Release the photographs for God’s sake

President Barack Obama says the White House will not release a photo of Osama bin Laden’s body according to media reports received by Historic City News today.

The White House had been weighing the release of a photo, in part to offer proof that bin Laden was killed during a raid on his compound early Monday.

The reason the President has given, at least to the press, is that the photo is “gruesome” and could be “inflammatory”.

Before I go any further — that is the end of the news article — the rest is an editorial.

Gruesome and inflammatory. Well, guess what? WAR IS GRUESOME AND INFLAMMATORY.

You can’t sugar-coat the truth with the American people, Mr. President — whether you are Democrat, Republican, or otherwise. I want people to see terror in it un-varnished state and I want the world to know that terrorists will be brought to justice for their crimes. I want them to be able (not forced) to see what the face of terror -defeated- looks like.

Ever since the federal government devised “the single bullet theory”, I think Americans have become skeptical when officials say “Trust us, this is what happened and it’s too gruesome for you to look at.” Who the hell are you supposed to be, my mother? For what it’s worth, you can find published photographs of President John F. Kennedy as he lay on a mortuary table in Dallas — with half of his head blown off.

Would you suppose that the photograph of bin Laden is any more gruesome and inflammatory than the live video execution of Saddam Hussein? Or, the photo showing the hole ripped in Hussein’s neck after he was hanged? Or, how about the photographs of Hussein’s two sons which were published almost immediately — I suppose the bin Laden photograph could be more gruesome and inflammatory than those?

You can go on the Internet and see hundreds of photographs of 9-11 victims, killed as a result of bin Laden’s terrorist actions; I find those pretty gruesome, too. In case you didn’t learn the lesson by trying to hide your birth certificate, don’t try to muck with this — full disclosure and let the public decide for themselves.