Some people are just neurotically sceptical. But even they won’t deny what is before their eyes. Is there anyone who seriously questions the fact that Saddam Hussein is dead? That’s the way to do things these days. Don’t launch a bloody, decade defining series of wars and then refuse to release photos of a dead body, or better still display the actual body, because you’re worried it’ll upset people. Shoot the ****** in the head on camera then release it on youtube.
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Actually, they will and they do.
Probably, if they care about him as much as some care about Elvis. Seriously, Osama was no Saddam. I do agree that dumping the body in the sea was not the right thing to do, but for somewhat different reasons.
The traditional thing that Arabs do to their dead enemies is hang the corpse (usually by the feet) in the public square for a couple of days, so everybody has a chance to feast their eyes on him.
It is effective against conspiracy theories.
Personally, having lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in September 2001 and having my windows rattle after the second plane went in, I would have like to have seen his head on a pike in City Hall Park.
There is video of the kill shot somewhere.
How long before it’s leaked?
This is a better way of doing things. I sometimes wonder if we (the Allies) could have persuaded the Japanese Empire in WW2 to play very nice if we had kidnapped the entire Imperial family, shooting one member per week if the Diet didn’t obey us. No need for an Atomic Bomb! Now how could we have persuaded Germany to replace Hitler- or should we, like the Utopians in Moore’s novel, have put a massive price on the Head of every Nazi leader?
I would hate to live in More’s Utopia, a truly nasty place, but that is one thing he got exactly right. The average citizen or grunt on the ground isn’t responsible for wars; it’s the leaders, and they’re the ones who should pay the price. Targeted assassination of the political and military leaders of the enemy is the only moral way to wage a war.
Anyone who hasn’t read Utopia should read at least that section. It’s called “Of Their Military Discipline”, and here’s the key paragraph:
A word on behalf of the neurotically sceptical, it’s not always the dyed in the wool fact that is debated, it’s the additional baggage of the meaning behind the fact that is debated. It may be lazing debating sometimes, but in this fast paced world it may be easier to truncate the argument at the root.
Also, neurotical scepticism is bred existing in a world where agendas are hidden, big and small. We live in a world where the drum is beaten well beyond the original communicative intent. It’s hard not to be conditioned to look for an agenda when the beat continues on and on and on and…..
Our masters have been trying to condition us for so long it’s hard to not reject anything and everything that is said.
I agree, Laird, this is one of their better ideas. However, I have never heard of it being applied in real life. Does anyone know if it has been done, and if it worked? If so, then that is the best way to defend your country!
Brad is correct. I am actually amazed to see so many intelligent people taking exactly what the USG says at face value, with no proof offered whatsoever.
It may well be that Osama has been killed, but, unfortunately, politicians and governments have lied so hard and so often that the default option must surely be to disbelieve?
Not to mention that whenever the heel has been killed, from HImmler up to the present day publication of photographs has been de rigeur. What makes this so different?
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
I love conspiracy theories, and so I keep looking for one that would prove to be worth the trouble – alas, no luck so far, and this one is no different. As I said on another thread, there were reportedly 24 pairs of boots on the actual ground (and consequently as many pairs of eyes and ears). And even if one doesn’t take that particular number at its face, it is clear that an operation like that would have to involve too many people for any attempt to keep a secret to be very short-lived. The simple and most obvious answer to all the questions that have been asked so far is that this administration is totally inept on/uninterested in anything that has to do with foreign affairs. Giving the OK on this mission was the only thing that they managed to do right, and they do deserve the credit for that, but that’s about it.
Laird, that excerpt is brilliant. I read the book as a kid, and don’t remember a thing, other than instinctively not liking the damn place.
Yes – wh00ps, you’re assuming they care what you think.
One lesson from 9/11 is that even a live TV audience of tens of millions won’t deter anyone from believing all sorts of cretinous nonsense, so why bother with photos? You believe whatever you want to believe.
Photos and video from multiple public sources, with thousands of eyewitnesses are indeed proof something happened.
Photos or video from one official source in this day of computer aided video manipulation – not so much.
DNA evidence? Unless they had OBL’s DNA on file comparing it to other family members only proves they whacked a not so distant relative.
Alisa, whoever you really are (Mossad?), here is a conspiracy theory for you- No-one is in charge, or trying to take over the world, but all governments want you to think that someone, somewhere, is in control, so they put out, or fan, any and all conspiracy theories so that the general public won’t panic when they realise that humans are not really in control of anything! Better to believe that an evil person or group is running things than that the Cosmos is a random place with NO plan!
How’s that for a conspiracy theory?
Mark Steyn is good at describing what people on the “Arab Street” (what the msm claim to hold as so important – yet never actually study) really say.
And what they say is utterly crazy – totally barking. Not just in public speeches, but also in private conversations (in short many of these people really think these things).
However, Mr Steyn uses this as argument for intervention, whereas I use it as argument for staying as far away from these people as possible.
Something all the Founders (from Jefferson to Hamilton) were agreed upon – a Res Publica (a Constitutional order) needs a basically rational and moral public.
The Middle East simply does not offer this – as the locals (the people on the street – not just the dictators) are often both bad and mad.
So the entire neocon project is based on false foundation – indeed a foundation of shifting sand.