Comments on: News reports: Osama Bin Laden is dead

By: Lynn David

Lynn David — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:16:11 +0000

I heard one of the commentators on ABC News say that his body was going to be buried at sea. I do not know if this has been proven to be factual or not. I suppose this would have to do with the idea of not allowing his tomb to become a point of veneration for Muslim extremists.

By: Throbert McGee

Throbert McGee — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:16:11 +0000

Is the world safer with his passing?

The world is now vastly safer from Pulitzer-hungry journalists wanting to interview OBL in Gitmo and ruminate about what a “complex man” he is, so that’s a blessing in itself.
Regarding the burial at sea: it avoids the danger of a gravesite becoming either a pilgrimage site for his admirers or a vandalism/littering target for his detractors.
Predictably, it has already attracted criticism from some Muslim clerics. In Islamic law, burials at sea are not forbidden — hardly surprising given that many Muslim nations have been seafaring over the centuries — but they are discouraged unless absolutely necessary, and it’s not clear that the “absolutely necessary” condition was met in this case.
Of course, there will never be a shortage of carping imams ready to criticize America on some pretext or another.

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:16:11 +0000

Well, I don’t share the joy of many at Bin Laden’s death. It might have been much more useful to put together a tasteful dossier on his ‘champagne lifestyle’ and use it to highlight the man’s hypocrisy. (Wouldn’t it have been funny if he did indeed enjoy swilling the old champers whilst posing as a great islamist leader?!)
Is the world safer with his passing? I’m not at all sure about that, if I’m honest.

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Wed, 30 May 2018 18:16:11 +0000

I’m still worried about the ‘martyrdom’ angle. A trial, followed by almost certain life imprisonment, would, IMHO, have been much better. (Admittedly, it may have been that ‘taking him alive’ just wasn’t a real possibility. However, it might have been good propaganda for the Obama administration to express – at least for ‘external’ consumption – ‘regret’ that he wasn’t captured alive pending a trial.)

By: Richard Willmer

Richard Willmer — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:10:02 +0000

I’m sure things will become clearer in time.
I understand your point about how ‘expressing regret’ might not play well domestically, although it is now admitted by the Obama Administration that was a ‘capture or kill’ operation – at least according to the BBC.
(I do, with respect, think that your comment above is a little ‘overdrawn’ … but then we do often see things rather differently on this side of ‘the Pond’! We like Obama precisely because of his calm manner and calibrated rhetoric – a very refreshing change from what went before!)