Will we see pictures of the dead Bin Laden? When Saddam’s sons were killed, pictures of
their corpses were released by the American military, on the grounds that it was crucial for Iraqis to believe they were no more.
This time, we’re told that Bin Laden has already been buried at sea, the Saudis having refused to repatriate his body. The CIA say they have pictures from yesterday’s assassination, and that the
pictures of Bin Laden circulating right now (which have been picked up by some of the British media) are fake. It’s unclear whether they intend to release the real pictures. Bin Laden’s body was
identified by some members of his family, and DNA tests were probably conducted to give Obama the proper degree of certainty. It would be a pretty wild conspiracy theorist who suggested that bin
Laden is not dead, or that the Americans dumped his body before they were really sure. Obama would never risk al-Jazeera coming out with another Bin Laden tape in a few weeks time. But, so far, the
post-Bin Laden media strategy is very different approach to that taken post-Uday and Qusay.
For CoffeeHousers who have the access, I’d recommend Fox and CNN on all of this. The response of the American media is a story in itself. The Fox presenter just openly regretted that bin Laden’s body could not be brought back to America and “dropped from a high building”.
But The Spectator was first with this global news scoop. Mark Steyn broke the story of Bin Laden’s death nine years ago.
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