But the thing is, what difference does it make what happens now? Who cares if the photos are released? Who cares if they change their mind? Why is this a big deal at all? The important news is that OBL has been killed. It makes me so happy.
Yep. Amazingly, we have a President whose concern during the planning and the execution of a serious operation was on whether the target would be there, and whether our SEALs would do the job without getting hurt themsleves. Amazingly concern over whether or not a friggin’ photo would be appropriate to release to a purient portion of the American media consuming public was not his number one concern and having a “media hose up” by deciding that after he saw the photo instead of before is not really something that matters to him. He was actually focused on getting bin Laden without “collateral damage” or loss of American lives. And he calls himself a politician!
As proud as Obama makes me of America, some Americans are quite pathetic.
Thank the Lord we finally have a President like that !:rolleyes:
The President was responsible for none of what happened. He had weeks if not months to prepare an announcement. That allowed him to prepare for multiple outcomes as well as how the information would be released to the public.
Yes, cutting his 18 rounds of golf shortso he could delay the announcement by an hour was quite the achievement. It would take some serious executive skill-sets to foresee that in the course of doing their job the media would ask for pictures of the event.
Not an idiot.He was saying they should be released in Pakistan.He did not say they would stay there. I am sure they would get around the world. But he thinks it is required in Pakistan.
Even if they are ugly, they would not change much. But some people would believe.Those who would not, have no intention of accepting the pictures no matter what they look like. We have some like that on this board.
Magiver, I don’t think that you are suggesting that a President should telegraph to the world that something big is coming by changing his usual schedule dramatically, are you?
No, you are fixated on the concept that what is important is whether or not there is a gruesome photo to gawk at, and that the decision about whether or not to give the worst of us our chance to see our enemy’s body torn apart by the lions should what a President thinks about.
You go ahead and think that way. I will go ahead thinking that thinking that that is what is important here is disgusting.
gonz, why should we particularly care if the Pakistani-in-the-street believes he is dead or not? That doubt does not serve any particular propaganda interest against us and may even work to our advantage in certain ways.
Do you believe that the world would have taken notice if President Obama hadn’t gone to the golf course?
Yes. Most certainly. Every single move is analyzed for potential meaning. A change in schedule for no apparent reason would be noted and seized upon as a sign of something happening.
Conspiracy theorists will have to look elsewhere: al Quaeda has confirmed bin Laden’s death.
Heh, am I the only one cynical enough to think that the pics will be “leaked” … right in time to influence the next election? 
This sorta reminds me of the whole birth certificate nonsense. Whatever else Obama is, he’s a long-term thinker when it comes to politics. He allowed various opponents to make fools of themselves over this “birther” foolishness until everyone was sick of it … and only then released his birth certificate, demonstrating in the most obvious possible way that they were full of stupid.
Similarly, knowing that the American public has a short attention span but an elephant’s memory for avenging injuries, in purely political terms holding back the pics (which can surely make no difference one way or the other to the situation) allows Obama the luxury of releasing them through “leaks” or otherwise at a time of his choosing - which may well be when it is most politically advantageous to remind the public that it is he, and no other, who was on watch when Osama was hunted down. Allowing his more out-there opponents to, once again, make absurd claims he knows are untrue (and once again proving they are full of stupid) is an added bonus.
Like that would stop them! Ha!
The US releases photographic evidence that Bin Laden is dead:
That should settle it. 
Of course it’s insulting to everyone who lost lives on 9-11 and thereafter.
If Mr Obama or Mr Bush or anyone was worried about minimizing life they would have done virtually everything different.
It’s a cop out. When the photos get leaked and they will, then what? The USA will be embarrassed and the violence, if any, will happen anyway, except no one will be prepared for it.
Are we supposed to believe that we are any safer now that Bin Laden is dead, if the mere photo of him dead, can bring more violence?
As others said, there’s no evidence he is dead, at least from the attack a few days ago. For all we know he could’ve been dead years ago.
The whole thing could not have been handled much worse than it was. I mean really two presidential administrations had ten years in all, to prepare for this and THIS was the best they could come up with to handle it?
Alive or dead, it doesn’t inspire confidence if this is the best plan they had
I don’t know where this kind of garbage comes from or what makes people think they should say it. The deaths in the September 11th attacks and the wars have nothing to do with pictures of bin Laden’s corpse. I know some families of the September 11th victims say they want to see the photos, and I know some don’t. I understand both positions. What doesn’t make sense is this idea of taking umbrage on behalf of dead people based on a topic where we can’t know their opinions anyway.
That’s a bad representation of the issue.
There isn’t no evidence. For my part, I said there’s not a lot of direct evidence coming from anywhere other than the government. On the other hand, today Al Qaeda confirmed he’s dead (why would they do that if he died years ago?), vowed revenge in their typical fashion, and said that soon, they’re going to release a recording he made a week before he died.
Bull. They tried to kill him for 10 years. Longer, actually. The exact circumstances of his death and details like the pictures weren’t clear until he was dead, and they weren’t a priority until he was dead. This is really much ado about nothing- even though it has given people who don’t like Obama an excuse to complain about his handling of something they wanted him to do. 
All of this bullshit about concern for Muslim sensibilities and reactions, well, we know where it really comes from, don’t we, Mr Barrack Hussein Obama? Connect the dot, people!
I’m suggesting that the President do his job. He had all the time in the world and couldn’t manage a simple press conference involving the obvious. His “schedule” is whatever he damn well feels like doing. By cutting his golf game short and showing up late for a press conference he managed to prove he forgot to do his homework.
The pictures are going to come out under the FOIA or some other leaked source. What the President did was make a project out of it and appeared weak in the process. The pictures represent the reality of a military operation in a foreign country in response to our country being attacked. We do not kowtow to terrorists who wage war against us.
While I obviously agree with your assessment of the, as you call it, “garbage”, I still have not had your help in explaining to me what you would consider “direct” or “objective” evidence.
Pakistani military states that OBL’s daughter has said that she witnessed her father’s death in the raid and one of his wives verifies that he had been in that compound for the past 5 years.
His organization confirms he is dead.
DNA evidence confirms that the man killed was bin Laden.
Yes, the lunatic fringe can and will state that the DNA report could be fake data, that the daughter and the wife is in on it, and that the photos do not really exist and if they did are photoshopped anyway. Nothing will be enough to convince some people that the world is not flat, that there was a moon landing, that Climate Change is real, that Obama was born in America, that the US government was not the ones who actually brought down the Trade Center, that the world was not created in 7 days 5000 years ago, or that this particularly vile bit of, to stretch the use of the word, humanity, has been killed.
That I understand and accept. And the usual hopelessly partisan hacks will embarrass and marginalize themselves further by attempting to create a “Photogate”.
Why you, someone who is not usually someone I would consider being part of that lunatic fringe, thinks that there is any cause to begrudge the quality of the evidence, that I do not understand.
I don’t begrudge anything. I am making a comment on the sourcing. And given that Al Qaeda is acknowledging today that he’s dead, what I said yesterday - which was just that almost all the evidence for his death comes from the U.S. government - is no longer the case.
It is strange that Americans get very upset and call others barbarians if they show death photos of dead enemies (Americans), but sneer themselves and wish to behave the same way when roles are reversed.
There are many other people who find it in bad taste, as I. It is not good taste to have photographed the dead America soldiers in Iraq, or filmed the deaths of hostages, nor is it right when you Americans do it.
The great religious bigotry here is almost amusing like making the photos of dead in Fallujah the reason why you should behave the same way. Bigotry and hypcrisy.
Have you read the link? The golf game was before the raid, not the announcement. The announcement was delayed, I’ve read, because Obama was writing his speech. Which was worth the delay. In fact, they canceled White House tours Sunday so tourists wouldn’t run into high level security advisors and wonder if something was going on.
BTTW, during the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy canceled an appearance suddenly, supposedly because of a cold, and rushed back to Washington - and people knew that something was going on. Cite: Me listening to WMCA radio at the time.
As far as planning goes, they clearly planned well enough to be able to bury him at sea. I don’t see how they could have made a decision without having seen the pictures.
I’ve yet to hear of one good reason to release the photos besides rubbing them into the faces of the world. Given that, in a world where cartoons and the burning of the Koran by some moron in Georgia causes rioting and death, it would be pretty responsible. Would you think that a relative or friend of yours who happened to be in the wrong place getting killed be worth it for the photos? I wouldn’t.