Senseless Obama Statements on OBL Photo

For now at least, Obama isn’t releasing video or photos of the dead OBL. The reasons he gives are “It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool.”

There is no argument for government secrecy about an event like this in the democracy that Obama so admires. Shouldn’t the public in a democracy know what its government has done? What better way to show the public than by releasing the photos? Vast segments of the population are accustomed to seeing graphic materials in, for example, horror movies. Even if they were not, why should people be shielded from seeing the results of violent deaths? One can find books in libraries that show photos of gunshot wounds or victims of mustard gas or grenades. They are not pretty. Why shouldn’t people see what their elected government is doing? The answer is that the so-called democratic government wants to conceal the realities of its policies. It doesn’t want to enlarge the numbers of people who realize how horrible are the killings of their government.

Is it true that these photos are being concealed because they might stir up terrorists or incite new ones? This reasoning contradicts far, far more major U.S. government incitements in the past and present that include invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They include videos of Iraqis being shot down for fun, tortured, photographed, made to do obscene things, and humiliated. They include a host of political-military actions in Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. They include a long history involving Palestine and Israel. So what significant difference to terrorist motivations does it make if a photo of the claimed-t0-be dead OBL is released?