Some Perspective on Osama bin Laden Death Photos

Aside from all the obvious photoshops floating around the Web, and putting aside for the moment the dithering the Obama administration went through in deciding whether or not to release the photos (Panetta says Tuesday afternoon, Obama says no way to Sixty Minutes), where is the evidence that this photo would inflame or incite anyone to acts of violence that the act of killing bin Laden itself would not do?

In 1980, Jimmy Carter sent a military mission to release the hostages in Iran. It failed. Eight men were killed and their corpses were desecrated.

While the American dead were being honored in Florida, more than 7,000 miles away in Tehran something most indecent was happening to their corpses, Iranian authorities tore open the plastic bags that contained the charred remains, poked at them with knives and held up pieces for government television crews. 'This is proof of Carter's crime," ranted the Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, formerly Tehran's chief Islamic judge.

Or the Blackwater contractors in Falluja?

The corpses were dragged from the wreckage and television pictures showed one burnt body being kicked and stamped on, while at least two were tied to cars and driven through the city, witnesses said.

Adults and children hacked the bodies to pieces, before lynching two of the charred remains from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

Or in Somalia: Dead American Soldier Dragged through Streets

Pictures were taken and broadcast of all of those, and journalist Daniel Pearl's beheading as well. One facile argument goes, that since these people are barbarians, we show that we are better than they by not showing the pictures. But, that's not the argument given by the White House. The Obama administration is telling us it will inflame the same people whose sensibilities are clearly not affected by such photos. And what better way to make "barbarians" understand that we mean business than by talking to them in a language they understand?

On what planet is showing the picture of a corpse more inflammatory than turning someone into one? And why leave it to the imagination, which may be far worse than the reality? And why inflame the sensibilities of the American people, who have witnessed far too much drama from this administration and would like a little closure for the wounds of 9/11?

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