Do you want to see a photo of Osama Bin Laden with his brains blown out?

Yeah, kinda, but I don’t want them to release the photos. It would probably be a bad idea.

Nope – like you I believe them and don’t need to see the gory evidence. But then I didn’t need to see his birth certificate either.

No, it’s morbid.

No. I want it to be seeable, but I don’t want to look at it myself. I’m convinced.

I guess I am alone in my decision. Since I faced gory scenes ever day, seeing Bin Laden dead will be no different that what I have observed in the past.

Do I trust the military? Sometimes. I say if the man is dead…....prove it.

I think that those who need to see the pictures have seen/will see them, I’m not one. I don’t want to, I don’t need to, I believe the president.
@john65pennington : Could you tell a cleverly contrived fake from the real thing? Do you have the equipment and ability to do so?

I personally think that it is a bad idea. But I do have a feeling that in order for people to feel a sense of closure, they need pictures. We’re not going to hear the end of it from some conspiracy theorists until there is legitimate proof.

i do i do i do. but it might be inflammatory

I don’t want to see it for proof, I believe it happened, but I guess I’m kind of messed up and just want to see it for no reason lol.

No, I don’t need proof.

OK, all those who think there should be “legitimate proof” not you, @KatetheGreat , I’m just borrowing your phrase, here exactly what would be that proof? I’m not being pissy here, really, I am honestly curious. Any and all pictures and documents could be faked. Even parading the head through the streets wouldn’t mean anything, how many could recognize it for sure?

@JilltheTooth A lot of people would put the conspiracy theories to rest if they did get to see pictures. But there will always be those conspiracy theorists that will never accept it.

Well, the conspirc’y thereists would just say they’re photoshopped even if they were released, and Al Quaida would use it as an excuse to get their back up even if they were photoshopped.

No, I don’t need to see them. Obama’s face during the raid and his mannerisms soon after, during the speech, where enough for me.

@KatetheGreat : Serious conspiracy theorists won’t believe anything they see, they’ll claim everything is faked. I really don’t like the idea of pandering to the conspiracy theorists, it sends a very poor message.

@Dutchess_III Exactly! And Hillary Clinton’s face. You can’t fake that.

I have no need or desire to see it. I don’t care. People who doubt his death are the same kind who believe Elvis is alive.

no

Now that Jerry Garcia is gone, seeing a Dead head only causes me pain. ;-)

Only if I get to click on a sketchy link on facebook to see it~

I don’t care much one way or the other.

ZOMG! Guys! They just released Osama’s death photo! You guys should check it out. It seems pretty legit.

I don’t need to see it. Releasing it just encourages the conspiracy crowd to cry fake.

And why would anyone announce his demise if it weren’t true? If he resurfaces down the track, it’s political suicide for Obama. If he’s being kept alive and tortured somewhere, then he might as well be dead. If your President announced it, bottom line is he’s out of the picture.

And we all know that anything that’s released is just going to become the world’s biggest meme within minutes. eg. Seeing dead Osama in Beatrice’s hat on the Apprentice wouldn’t do much to quell Al Qaeda’s rising desire to terrorize all things USA. He’s out of the picture. Al Qaeda is not. That’s all you (should) need to know.

No. There’s no point. The people who are going to disbelieve this will do so with or without the photos.

I do want to see it.
I watched videos of his thugs cutting the heads off Americans. It seems only fair.
But I appreciate the President’s logic here. It really is shoving it in our enemies face.

No. I would like to see Osama Bin Laden’s head stuffed and hanging over the mantle in the Oval Office. Further, I think his testicles should be enshrined in the corner stone of whatever building ultimately gets constructed at ground zero.

I’ll admit that I have a morbid curiosity. And I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind some “spiking the football.”

But it’s totally the right decision to not release those photos, at least not now. Leave it for future historians, show our representatives, and let’s try to be better than that.

Seems like a good desk top image, to me anyway. It won’t be something for everyone to view but I want to. I want to see all the film that is available from that night. There’s going to be an (R) rated movie about this very subject probably next year or the following year and they are going to gore it up big time.

No. Not at all.

@filmfann you said it all, bro

No, I don’t need to see the images of a dead dictator to prove that he’s dead as if any pictures presented to the public would be more valid than the word of a Navy Seal.

I don’t really care (but I have to admit I did look at @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard‘s link and I was appropriately horrified!) heheheh, good one mate!

Personally I couldn’t care less if I see them or not. Although there are an abundance of images showing JFK straight after his death, his catastrophic head wound clearly visible. Not saying that’s double standards or anything, just a quiet observation. I mean, were they published soon after the assassination? Or did a significant period of time elapse between the killing & the images being made public?

n o p e

I do and only because of all the misinformation so early on. I mean how on earth do you blow it with such significant details like describing this firefight inside the compound and 2 dyas later he was actually unarmed and shot anyway.

And 2 days later the official word is he didn’t do that and was shot any way. I mean how do you blow those calls with a dozen or more top brass in the situation room all watching it play out live ritght there in front of them? Very bizarre behavior IMO.

“Two taps” to the forehead is a kill shot to take out an unarmed man they had no intention of bringing back alive. Just admit it and we can close the book on this.

No but I would like real proof that he’s dead.

@Ron_C : What proof would satisfy you? What proof couldn’t be faked that you would accept?

I would like to put an end to wild conspiracy theories. Without the pictures the US government needs to come up with a good alternative.

Oh, @mattbrowne , I’m afraid that’s just wishful thinking. I doubt anything will satify the conspiracy theorists at this point.

What about Bin Laden’s wife who was shot in her leg? She could offer a public testimony in Pakistan.

@Cruiser, I didn’t find the descriptions of the firefight to be that off base. I mean, put yourself in these guys shoes.

You know you are going to a heavily fortified compound to take out Osama bin Laden. The guy who orchestrated the world’s most massive suicide bombings, who has reportedly said that he would die before being captured, who clearly has access to suicide vest tech. Also, one of your helicopters crashes upon entry and then someone opens fire on you.

I can see how such a situation would be pretty chaotic and why officials weren’t sure about the exact details of the firefight.

I also don’t think there was much discrepency about shooting bin Laden. They never said he actually used a weapon (Carney said he didn’t know if he got any shots off). He was unarmed, but SEALs reported that there was an AK-47 and a pistol within reach.

And all of these people needed to be debriefed, and they also had to sort through which elements of the mission needed to remain classified (so that future night raids can still be effective).

I would cut them a little slack for mangling some of the details less than 24 hours after the mission went down.

This may be a minor point but he has a 13 year old daughter who saw him shot. That is bad enough but seeing her dead father’s bloodstained head in newspapers and websites for the rest of her life would be awful.

I’m extremely curious as to what will happen to his kids, and what they think of their father.

I hope the ISI isn’t torturing them.

@flutherother Yeah…that poor child…

@flutherother that is just heartbreaking for the child. No matter what anyone thinks of OBL, his child didn’t deserve that. Poor little thing.

@Qingu I am a bit more skeptical than you in that a mission such as this was highly rehearsed to the tune of building a full scale mock up and practiced for “months”. A mission of this caliber and importance would not be green lighted unless all intel available said this mission should be executed. It was green lighted and IMO everything that could go wrong did. 25 minutes of supposed video linkage dropped. An armed man who at first reported was armed and had a female as a human shield was unarmed and did not use her as a shield. Now this infamous picture we were led to believe was of Obama and Hilary agape at the action unfolding in reality was a re-staged photo-op an hour after a now reported unarmed Usama was on on receiving end of a couple of “taps to the forehead” by our elite Navy Seals. Bin Laden got what was coming to him but we the people don’t deserve this BS song and dance the White House has been feeding us. Apparently you are comfortable with what has been presented as facts so far…I am far from that point in time. IMO it is all highly suspect and questionable PR BS.

1. No video for 20 minutes is not “going wrong” if they never planned on having access to that feed in the first place. I’m not sure why they would, since the transmitters would be too bulky for helmet cams.

2. I don’t see how anything about bin Laden being armed, or using his wife as a human shield, indicates that the mission “went wrong.” And I don’t think these are even worthwhile discrepencies. The first report says bin Laden resisted but “don’t know if he got shots off.” Then they say he was unarmed, but reaching for a weapon. They did find an AK and a pistol in his room.

As for his “human shield” wife, the early reports says he used her as a human shield. Later reports say his wife rushed the SEALs, they shot her in the leg, and then they found him. I’ve also seen reports that say bin Laden pushed his wife into the SEALs. It may never be clear exactly what happened. But I don’t really see how the original report was even inaccurate. Bin Laden may not have been holding his wife in front of him, like Link holds the Hylian shield in Zelda, but it’s pretty clear that he was at least to some extent “hiding” behind his wife; the SEALs had to get through his wife to get to him.

3. As for the picture—the friggin’ helicopter crashed. Helicopter raids, historically, have not gone so well. Spare the conspiracy theories—if I were in that room and I just heard a report of a helicopter crash I would be scared shitless.

And again: if this was “PR bullshit,” you’d think they would get their story perfectly straight and rehearsed… not filled with these tiny little contradictions and inconsistencies. The way they have presented the facts is exactly how I would expect them to relate them after a chaotic raid.

IMO pure bullshit @Qingu and nothing more! HS we are talking about one of the single most significant events in recent history and these initial reports came directly from the White House from the mouths of the people who supposedly watched the whole thing “live” as it happened! How the hell do you fuck that up?? We are talking about our country which is supposed to be one of the smartest and strongest countries in the modern world and we look like dumbasses who can’t get it’s own stories straight on something everyone watched live?? WTH??

Also why stage a photo op an hour later and try to sell it off as a pic of them watching it live?? This whole thing stinks and feel free to defend it all you want!

They didn’t watch the whole thing live. There was a 20 minute gap, for starters.

And it’s not as if there is a single camera from which they watch the “whole thing.” They might have been able to see the compound from above, dimly, with a UAV. That tells you absolutely nothing about what is happening inside.

They were also communicating with the commander (Raven?) and the admiral in charge at the time.

I’m also not sure why you think the famous photo is not them watching it live.

And finally, none of the “discrepencies” you pointed out are even notable. It’s the most pedantic of nitpicking details… details which they were communicating as the SEALs were being debriefed.

Out of curiosity, are you a fan of 24 or similar shows? Because I worry that has influenced your expectations.

@Qingu The reason I thought they were watching (monitoring) it live is because the White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan told reporters that is what they did…

“When the operation got under way, though, he slid into his chair in the Situation Room in the White House, where Brennan said the president and his aides “were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation” from beginning to end.”

Are you suggesting Mr. Brennan lied during that press conference??

No, I’m not.

Monitoring in real time does not necessarily mean watching the videofeed from helmet cams throughout the mission. It doesn’t even necessarily mean watching anything. Though I imagine they were probably watching from a drone. But then, as I said, that doesn’t tell you anything about what’s going on inside.

@Qingu All I remember is Obama as “Commander In Chief” getting taking credit for doing everything but pull the trigger. So whether he saw things the same second they happened, or by 7 second delay or whatever this “in real time” means….according to him he directed the decision making. So again how the fuck do you screw up telling the press what did or did not happen when our Commander in Chief and his staff knew about what happened way before the press did! Someone who was in that room told the press that Obama was armed, first put up a fire fight and used that woman as a human shield!! HS that was the “Official” story all Sunday night and Monday and not till Tuesday that corrections started to flow.

I am always suspicious of the phrase ‘human shield’. It is used far too often. In this case Obama’s wife was not killed but wounded which indicates restraint on the part of the Seals. She and her daughter can bear witness to what happened but I think we have a pretty good idea.

“according to him he directed the decision making” —when did he claim that?

“when our Commander in Chief and his staff knew about what happened way before the press did!” — you keep on asserting that Obama must have had this Voldemort-style vision of exactly what each of the SEALs was seeing. Why?

The extent to which Obama “knew what was going on” probably consisted of a drone feed from above along with radio communication from the SEAL commander. Do you agree or disagree?

Also, I never heard at any point that “Osama was armed.” The earliest statements say he resisted and/or participated in a firefight. That implies he was armed, but is not a definitive statement. In any case, he appears to have been reaching for arms.

In real life, as opposed to Hollywood movies where they rehearse a scene over and over with no lives at risk, shit goes wrong, even with all those gee-wiz gadgets. Copters crash, electronics fritz out. In the blur of combat different people see events sometimes different from one another. I think the perception that this was seen in real time as if it was a video game was a bit over blown. The fact that any images were seen in real time would seem bothersome to those not involved in taking down enemy fighters. There was no room for any of those SEALS to be wounded there in Pakistan so taking a chance with their lives just to take him alive was a non starter. The man should have laid down submissively and not gave the impression he was going to resist. But I think we all know he wasn’t going there, to be behind bars in a jump suit, property of the US govt. We may never know the complete facts of the event. I still would appreciate any and all pics of this to look at.

HS @Qingu!! Did you not watch any of the news??? By your answers and comments you must not have!! Read his Hooray speech already!!

“And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda”

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. ”

Plus please take into account that Bin Ladens assasination took place at 3 pm CST and from my guesstimation, Obama had 7 or so hours to get his facts of the mission straight and he still fucked it up!

From now on do your own homework!!

How did he F it up @Cruiser? BL is daid. That was the goal.