Americans Are Ghouls

I've seen an enormous clatter on the web of people declaring President Obama must release the death images of Osama bin Laden otherwise they believe the President is lying to us.  Here are my thoughts:

In this day of photo-shop image hacking, no image released to the media should be convincing evidence, either way.  If Osama is dead, a picture of him dead does not change that.  If he is not dead, a picture of him dead doesn't prove he is.  We've seen pictures of Osama dead before - they were hoaxes.  Someone even resent one of the hoax images as proof for this event.

Why does the public demand to see the images of the dead Osama bin Laden?  Because we're ghouls.  We like seeing the bad guy beaten up and killed (well, some of us - I'm not in a particular hurry to see such images).  We certainly don't gain the high ground posting the images - the modern day equivalent to heads on spikes at the city gates to show the enemy we have no mercy. 

Some say that Osama was killed years ago and President Obama has just trotted out the dead bin Laden to boost his ratings.  If so, this is bad timing!  Any ratings boost will last a week, maybe two.  Certainly by the time of the elections in November of 2012 any gains from such a stunt would have long worn off.  I seriously doubt any such stunt is in progress now.

I reserve judgement on this issue.  I suspect President Obama is telling us the truth now for several reasons, not the least of which there would need to be a vast conspiracy of monumental proportions if this is a lie.  If such a conspiracy is really in progress, it will break down shortly.

Finally, in the big picture of things, this is a small event.  One man is dead that has caused Americans a great deal of pain.  That pain will not cease now just because he's dead.  There are others excited and willing to carry on his goals and will do so with out a doubt.

Finally, was Justice served?  Maybe.  If I were given a choice, I'd have said he should stand trial and spend years and months as a caged animal waiting for judgement and then finally spending the rest of his days confined to a small and dark corner somewhere to be forgotten and lost.  Now he will be a martyr for his cause - a cause that revels in martyrs.

Now I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, so I neither take comfort that he is spending time in The Fire or spending his time with the promised 72 virgins.  I don't take comfort in his death, though perhaps I take a small amount of satisfaction that there is one less in the world committed to doing evil.  This isn't mission accomplished; this is milestone met.  On to the next milestone as we've a long way before the mission is accomplished.