President Obama recently decided to not release pictures of Osama bin Laden’s body due to their gruesome nature, but the White House has however recently released five videos that were found at his compound. The videos include footage of outtakes from bin Laden’s propaganda videos, footage of him watching news channels while wrapped in a blanket, and a propaganda video entitled “Message to the American People” in which, like his other videos, bin Laden made anti American statements. The government has released all of the videos without sound in order to not spread terroristic messages. The videos show that bin Laden’s propaganda videos were scripted and that he paid attention to his appearance since it can be seen that he dyed and trimmed his beard.
Notes, computer disks and thumb drives retrieved from the compound show evidence that bin Laden was still greatly involved in planning al-Qaida’s affairs and that he used the compound as an al-Qaida control center. Everything that was retrieved from the compound has been named the “largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever collected”. Within its contents, governments officials have found phone numbers and documents that they hope will help them break al-Qaida.
Bin Laden worked hard to create an image for himself, an image of being a strong tough leader. I agree with many who have said that the released footage greatly hurts that image. Seeing that everything he said in his videos was greatly rehearsed and seeing that he was self-conscious about his image makes him seem a lot less scary and threatening. I also think the fact that the government found evidence that bin Laden was still greatly involved in al-Qaida’s affairs and the fact that they found documents that could help them further try to stop al-Qaida, is good support to argument that it was good to have gone after him and deal with him in the way we did.
What are your thoughts on the released footage? Have they made you see bin Laden is a different light? Do you think pictures of bin Laden’s body should be released? Do you think the fact they are “gruesome” is a good excuse to not release them?
The videos can be watched here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/07/world/asia/20110507-binladen-videos.html?ref=asia
6 comments:
thats cool and all that they found them videos, but i fail to really see the significance. we got videos of barack obama and george w bush doing stupid and everyday things too!
(people of paradox... superman and everyman...you know them local neighborhood hero types. haha yeah see, i do pay attention in class even when i fall asleep!)
i guessing it helps bring down bin laden from his pedestal... shows us that he's also human.
-Raymond Lim
Humanizing bin Laden is probably one of the most effective things they could do, even more so than killing him. As we learned in Importance of Being Earnest, style, not content is the more important thing (or something like that...). And it's true! If he did not come off as a God to his followers, do you think her would have nearly the same power? And looking back to Hitler: his power was based solely on his image. Image is everlasting, even when people are weak, which is why media is so powerful in our world.
hmm i think the fact that he was self-conscious about his image makes him seem like an average human being rather than the monster who killed thousands of people. in regards to the pictures of his body, i dont think they should be released if they are really gruesome. but i do think that pictures or videos of his sea burial should be released and that would be better to show to the people.
Personally, I believe that it was a smart move on the part of the American government to bury Osama at sea so quickly and not release pictures of his corpse. Although the pictures being gruesome is not necessarily a good reason to not release them, had they been released, these pictures could have served to further incite distraught terrorist operatives and provide a tangible depiction of Osama as a martyr.
Additionally, it was an extremely good call to release Osama's "home videos." Although releasing images of his dead body would have still served to propagate the perception of Osama's strength and inability to be caught while living, these videos portray Osama as a normal man and serve to remove some of the ominous and omnipotent enigma that has become as big a part of his image as 9/11.
There was an interesting editorial in the SF Chronicle echoing many of these sentiments about not disclosing the "grisly" pictures of Bin Laden's death on the grounds that it wouldn't offend people and cause Muslims and extremeists to view the US as violent etc.
But I think the pictures should have been released, with caution and sensitivity, at least. They shouldn't have been on the front page of every news paper of course, but disclosing them as a sign of accountibility instead of sweeping him under the rug (or under the ocean, as it were) would give the whole operation a degree of sincerity that would undo so many years of secrecy and deciet. There are some people who will always believe Osama is alive because the US failed to make his death evident with real proof.
After reading this and having my head in the news lately, I feel as though this does not change my opinion of Bin Laden. In fact, the released footage further reinforces the idea that Bin Laden was still very involved within the organization. In addition, Bin Laden's ability to watch footage of himself just shows the pride he takes in the organization. Even though he has been in hiding for the last decade or so, it is very clear he wanted to continue to threaten the US with the possibility of another terrorist attack. The other day I was watching the Nightly News with Brian Williams on NBC, and one of the sources in the piece stated the release of the Bin Laden tapes " like a sing wanting and waiting to make a come back" On another note, I believe the photos of Bin Laden should not be released because of their graphic nature. Also, the man is dead, what other kind of proof do we need?
~Emily Zelter
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