We know now that President Obama has decided not to release the photographs of Osama bin Laden, and I think he made the right decision.
It's tempting to say that it's the right decision just because former half-term Alsaka governor Sarah Palin thinks it isn't, but there are better reasons than that.
My thoughts: 1. People already know we've killed him. Showing the pictures will make him more of a martyr than they already consider him.
2. Releasing the photos won't convince anybody. The people who don't believe bin Laden was killed Sunday are the same ones who have looked at a million copies of Obama's official birth certificate and decided it was a fake, while concluding that an obvious forgery was his actual birth certificate from Kenya. What are the odds they won't claim that any bin Laden death photos aren't faked?
3. This isn't like Abu Ghraib; the disclosure of those photos was needed to tell the truth to the American people and the world. Here there is no good-faith question of what happened, nothing to prove.
4. We're better than that. Civilized people are rightly repelled by the barbaric display of the heads of vanquished enemies. We have the opportunity to rise above the baser voices calling for a bloodthirsty display of the corpse of a man who amply deserved his fate. We don't display body trophies.
of photos released of the moon landing(s). Buzz Aldrin still punched a guy in the face when he was called a liar and crook.
So yeah, no reward from doing it, only potential peril.
I’m one who prefers to err on the side of government transparency, so I’d rather the WH release the photos because we, and the world, aren’t a bunch of children. Will it incite some people? Probably, but we always have such risks in a free society, let alone the larger community of nations/cultures.
That said, I’m not sure they need to be released right away. They certainly won’t cure the conspiracy nuts’ psychosis at all, and they don’t need to be thrown out there as trophies or for Palinesque dick waving.
…he’s dead. Now…that must mean they’re trying to fool us again. Did the Russians ever find Hitler’s ashes? Where the hell did B. Traven get to?
And what about Elvis? Shit, he’s only 76 years old now. Probably going to come forward next year and run for President. Hope he still has his birth certificate.
This stuff about showing photos sort of reminds me of a line in the Phil Ochs’ song about Kennedy’s assassination, Crucifixion: “…and do you have a picture of the pain?” Boy. If we’re going to show ‘dead bin Laden’ photos…okay…let’s show dead Afghani children photos, dead National Guard photos, whatever. Or have it online: DEAD PHOTOS R US (specials if you order now).
Photos of him dead? I guess there’s more to that vampire/zombie culture than I thought.
“I was workin’ for Mr. Drysdale as a Double-Nought Spy and he offered me to President Bush for a top secret mission to find this here bin Laden fellow and told me if I found him, Bush would see that Dash Riprock played me in the movie. But then Granny told the President I had chores to do first, and Miss Jane wanted to be my Miss Moneypenny, and Ellie May wanted to go too so she could bring back critters. Dang! I could have found that bin Laden! All I had to do was follow the Top Top Secret ‘find bin Laden’ homing devise on my shoe-phone, but then President Bush said to forget it cause he wanted me and Uncle Jed to go to Iraq so Uncle Jed could shoot at these A-Rabs and miss and then up from the ground would come a bubblin’ crude. Oil that is. Dang! And all I got to do was load and clean Uncle Jed’s gun whilst all these A-Rabs were yappin’ at me ’bout whether I knew that Sean Connery fellow.
I gotta talk to this new President Obama about maybe making me Secretary of Defense or sumthin’. Dang!”
Now. Seven years? Yeah, we should have sent Jethro. I’d hate to see U.S. Intel/Pakistani Gov. on an Easter Egg Hunt.