Habeas Pictura: Show Us the Money Shot
I'm glad we killed Osama bin Laden. He deserved to die and we deserved to avoid Mirandizing him and bringing him to trial. The microphone for conspiracy people and alternate (CRAZY) views of "what really happened," are too hideous to contemplate. I'm glad we dumped him in the ocean and avoided the family suing to get the body back and his burial place becoming a shrine for Jihadis everywhere.
I do believe, in this conspiracy-riddled world, we do need to release the picture. Not doing this inflames not the already radical Jihadis but the "deathers" who doubt the reality of his death. No, the hard-core corps of conspiracy folks can never be satisfied, but, as with the release of the bloody pictures of Saddam's rotten sons, the pictures mostly ended the controversy and denial. This is a bit like the normal everyday issue of whether to have a viewing before (or during) a funeral. Some folks hate the idea and for some it brings a kind of closure and sense of finality.
As far as putting our armed forces in greater peril or inflaming the Jihadis, well, those people who are already mad at us, shooting at us, blowing things up and plotting acts of terror do not need any inducements or excuses. They are not going to want to kill us even deader than they already want to kill us.
I suspect, but do not know, that we will have the best of all possible worlds here. We will claim not to release the picture out of sensitivity and respect, and, like everything else in Washington, it will leak. We will maintain deniability while keeping to the moral high-ground.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Leave a comment