Osama Bin Laden's Death Picture Readied for Release

[OhioChick]

Source: ABC News

May 3, 2011

President Obama and national security officials are considering releasing a photo of Osama bin Laden's corpse today, a source told ABC News.

Obama will head to Ground Zero Thursday to meet with 9/11 families. Some of those families think seeing photos of bin Laden might help their healing. Other parts of the world have also asked to see the photos for proof that the master terrorist is dead.

"We are looking at releasing additional information, details about the raid as well as any other types of material, possibly including photos. We want to understand exactly what the possible reaction might be to the release of this information," said White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan on "Good Morning America."

Also up for consideration is the release of video from the "helmet cams" of the Navy SEALS who went after bin Laden. The SEALS captured the mission on tape by wearing helmet cameras.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-release-photo-osama-bin-laden-corpse/story?id=13516795

[no_hypocrisy]

1. That's macabre.

All that's missing is a G-man hovering over the body with a machine gun, glowering into the camera.

[HereSince1628]

4. I suppose like the Dillinger pictures...it's both closure

and a trophy of sorts...

I have no interest in the US displaying a pic showing the after effects of a head shot, none at all.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Thank you. That was my concept.

[Kablooie]

55. And I'll bet Bin Laden wasn't half the man that Dillinger was.

[No Elephants]

62. The Dillinger photos well pre-dated photo shop and no one had been saying

for years that Dillinger was already dead. It was a simpler time.

[HereSince1628]

66. That didn't prevent some from saying it wasn't Dillinger

According to the History Channel, anyway.

[snooper2]

41. Macabre like this? (This post is rated R)

[bemildred]

2. They could have just kept the body around for a few days, but nooo ...

Who could have known that dumping the body in the sea immediately could raise doubts?
:think:

[Frances]

3. bin Ladin was a Muslim

and that religion says the body should be buried within 24 hours. I think the US was wise to bury the body within 24 hours. That decision helped save American lives imo.

[kirby]

47. he was no Muslim...

to treat him with religiously appropriate respect was a disservice to those who call themselves Muslims.

[Frances]

52. IMO Palin is the least like Jesus Christ of all the politicians

yet I would not deny her a Christian burial

[Ter]

54. Comparing Palin to Osama?

Very unfair comparison.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

58. To Osama?

:evilgrin:

[No Elephants]

59. Does it? I've read both "Islamic law" and "Islamic tradition." I don't know which is accurate.

[CherokeeDem]

5. No, they couldn't keep the body....

without angering the Muslim faithful...the US did exactly what they needed and had to do.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted sub-thread

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[sabrina 1]

48. Killing him was likely to anger extremists.

If they weren't worried about killing him, it makes no sense to say they were worried about the reaction to what happened afterwards.

The truth is, Bin Laden had long become irrelevant along with Al Queda to most Muslims. The Arab Spring pretty much exposed the myth told to the American people that young Arabs were in awe of Bin Laden. Only in America did that myth have an traction, and even here, most people had forgotten him.

The Arab youth had other things on their minds, like their own liberties and the dictators they lived under, most of those dictators America's allies. The uprisings in countries across the Arab world did not even have a photo of Bin Laden as he was completely irrelevant to them. But THEY were a threat to him and any influence he might have had left. Not extremists, just people yearning for a better life, their cause, to live in free societies, free of US backed dictators, is the driving force behind the unrest in the region.

And to think the US will have spent more than 3 trillion wasted $$$ under the illusion that Al Queda was any kind of organization that had much influence anywhere.

However, all that money has accomplished its main goal, it made contractors working for the MIC very rich and kept the military budget at obscene levels while the country plunged into depression. Talk about wrong policies.

[CTyankee]

65. I hear that some of the preparation of the body for burial was videotaped, altho

not the actual moment of putting him in the water.

I agree with you. We did the right thing. If muslims see that the body was cared for with respect and dignity, it will be helpful to our image.

[Poll_Blind]

9. It would have been much more realistic if they just said "We're keeping his body for as long as...

...we feel necessary and when we have no further use for it, it will be disposed of in a way which prevents followers from turning it his grave into a shrine."

Who believes that moderate Muslims would be upset by that? That in this world of slaughter the treatment of the world's most notorious terrorist and hijacker of Islam would be cared about all that much by real Muslims.

PB

[bemildred]

11. It smacks of stupidity and self-delusion or bullshit.

I can't say which, but pretending we have some deep respect for muslim religious dogmas is ludicrous, and isn't going to convince anybody who does not already want to be convinced.

[uppityperson]

31. "pretending we have some deep respect for muslim religious dogmas is ludicrous"

Please clarify what you mean. thank you.

[bemildred]

38. Are you asserting that we do?

If so, we disagree.

[uppityperson]

42. Please clarify what you mean. thank you.

Seriously, I prefer to not assume and would like you to clarify.

[bemildred]

50. Assume away. nt

[uppityperson]

53. No, I'd rather not. You don't seem to want to have a discussion. Goodbye. nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. Who knows what was in the sack

that slid off the carrier deck into the drink? OBL? Potatos?

OBL's body could be frozen at area 51 by now.

Releasing the photos is a useless gesture. Most don't need it, deathers won't believe it.

[trud]

16. well, you know

If the US had Meir Kahane's ("the only good Arab is a dead Arab") body and didn't treat it in according to Jewish tradition, I think moderate Jews would be upset.

[Poll_Blind]

19. Meir Kahane != Osama bin Laden. Nor Baruch Goldstein. Really.

Honestly. If you really have that much of a problem with your argument that you have to compare the two, I'd look at either A) re-tooling your argument to be more convincing or B) reconsider the line of pursuing it.

PB

[leftynyc]

24. But would they riot?

Would they take to the streets killing people? I'm thinking, no.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Poll_Blind]

13. Why do you think they would be duplicitious about it? What would be the motivation to lie?

In other words, for them to lie there would have to be some payoff that is greater (by concealing the truth) than revealing the truth.

PB

[cbdo2007]

21. They are being publicly respectful to his beliefs so it's a great PR move....

but I just don't see them getting rid of the body that quickly and in a way that can never be recovered/tested. By throwing him into the sea they are wiping all record of him off the face of the Earth, which is very strange.

I'm just someone who can easily spot when something isn't right. The moment I heard they were doing a burial at sea within 24 hours to follow Muslim law....I knew the story is hooey. I don't know the real story or the reason, but it doesn't make sense to get rid of his body. It's Osama Bin Laden - no rational Muslims would ever be angry with us for keeping his body for 3 days or a week or whatever.

It just doesn't make sense, but I think it was the right thing to do :)

[forty6]

23. You still haven't given a valid reason for the US military to be untruthful

about these events. When one part of a story becomes a lie, the entire story falls apart, and conspiracy theories and mountains of disbelief of the entire event follows.

There is no valid nor justifiable nor scientific, nor forensic reason to keep that body around more than a few hours.

Why do you favor conspiracies over a truthful administration willing to share the facts with you?

[bemildred]

26. How about political or public relations sorts of reasons?

This WAS a political act, was it not, to kill him? What I'm saying is that this is going to FEED conspiracy theories because it prevents outside inspection or confirmation. I might be wrong about that, the pictures might be good enough, or something else they trot out, but with no body for outside inspection it's going to make it more difficult.

[forty6]

28. Who has to examine the body? Donald Trump? Sarah Palin? Fox News?

Really, if one needs confirmation from someone else other than the President and the US Military, one has a serious problems.

The logistics of "verification" and selection of the proper verifiers presents more and more security and "public relations" risks than a simple, straightforward presentation of forensic and video evidence of the events.

There will be sufficient convincing evidence presented to the world, in due time. The choice to believe or not believe is up to every person on the planet, as it always is. Bending over backward for skeptics and non-believers is not the job of the US military. That's the job of Fox News and News Corp.

[bemildred]

29. Somebody on a grassy knoll no doubt.

:sarcasm:

I can assure you that the word of the US Government and US military will not be taken at face value, and that we will be having conspiracy theories out the wazoo in perpetuity because of the unseemly haste in dumping him in the sea.

[forty6]

32. We have had conspiracy theories throughout history, and many while Obama has

been in office.

We have video of the event, eyewitness verifiers, (American and OBL's wife), DNA, and probably brain matter...(he WAS shot in the head), so I'm not really worried about confirmation.

Not even having Glenn Beck and Fox photographers along on that mission would have convinced some people.

So no, we have all we need for reasonable people to know the facts, the nuts and kooks will never believe anyway, so why worry?

[bemildred]

34. We will see.

There will be conspiracy theories not matter what, but you don't have to help them out.

[bemildred]

30. All you have to do is look around, and you will see what I am talking about.

I do hope you are correct that incontrovertable evidence will be produced, but I still think they would have done better to wait a bit.

[forty6]

35. The bigger "PUBLIC RELATIONS" disaster would have been to

hold the body and disrespect the Muslim religious beliefs by holding the body for more "verification". Who would be the credible "verifiers"? What security and logistics risks would that entail? How would we deal with millions of outraged moderate Muslims around the world who would be disgusted by our "verification parade"?

Of course, we have the evidence, video, testimonial, DNA. Waiting and getting a big gang of westerners to "verify" the body would have made this nothing more than a symbolically ghoulish circus spectacle out of the event.

I know it's hard for some people to do, ( they want to see, touch and feel for themselves), that is, hard to trust the President and the military chain of command, but for once, let's just trust the science, the video, and the testimony of the people on the ground. We do ourselves no favors by amplifying the verification process to the point where it hurts the sensibilities of millions more moderate Muslims around the world. We treated the body with traditional Muslim respect, and that is the proper thing to have done.

[bemildred]

36. See, that's precisely what we disagree about.

Time will tell.

[forty6]

37. Remember Daniel Pearl? You think religious people (of any persuasion)

don't get upset when a body is paraded around?

Sorry, I think you underestimate the persuasiveness of science and overestimate the need to bow down to kooks and charlatans.

[bemildred]

40. Who said parade the body around?

Look, let's just diagree and see what happens?

[forty6]

43. NO, your argument is that "kooks and conspiracy theories will happen"

I never said they wouldn't.

What's the point of arguing? ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE, whenever there is dispute or various viewpoints on reality, there will be conspiracy charlatans pushing their story for personal gain of some sort. Witness Glenn Beck and Donald Trump and the national birther racism, there's no rational way to satisfy them.

I say, I don't care to bow down to those types. I prefer the ethical and scientific route, others are free to choose their own solutions or wish for a different set of facts to satisfy their ghoulish curiosity.

[orangeapple]

44. 'rational muslims' aren't the problem

People who will flip out and kill dozens of innocents over a burned book are the concern.

If some aid workers in the Middle East get killed in a rampage because we announce we're aren't giving him a swift burial, what sense does that make?

As rewarding as it may be to put his head on a spike of the White House fence, I think they were wisest to make him crab shit.

[forty6]

45. Excellent point! n/t

[bemildred]

22. Yeah, that's the basic issue, as I see it, if you assume it's not just stupidity. nt

[bemildred]

15. I hope you are right, sort of, but doubtful.

And it's not like they were going to please everybody, no matter what they did.

The whole thing sort of reeks of bullshit anyway, but that is just the Mighty Wurlitzer in action, and I don't really doubt that he's dead, or object to killing him, or anything, but Jeebus, why make it look like you were in a hurry to dispose of the evidence?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. I think it's necessary for closure.

And as many have pointed out, the death of bin Laden won't bring back the thousands killed on 9/11, or the thousands killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but it will close the book on this bastard once and for all.

[patricia92243]

8. Hope they do. People who don't want to see them - don't look.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[wickerwoman]

51. They said the original picture includes pieces of brain and skull.

I don't think anyone really needs to see that. I'm assuming by "readied" they mean that they're blurring the most graphic parts of the picture but leaving enough that the face can be recognized.

If that's the case, I don't have a problem with it. Proof is one thing, snuff-porn is another.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[Marblehead]

27. I can't wait to see it

I bet he's deader than a door nail...

[verges]

39. I would have thought

a coffin nail woulod be the deadest piece of iron mongery.

[uppityperson]

33. I am glad they are being watchful, respectful, even though many feel he doesn't deserve it.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

46. I suppose the release of the video from the helmet cams will clear up all the "fog of war" foolery

As far as I'm concerned, I'm satisfied he's dead. I don't need to see the event with my own eyes to be persuaded. I certainly do not need to see the gruesome aftermath of the event. However, I can see a need for the real facts to be circulating the world rather than any romantic versions now being cultivated by some terrorist groups.

[EFerrari]

56. If they went in in the middle of the night in the dark

that video may not show much.

[KamaAina]

49. "Readied for release"? Photoshop running a little slow?

:tinfoilhat:

seriesly, why is it taking so long to "ready it for release"? All that does is stoke the flames of the real :tinfoilhat: ters, (edit) such as #18 above.

[johnroshan]

57. Hatred and revenge hurt those who harbor it more than who its is directed to.

"Some of those families think seeing photos of bin Laden might help their healing."

That is one sad reflection on the kind of values we teach in our society. To see the gruesome pictures of a dead man brings healing?!!

[Courtesy Flush]

60. Remember when Saddam's sons were killed?

Pictures were released to convince a skeptical Arab public. The explanation was that there have been many official lies about these kinds of things, and people were often reported killed who were not. They even dissected the leg of one of the sons to show the metal pins he was known to have as a result of a prior injury.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3094897.stm

[No Elephants]

61. If someone is not incensed by the killing of Osama,will the photo incense them? OTOH, a photo is

not evidence of anything anymore, and never would have been evidence of the date of death.

[Evasporque]

63. Franklin Mint to strike cold clad coins of OBL Death Mask!...nt

[BlueIris]

64. I personally have no desire to see the photo(s).

I think it's in questionable taste, and could be arguably viewed as something which could increase hatred of Americans and Westerners (ie; not smart, from a national security standpoint.)