mkenuk, I haven't spoken yet. LOL
I agree with many others here that the wild celebrations of this mans death left me feeling uncomfortable. I understand many have cause to despise him, but these ecstatic scenes are distasteful IMO. It does hearten me to see so many here feel the same way.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen Bin Laden taken to trial and had his crimes revealed in full to the public, his full involvement in any terror attacks proven. Once proven guilty he should then have been jailed.
It is harder to idolise a living figure, particuarly if that figure is seen to be saving himself rather than facing the full repercussions of his crimes.
Sure there would be problems with this, but I still like to believe in the rule of law, and would have liked to have thought that we could take the high ground on this one.
There is already further controversy about the treatment of his body. Burial at sea is only used in certain instances within the muslim faith and many argue that it was not warranted in this instance. Burial at an unknown location would also have prevented pilgrimages. A know site could have been used to gether intelligence too, we would know who his followers were to a greater degree.
The sudden concern for following custom with the body is something else that seems odd for a lot of people. Many argue he didn't deserve to be shown respect in any way. Saddams sons were not treated in accordance with their faith either.
As to the photos, I think at this point any one who doesn't believe what Obama has stated are not going to be convinced by any pictures. So that would achieve very little except perhaps give other extremists (on both sides) something to gloat over and use to spur others to follow them.
One can hardly be surprised by the conspiracy theories. Wikileaks has shown how often our governments lie to us, Bin Laden was shot in the face, buried at sea within hours and so we have only what the government tellls us in relation to this matter. DNA tests could easily be manipulated or totally faked. There would be no way that any one could ever prove that this is all a flasehood.
I don't know how much confusion about what occurred has been officials getting details wrong, or the media jumping to conclusions and then redacting their stories, but there have already been several different versions reported about what actually happened. This can only cause the conspiracies to mount further.
Just this morning they state that the woman shot in the same room launched herself at security forces, after it was previously said that Bin Laden used her as a human shield and she was shot dead. Now they say she was wounded in the leg and survived.
It was also reported today that Bin Laden was unarmed, previous reports had him weilding and AK-47.
Perhaps the truth will sift out over the coming weeks, but those who don't want to believe that he is dead will have plenty of fodder to argue against the official story.
Reprisal attacks are more of a concern. Wikileaks has a document with a guantanamo detainee saying that Al Qaeda will launch a nuclear attack somewhere in Europe if Bin Laden is captured or killed. Hopefully that one is an outright lie from the detainee.