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Thought for the day

If it is a good idea not to publish photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, for fear of offending Muslim sensibilities, then why was it a good idea to publish the photos of the Abu Ghraib abuses?
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Discussions - 12 Comments

This is too simple -- because the man in the White House has a (D) after his name.

I don't offer that as flippant commentary. I'm dead serious.

I begin to hope that OBL's not dead and that the SEALS took him to Guantanamo for surgery on a superficial wound and intensive interrogation.

Like, blowing the pig to hell didn't offend mohommedan sensibilities? I'm sure right now in some goat pen iin the middle east there is a louse-ridden jihadi telling his friend "You know, Mohammed, killing the great warrior Osama was sad, but showing the pictures? Why, now my feelings are really hurt!"
Maybe Obama should apologize for the whole thing.
By the way, I am quite offended that Osama is always being referred to as being "buried at sea". He was thrown overboard. No matter what the ceremony, garbage is "thrown overboard".

How does that make sense Don?

Technically Obama has a D after his name, and decided not to release the pictures.

Technically Bush had an R after his name, and decided to release pictures.

Therefore having a R after your name prompts you to release pictures while having a D after your name prompts you to not release pictures?

Assuming the situation is even analogous. First of all a seal team is more proffesional, if Obama decides not to release pictures they simply will not be released. And the folks involved will go to the grave in silence.

Bush didn't technically have a choice, too many soilders sharing photos, the commanders should have banned cell phones and cameras, but they did not, or else lacked the ability to enforce the ban. A LOT of crap can happen before it gets so blatant that the MP's or the Army decides to act, and at Abu Ghraib you probably had several hundred people with potential evidence. I am sure Abu Ghraib has some sort of official story, but as I am not a historian, I don't have to put my reputation on the line by buying any of it. I think the truth is that the Army just didn't know how many folks had pictures, so they released them on dammage control.

The Abu Graib pictures were not "official" pictures.

Look the chinese(insane rumor?) via facebook have already released pictures of dead Osama. Of course you are silly for believing access. This was a brief and controlled operation. Abu Ghraib is highly distinguishable in terms of mechanics.

The entire question is ridiculous. The circumstances and mechanics of each are highly distinguishable, and quite obviously you have a different commander in chief. What Bush deemed to be a good idea, is certainly not binding on Obama, yet at the same time putting it in this way is unfair to Bush.

To be flippant, I might suggest that having a D after your name makes you more reasonable, as that is the most likely conclusion you can reach under the question presented.

I may be mistaken, but I understood the post to refer to the thousands of photographs President Obama released after his inauguration, not the handful that were released when the Abu Graib scandal occured. They were released to much fanfare around the same time that AG Holder began the investigations of DOJ officials and CIA agents involved in the EIT program and the administration began allowing photographs to be taken of flag-draped coffins.

I am mistaken: President Obama planned to release 2,000 additional photographs of Abu Graib but Gen Petreaus and Mr. Gates convinced him not to.

Alternatively, if it was such a bad idea to publish any photos of the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and conservatives got their panties in a collective bunch over it (umm....guess I could've used a better phrase than that, considering...), why are they so eager to see some gory photo of a dead guy? Not happy until they see a slo-mo vid of the bullet entering and the blood splattering.

I think this is the issue that the birthers are rapidly migrating to. "Obama's a liar! I bet he not only didn't kill his buddy Osama, he's probably keeping in the White House basement where he gets luxurious meals 4 times a day!"

and

"Johnny! Turn away from those pics of Janet Jackson's chesticles and look at what God's Army did to the Satanic Monster!"

Because having the (D) afford Obama the luxury of doing what is politically beneficial, whereas having an (R) requires an entirely different approach to crisis management.

Had Bush not released the photos the scandal would have been fanned daily by the media. Delaying release would have created an even worse scandal. I'm sure Bush did not want to release the photos; but felt it better to "rip off the band-aid" rather than let the issue fester ... with, no doubt, fabricated stories of high level complicity to create multiple damaging narratives. Bush's options were far fewer due to his (R).

Obama will be under no such pressure by the media. If Obama deems a release of the photo politically disadvantageous, the media will comply and work tirelessly to change the narrative. If he chooses to release them, the media will comply and work tirelessly to support the narrative of Obama the hero.

The (D) is what does that.

Sorry, at this point millions of people, here and abroad, just aren't buying all of this. No body, no evidence, conflicting reports of what happened during the raid...it's a conspiracy-theorists dream scenario. Either the administration is hiding a very, very dark truth about this incident (like an execution rather than a combat-killing), or this is the most ham-handed handling of a "successful" covert action in history.

I'd like to say only Obama could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but our government does this kind of thing on a fairly routine basis (although seldom on this scale).

Craig, is it just conservatives who are expressing doubt about the death of OBL? I don't think so and you are simply being nasty. I am seeing a few conservatives questioning what has happened; I heard a few minutes of Rush yesterday or the day before with a variation on the theme. For the most part what I read is the kind of thing Redwald is saying; this has turned into a mess and everyone is wondering why.

If no had said there were pictures, pictures would not be expected. "There are pictures, but you cannot see them." implies there was something better not seen. That could mean anything. For example, if Abu Ghraib was bad and the photos were shown, was this even uglier so that they are not to be shown, since inflammatory?

What a mess.

Because liberals are terrified of Muslims. Why. Simple. About 15% of the Muslim population (they would be of the Wahabbi sect) support Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Given that there are 1 billion Muslims in the world, there are approximately 150 million of them that are as insane and crazy as Bin Laden. This terrifies liberals since they don't have the cojones to fight for themselves. They just want to make "peace' with everyone which doesn't work. Especially since the beliefs of Muslims are the complete opposite of the beliefs of liberals.

Obama may not be terrified of Muslims, but he does sympathize with them. On the other hand Obama finds America a "bad" country which he intends to rehabilitate and absolve it from all its past inequaties which includes things like past "injust" wars, corporate expansions, rich people and oh of course slavery.

Funny thing about slavery. I wonder if Obama has ever read a book on African Slavery. It might serve him well to do so. He would then find out that the Muslims in North Africa enslaved over 28 million Africans before they helped start the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The bulk of those Africans were women and young girls forced in to sex slavery.

Of course no one knows about this issue because it is politically incorrect to talk about such things in public schools.

I'm not concerned. Bin Laden is dead, because there is no way that Barack Obama would ever think that the United States military would ever engage in any kind of cover-up for him. Follow orders--sure. Cover up? Not a chance. Mr. Obama probably understands his influence over the military ends the day he leaves office--and ends hard. No matter when that day is, there are people who will be able to spill the beans when required--especially if it comes as a lawful order that they have to follow because they are still on active duty (or recalled).

Therefore, the military, like most Americans, wanted Bin Laden dead. As a corporate entity, they have no reason to help the current White House occupant politically with a coverup or fraud, and perhaps some reasons not to care for him on either personal or professional levels. Therefore, the more likely case would be that if Bin Laden has somehow not been killed, or if a fraud had been ordered, the knives would have come out for the President instead of blind obedience. They haven't. I thus conclude to my own satisfaction the man is dead.

As for the pictures, and the details--once again, the current administration is not going to be in power forever--and since I doubt they are in current possession of sole copies of anything, they won't be able to stage manage the process forever, either. Some things are just bigger than they are.

If the pictures need to come out one day, they will.

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