Bin Laden Photos Won’t Be Released as Supreme Court Spurns Appeal

[Hissyspit]

Source: Bloomberg

Bin Laden Photos Won’t Be Released as Supreme Court Spurns Appeal

By Greg Stohr
January 13, 2014 9:35 AM EST

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to order the release of photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse and burial at sea, leaving intact the CIA’s classification of those images as top-secret.

The justices today turned away an appeal by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that filed a Freedom of Information Act suit seeking release of the 2011 photos. A lower court ruled that the classification of the images was proper.

The Obama administration and Central Intelligence Agency said release of the photos would damage national security by inflaming tensions overseas and leading to retaliatory attacks against Americans.

The lawsuit involved 52 images of bin Laden after he was killed during a raid by U.S. special operations forces on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. President Barack Obama said in 2011 that the photos were “very graphic.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-13/bin-laden-photos-won-t-be-released-as-court-spurns-appeal.html

[OnyxCollie]

1. Pics or it didn't happen.

[Swede Atlanta]

2. These days photos or not no one really knows.....

Photos can be created without any semblance to reality with detection difficult.

Either we believe in the official story or we don't. I am inclined to believe the story especially since we have heard zip from this creature since the alleged raid and kill.

[OnyxCollie]

3. The official story is one people *like* to believe.

So why not use it, even if he's been dead for years?

Osama Bin Laden Dead Since 2001

[xiamiam]

8. thank you

[Titonwan]

9. Uhmm... yes, of course.

But when you inform the cheerleaders of whoever happens to have their god in power- at the time- they tend to slide into terminal denial. He can do no wrong and he killed a myth and lie perpetuated since 9/11. Usama was employed by our government up until that very damned day! Dead for years.
Again, photos, please- photoshopped or not. We'll decide.

[OnyxCollie]

11. Conspiracy theories by Sunstein & Vermeule.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

Whenever a bad event has occurred, rumors and speculation are inevitable. Most
people are not able to know, on the basis of personal or direct knowledge, why an
airplane crashed, or why a leader was assassinated, or why a terrorist attack succeeded. In
the aftermath of such an event, numerous speculations will be offered, and some of them
will likely point to some kind of conspiracy. To some people, those speculations will
seem plausible, perhaps because they provide a suitable outlet for outrage and blame,
perhaps because the speculation fits well with other deeply rooted beliefs that they hold.
Terrible events produce outrage, and when people are outraged, they are all the more
likely to attribute those events to intentional action. In addition, antecedent beliefs are a
key to the success or failure of conspiracy theories. Some people would find it impossibly
jarring to think that the CIA was responsible for the assassination of a civil rights leader;
that thought would unsettle too many of their other judgments. Others would find those
other judgments strongly supported, even confirmed, by the suggestion that the CIA was
responsible for such an assassination. Compare the case of terrorist attacks. For most
Americans, a claim that the United States government attacked its own citizens, for some
ancillary purpose, would make it impossible to hold onto a wide range of other
judgments. Clearly this point does not hold for many people in Islamic nations, for whom
it is far from jarring to believe that responsibility lies with the United States (or Israel).

Here, as elsewhere, people attempt to find some kind of equilibrium among their
assortment of beliefs,34 and acceptance or rejection of a conspiracy theory will often
depend on which of the two leads to equilibrium. Some beliefs are also motivated, in the
sense that people are pleased to hold them or displeased to reject them.35 Acceptance (or
for that matter rejection) of a conspiracy theory is frequently motivated in that sense.
Reactions to a claim of conspiracy to assassinate a political leader, or to commit or to
allow some atrocity either domestically or abroad, are often determined by the
motivations of those who hear the claim.

[davidpdx]

6. The conspiracy theorist have nothing to back up their claim that bin Laden was dead long ago

The truth is Bush didn't give a rip about getting bin Laden once he had his two wars. At that point he was an after thought.

[SoapBox]

4. Benghazi!

We've seen what pics (or video) can do to Krazy people.

King of the Terrorists is dead, gone and fish food.

[24601]

5. Just release the pics of the stunt double from the movie. Call it good enough.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. You've gotta hand it to the Prez on this one

The "killing of Osama Bin Laden" (sic) was a brilliant gambit on President Obama's part.



He knew that none of the major players would have the guts to come out and say, "But wait! He's already dead!" because it would undermine their positions. Check and mate.

Of course, releasing the photos would ruin everything, so the incorruptible Supreme Court's decision is not at all surprising.

[OnyxCollie]

10. The GOP countered with Benghazi.

Knowing the President can't admit an ambassador was killed as a result of blowback from a CIA torture/assassination program puts him in a tight spot.

[nilesobek]

12. Sincerely I want to believe

That PBO ordered the hit inside Pakistan despite the Bush Administration coddling Pakistan for so long. Relations between the US and Pakistan are remarkably cool since PBO violated them and got the guy who they were protecting, knowing he was the world's most wanted man.

Pakistan has behaved like an enemy to the west since the Soviet pullout of Afghanistan.

I really hope its true because I believe in this President.