That picture has been confirmed as fake. I haven;t seen any officially released photographs of Osama's corpse, but I think we can rest assured that the
real pictures will be of much better quality than
that.
The conspiracy theories are bonkers. Yes, it is possible (though not particularly plausible) for Osama to have been killed long ago and for Obama to now take political credit. It's possible that Osama hasn;t even really been killed.
But faking or delaying reports of Osama's death until
now is hardly optimal. If this were a
real conspiracy, Obama would have waited until shortly before the election, to hit the peak of the political capital this is going to give him when he can use it the most.
That, on top of the usual arguments against any conspiracy theory - how many people would need to keep perfectly silent? How much evidence would need to be faked? Which scenario is
more likely?
But then, that's why we don't trust conspiracy theories. Let the gullible, the idiots, the whackaloons believe whatever they want; they won;t be dissuaded by such things as evidence or logic anyway, so why bother paying further attention?
As for the actual facts of Osama's death...I'm
extremely happy with teh way this went down. Obama chose to sit and wait on the intel for a long time to make absolutely certain that Osama would be there when the time came; he didn't use a Predator or a cruise missile or an airstrike, any of which could have:
1) destroyed the remains too severely for identification
2) destroyed any documents or other evidence that may assist in further disassembling the al Qaeda network
3) most importantly, would likely have caused noncombatant deaths, since the "compound" was in the middle of a residential area.
This could have easily been a repeat of the botched Iranian hostage rescue. It could have been another Black Hawk Down. The political risk, if this
hadn't gone off without a hitch, was significant. Obama had the stones to order it anyway, and it
paid off, big time.
I'm also happy about the choice for disposing of Osama's body: burial at sea in full accordance with Muslim traditions. All of the bullshit about "douse the body in pigs blood" or other disgusting suggestions would do nothing but demonstrate our own hatred. It;s the same exact kind of inhuman shit Americans complain about when Iraqi/Afghani insurgents desecrate the bodies of American soldiers and contractors. We do not at all need to sink to that level; we've lost mroe than enough moral high ground in the so-called "war on terror," thank you
very much, I'd prefer if we didn't continue to antagonize entire religions for no particular reason. And of course, burial at sea means that there will be no grave site to become a shrine for like-minded individuals, nor for desecration by hooligans who get off on expressing their hatred.
Good fucking decision.
Even though the timing was not optimal for getting him re-elected, this will still get Obama some major political capital. He's already getting congratulations from the likes of Bush and Cheney - the political far-right has no choice now but to admit that Obama did exactly what they would have wanted him to do.
Just like with his initial election with a Democrat-controlled Congress, I predict Obama will focus so hard on his theme of "unity" and "bipartisan cooperation" that he will accomplish
absolutely none of major initiatives regarding the budget etc, despite what will certainly be massive gains at the polls. And somehow, despite my pessimism, I'll still wind up being disappointed even further.
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