True believers doubt that Osama bin Laden was wrapped in that sheet that slid into the sea from an American craft last weekend. He was, after all, the great escape artist who escaped from the Tora Bora mountains into Pakistan when U.S. forces first closed in on him nearly eight years ago.
Where are the pictures? Where are the first-hand neutral witnesses?
A better question — where is the triumphant video showing the Great Emir alive and well, which all would expect if he were indeed alive.
Perhaps President Obama and his advisers will decide to release photographs; perhaps not, since the grisly evidence would offer bin Laden’s faithful still more excuse for violence.
A more interesting matter to discuss is the decision to shoot bin Laden in the head rather than bring him back for trial. The official story is that he had a gun and was going to defend himself to the death. And that may indeed be the case, although that explanation doesn’t give full credit to the Navy SEALS, a supremely trained and capable team. If they had been told to bring the man out alive one must assume they would have done just that.
But bin Laden alive and on trial for his life before the world’s television cameras for weeks on end would have been a final triumph for him and could have caused an untold number of terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden dead works much better. But this is not likely to be officially said in Washington just yet.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
