The Real Reason The U.S. Government Didn’t Release Pictures Of Bin Laden’s Corpse Revealed, And It’s Crazy

Rob Fox11 years ago

Since the day SEAL Team 6 took down Osama bin Laden, the public has been clamoring for pictures of the slain dark vagrant wizard terrorist leader. After all, it’s not truly an American historical event until it’s being peddled as a commemorative plaque and coin on an infomercial targeted at consumers 70 and up. Unfortunately for Americans eager to see images on their television slightly less graphic than a CSI episode, the government declined to release the images of bin Laden’s corpse.

There were many reasons speculated as to why the pictures stayed classified, but few people knew the truth. Now the real reason Osama bin Laden’s postmortem pictures were not released has possibly been revealed, at least according to Business Insider and SOFREP. If the reason they give is true, then…wow.

Matt Bissonnette, one of the SEAL Team Six operators on the raid, partially outs the reason in his book, No Easy Day. The book reads, “In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless” (No Easy Day, Chapter 15).

But this is perhaps the most measured and polite description that one could give of how operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into bin Laden’s body, two confidential sources within the community have told us. When all was said and done, UBL had over a hundred bullets in him, by the most conservative estimate.

So, what you’re telling me is that an American arch-enemy’s body had been turned into a steaming pile of human goo and lead by continuous and gratuitous point blank fire from assault weapons, and that Obama thought it was a bad idea to release those images to the public. What’s the big fuckin’ deal, Barry? Quentin Tarantino did it.

But really, how close to this operation did SEAL Team 6 watch “Inglorious Basterds”?

For the record, I’m cool with this, obviously. It’s pretty sick, yes, but then again, so was bin Laden. And it’s not like the man deserved better. He deserved worse.

The article’s author, Jack Murphy of SOFREP, does raise an interesting and legitimate point about it all, however.

You may not care if bin Laden got some extra holes punched in him, few of us do, but what should concern you is a trend within certain special operations units to engage in this type of self-indulgent, and ultimately criminal, behavior. Gone unchecked, these actions get worse over time.

This is certainly not how you want your special operations units to be behaving on a regular basis. One would think their qualifications alone would make them the most disciplined soldiers of all, even if they do tend to operate in a more cavalier fashion than regular units. Osama bin Laden is obviously an exception in a lot of ways, and there are literally hundreds of millions of Americans who would have done the same thing given the chance.

Regardless of everything else, this is, according to solid sources, the reason photos Osama bin Laden’s corpse have never been shown to the public. Pretty crazy.

[via Business Insider/SOFREP]