posthumous Baptism and that bin Laden is now a Christian! Hehe.
Curious and curiouser.
Why were there only 3 photos? Did someone forget the film?
Which photo to release? Only one of the scant three? Was Obama’s directive: “Some people have the notion that I need to be clear. Pick the most UNclear one, and only one. Let them see it for a few seconds, then lock it in a secure vault. Have the media declare infidel Americans who do not believe in me Deathers and right-wing conspiracy nuts.”
Fearful of Islamic backlash? What has brought the progeny of the WWII Greatest Generation to cowards shivering in corners on our knees? SHAMEFUL! These are SEALs dammit, the greatest warriors in the world. WE aren’t the ones who need to be
afraid.
No major Islamic backlash in the Middle East? Maybe they’ve quit being insane throbbing hate-filled barbarians? Or perhaps they know something we don’t, like Osama bin Hidden and dead for several years?
Something smells fishy, and I don’t mean bin Ladin.
Speaking of “fishy” – try googling “Hagfish.” They’re a gross-looking slime-generating and extremely primitive fish that specializes in scavenging carcasses of just about any species that happens to land on the ocean floor.
I doubt that there’s much left of OBL’s corpse by now.
This is another one of those great opportunities for the “moderate” Muslims to show their love of peace. All they have to say is “I wish they had wrapped Bin Laden’s body in bacon. I don’t want him in heaven with me.”
this is our problem, we base all actions on what others will think or feel.
we killed a terrorist.
who cares if that makes anyone mad.
President Dances the Hesitation Waltz
As more and more details are revealed, clarified, and denied concerning the Navy SEALs’ take-down of Osama bin Laden, it’s becoming vividly clear that America’s Commander-in-Chief is not all he pretends to be and nowhere near all he thinks he is. Obama’s refusal today to release any pictures or videos of the operation only serves to underscore this president’s ambivalence and indecisiveness.
His Sunday night announcement that agents of America’s Special Ops had finally located and killed OBL provided carefully-scripted appearances that President Barack Hussein Obama was the man in charge from the bloody start to the watery finish. Despite his self-congratulatory words and his repetitive usage of the pronoun “I,” it turns out that not only did Obama not make the call to assault bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound but in fact he was overruled, in effect a figurehead.
As usual with this president, things are not always what they appear to be or how he wants us to believe they are, not even close.
The sensitive mission was a go until Obama decided to go to bed rather than make the final call. As Britain’s Daily Mail, which is not a member of Obama’s state-controlled media, reports, ”The president stunned officials when he told a national security meeting that he wanted more time to think–and disappeared out of the room.” The Mail cites the New York Times in adding that Obama said, “I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now–I’m going to go back and think about it some more. I’m going to make a decision soon:” http://bit.ly/kHFaPX
In other words, Scarlet O’Hara Obama hadn’t the slightest notion . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4327)
Why not the release the photo’s? they released the photo’s of Saddam Husseins’s corspe why not Bin Laden’s. Gruesome? I thought Hussein’s corspe looked pretty gruesome, yet no one compained about releasing his death photo’s.
Until the photos are released, I don’t know if he’s dead. I believe nothing anymore. Would Americans want to see a photo of Hitler dead? I want the photos. We have a right to see those photos.
The pictures aren’t being release because the SEALS didn’t put women’s underwear on his head when they took the pictures!
I guess the New York Times doesn’t have all the news that’s fit to print.
The photos will be released……in October 2012. Count on it.
Let me make a fictitious skit of the dangers of releasing Osama Bin Laden’s photos as confirmation. Here is a fictitious skit of an Al Qaida recruiter with Osama Bin Laden’s dead photos in his hand standing in front of a group of young Muslims –
“My fellow Muslims, this is the dead photo of our martyr, Osama Bin Laden, who had always taught us that the infidels are evil and barbaric towards the Muslim world. They occupy our holy lands and kill our people at will. Look at his face! Look at his face! See the barbaric acts perpetuated against our martyr. See the brutality of how they killed him! Do not let his vision for Islam die with him! The evil barbaric infidels must pay for this! They cannot occupy our holy lands and keep killing our men at will! This is what our martyr, Osama Bin Laden, was fighting against before they brutally killed him! Look at his face! Look at his face! Who will join us in this holy war! Who will sit back and allow more pictures of this to continue! Join us in this fight, my fellow Muslims! Help us destroy all the infidels that are still on this holy land!”
Can everyone now picture this clearly and realize that we still have tens of thousands of our military troops in Afghanistan and Iraq? Can we jeopardize their lives for a brief photographic confirmation? Is DNA evidence and facial recognition confirmation by our U.S. forces good enough? America, you be the judge.
First , let me say….
I pray for the Peace of Jerusalem. May she be a burdensome stone for all the World the rises up against her.
Then, I pray for President Obama to be the most failed President since Nixon.
Danny
They can’t release the photos, they would show that he was shot in the back, execution style.