The only way this could be faked would be if Bin Laden or Al Qaeda were in on it. It would be so easy to disprove and cause the US to lose all respectibility. They would love it if it was faked.
I’m not exactly president of Obama’s fan club or anything, but I have no reason to believe he’d go on national television and blatantly lie about something like this. Not much of an upside, and huge downside. It wouldn’t make any sense, and Obama is a pretty smart guy.
Back in the 1930’s, the press carried photos of dead gangsters-I recall seeing morgue workers posing with Bonnie and Clyde’s bullet-riddled bodies. John Dillinger’s corpse was also photographed.
Why doesn’t the gov just release a good quality photo of this pile of crap?
For the same reason we don’t have public executions anymore, I guess. My theory: as death becomes more distant from the beginning of life, thanks to medical advances and such, the more afraid of it we become, because we have more life to lose, and because it becomes more distant from our daily existences. Thus, we become more squeamish about it.
(The above is a spontaneous WAT, completely unsupported by data or particularly deep thought.)
We don’t want any tangible thing associated with his death to become a rallying point. Not his body, his clothes or a funeral picture.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
We don’t want any tangible thing associated with his death to become a rallying point. Not his body, his clothes or a funeral picture.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Plus, fish gotta eat too…
-XT
They will. Just have a little patience.
They like to show everything but, as with Saddam’s execution (IIRC), which is almost or perhaps just as bad.
I’m not surprised there are no photos yet because I’m a conspiracy theorist, I just assumed that considering precedent and rate of information exchange there would be photos of soldiers Weekend at Bernie’s-ing him within 20 minutes of his death.
I assume they mean they would show him being wrapped up or however that works. Video of the disposal wouldn’t mean anything unless you see the thing in the oversized white sheet is him.
These were not run-of-the-mill soldiers (much less the Iraqi soldiers that did the Saddam video, and seemed to muck it up). These are soldiers that can legitimately claim that their unit doesn’t exist. They don’t leak prank videos.
It’s pretty clear they don’t want there to be a bloody shirt to wave. This is, in my opinion, a wise decision even if it leaves room for conspiracy theories. Any photo to be released would probably be pretty gruesome - at least one source indicated a good part of his face was shot off.
There are already supposed photos on the internet.
Google image search: Osama Bin Laden dead
[QUOTE=Marley23]
I assume they mean they would show him being wrapped up or however that works. Video of the disposal wouldn’t mean anything unless you see the thing in the oversized white sheet is him.
[/QUOTE]
They probably had a Muslim imam to give last rights or burial rights or whatever they do (no idea…never asked any of my Muslim friends). I’m sure they dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s…no cutting off of his head and dumping the body overboard, or whatever. Probably no Islamic equivalent of the Bell, Book and Candle treatment before casting him into the outer darkness either (assuming, again, that there is a Muslim equivalent).
-XT
This one’s fake, at least.
Yes, I hear they consulted a Muslim chaplain via phone and a Muslim sailor made sure it was all done right. Even though he too was probably wanting to sneak a few pork chops in the shroud on the way down–military guys loathed this coward.
The reason a Seal Team was used rather than rocket attacks or drones, was to identify and prove as well as killing innocents or the claim of innocents killed. It was a risk taken, because we could have suffered losses only to discover he wasn’t there.
It’s still possible it was faked but I doubt it.
As I’ve pointed out in several other threads:
If your government is sneaky enough to lie about killing Osama bin Laden, it’s sneaky enough to plant a Kalashnikov on some nameless Afghani hermit and shoot him in the head and tell everyone he’s OBL.
Seems to me if it was a political stunt it might be done closer to the elections, unless both parties are using it as a distraction to screw the working class even more.
my WAG is that they are carefully going through the video and images to be sure that they don’t show too much in the way of clues to the identity of the seal team.
Right, like conspiracy theorists will be satisfied with pictures video and sworn testimony. No one can possibly doctor those.
And has been pointed out in several other threads:
You can lie about this and get the President all the PR he wants. Until Bin Laden goes on TV holding a copy of the New York Times printed a month after he was “killed.” The United States is the laughing stock of the world, and Obama doesn’t even get nominated to run for re-election.
No upside for making this up.