Well, I guess that would dispense with the administration’s “We had to shoot him because he might have been wearing a suicide vest” excuse. How much you wanna bet that is why they didn’t want to release these photos to the public?
Another of the seventy-two versions bites the dust.
So, all the people who have telling me that the SEALS had no excuse but to pump a couple of bullets into an unarmed man’s head because he might have been wearing a suicide vest can kiss my butt. The line goes out the door and around the block.
They shot this guy because that was the order. There was no self-defense justification.
Our government’s policy seems to be that if they want you dead bad enough, they can send soldiers into your bedroom and shoot you as you stand in your underwear. Duly noted.
But was he hiding a gun?
In bin Laden's case, I wouldn't have cared if they brought along a turkey fryer, fired it up and dunked him headfirst into it.
You are picking the wrong fight here. Congress authorized lethal force against bin Laden long ago.
The question is: How much later?
I am sure the SEALS stripped the body quickly as they looked for intel, papers, computer disks, thumb-drives, etc, as well as checked the body for weapons and yes, a bomb-vest.
I suspect he was dressed somewhat and after the shoot and after a quick look for weapons, bombs and intel, the photographer was allowed to photograph the body.
It was a clean shoot:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/266903/bin-laden-killing-perfectly-legal-charles-stimson
Somehow I doubt any of us are likely to find ourselves on the government's sh-t list to such an extent that we're going to find Navy Seals knocking down our doors. None of us flew planes full of civilians into building full of the same---and our military heroes at the Pentagon.
But seriously, you're really crying about Bin Laden being killed, armed or unarmed, suicide vest or no suicide vest? Cry me a river. This POS got better than he deserved. I trust our SEALS to make this decision, even if it was just because they wanted to waste the bastard for revenge. But none of us were there to say we know what happened that made the SEALS decide to pull the trigger on this guy. We don't even know that he was found in his underwear. Those were taken later at Bagram. He may have been stripped down by then. But like I say, I'll trust our military heroes to make the proper decisions when they're the ones in harm's way, as opposed to those of us Monday morning quarterbacking from the safety of our own homes.
OBL certainly didn't seem to mind the suffering of the 10s of thousands he was responsible for murdering including 3,000 on 9-11. Trust me, OBL wouldn't feel the remotest pang of guilt over killing you and your family. Why are you wasting energy feeling any regret for justice being done and giving this bucket of pus what he claims to have wanted the most, martyrdom? It's not just the government that wanted this dirtbag dead. We all did. Well, apparently MOST of us did. This is justice done. Refocus your worries, concerns and guilt on a more worthy cause.
Look, none of us can stand Obama. I really wish this had happened on Bush's watch so he'd get the credit he deserves for digging up this SOB. But hey, I'm glad OBL had justice dispensed to him, regardless of the president it occured under. In the end I know the facts are that the intel. that lead to OBL were developed on Bush's watch and he gets most of the credit for finding Bin Laden. But let's not let our antipathy towards Obama blind us to the only good news this country has had in a long, long time and to see it as the positive development it is for this country's national security.