Does anyone believe the buried at sea?
Bury him at Sea World, he can be junk food for Shamu and the gang.
If Bin Laden never represented true Islam, as Obama, Bush, CAIR and countless others have claimed, why did they bother with the Islamic body handling tradition? I think this was just a pretext for getting rid of the corpse before its location could become known.
While the word “true” may have been used in various speeches, this is an incorrect assumption. There is no true Islam, because Islam is not a centralized organization. He didn’t represent the majority of Muslims, and nor was he representative of Islam. His version of Islam was, however, as “true” any given proponent says it is, but in the same way that the Christians burning ‘witches’ in Nigeria are not representative of the majority of Christians, nor did bin Laden represent most Muslims.
That said, hate him or despise him, he was a Muslim, and the cultural practice particularly in that part of the world, is to follow certain rituals and dispose of the body quickly. By not adhering to such practices, the US would have been seen by many Muslims, including moderates, as having desecrated the corpse. An action which, pragmatically, would not have been in the interests of the US. They did the right thing.
I don’t think there’s any question but that this will be embraced and speculated upon endlessly by some contingent. Like jjimm said, the US did handle it in a correct and humane fashion, but the numerous scenarios to the contrary that are possible just makes for such fanciful mind candy that, for many, such speculation will forever be irrestable.
I hope Obama uses this to announce to the world, the successful completion of the Afghanistan War.
Thids would be the perfect opportunity to LEAVE!
Announce that our goals have been met, turn over the mess to the Afghans, and get out.
The US Government kept the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s son for like a week, before they got around to doing anything with them. And the number two guy (I think he was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) wasn’t buried right away either, so the 24 hours and Islamic tradition is a weak excuse.
Now that Hitler is too old to be alive (AKA not dead, but escaped and living in South America) at least we’ll have Bin Laden to kick around for another few decades.
“He’s not dead, Bin Laden is living…”
I may have switched to a parallel universe. shooting someone in the head is correct and humane?
We shall partake of his flesh so that our enemy’s strength might become our own!
FEAAAAAAAST!
The sad thing is, without this footnote, I might actually get some people agreeing with me.
Spit on it? Hell, let’s make it the only site in the country where it’s legal to urinate and defecate in public.
We’re talking about now that he’s dead, what’s the correct way to handle disposition of the body. Jjimm said following Muslim tradition and cultural practices for that part of the world would be correct, that it shouldn’t be left open to charges of desecration which might inflame moderates. I agree.
You had difficulty in following that?
DNA samples were taken and compared to DNA samples taken from one of his sisters. Apparently a sister of his died in Boston some years ago, and her brain was preserved in case this situation ever arose. Photographs were taken and it’s said to be recognizably him. The government has not decided if they should be relased.
The U.S. is reducing its presence starting this summer. That’s been in the works for a long time. It’s possible some circumstances will change - although since they have been tracking him for a while, you would think that any adjustments to their plans would already have been made - but the war was never just about bin Laden.
I’m sure that conspiracy theorists will have a field day with the fact that Bin Laden’s body was immediately disposed of in a way that makes it impossible for anyone else to examine it.
Given that the DNA tests can’t possably have been completed yet (real life is not like CSI: Miami) the decision to dispose of the corpse so quickly seems questionable.
I’m of two opinions, both involving burial at sea:
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Perform the operation, but have a team of divers waiting to bring it back on board after the cameras quit.
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Perform the operation, but chum for sharks first.
I am seconding the cold water shower here. The guy was terrible, I am not going to deny that but really we should be above petty destruction to the man’s corpse.
I am very much glad that the US did the right thing before the populous could get a hold of him.
It scares me that with the high regard I have for the intelligence of the people here that they could say such things.
Yeah, I can’t help but thinking that it’s kind of a boneheaded move to get rid of the body so quickly. Not that I buy into this sort of speculation, but you figure that with all the bullshit conspiracy theorizing this administration has had to deal with, they’d shield themselves a little better in this case. I doubt that more than a few people, apart from the most radical Muslims, would care if we kept his body on ice for awhile.
Having said that I wonder if the soldiers involved in the operation that brought him down took turns pissing on his corpse.
DNA can be tested in as little as 4 hours. It usually isn’t because the testing is expensive and the back-log is often long.
He got pushed to the front of the line.
A “bin Laden is alive!!!” conspiracy theory would be really stupid. If he’s alive, wouldn’t he just release a video in the next couple of days saying “I’m not dead! They didn’t get me!”? He has no interest in letting people think he’s dead, like Elvis or Hitler. So unless a new video comes out very soon, which it won’t, not only is he merely dead, he’s really most sincerely dead.
The nonexistence of “one true Islam” may be your view, and it is mine as well, but the US government has repeatedly taken it upon itself to declare terrorism and Bin Laden to be un-Islamic. Just last night, Obama said “Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims.” Yet he deserves an Islamic burial?
I think even most Muslims would agree that there is a long distance between desecration of a corpse and not adhering to every jot and tittle of Muslim tradition. Hard to believe there are people out there who would welcome Bin Laden’s demise yet wring their hands over whether his body was washed an odd number of times.
It has nothing to do with what he deserves. It’s about trying to avoid unnecessary offense.