Osama bin Porn-Laden

Let the ridicule continue.

Should our government humiliate Osama bin Laden by releasing a post-mortem photo of him with his face partly shot off?

Serious thinkers, including important government officials, have said that the risk is too high. They fear that famously thin-skinned jihadis will retaliate by hurting innocent Americans. Our government has decided that it does not want to take the chance.

Of course, ridicule is a powerful weapon in psychological warfare. Discrediting the enemy leadership will make their followers less apt to emulate them. Fewer people will emulate someone who is shown in a degraded posture.

No one should have any compunctions about heaping ridicule and humiliation on the jihadi masters who have been terrorizing the West and their fellow Muslims. Nor should anyone have any reservations about exposing some of the appallingly bad behaviors that their cultures prescribe. It’s called fighting back.

As I and several others have said, if the death of bin Laden is insufficient to throw his followers into paroxysms of rage, then they should hang up their suicide vests.

Think what you will about Obama’s last image, recent news reports about bin Laden’s last minutes are making him look worse and worse.

The information is leaking out, and, as it does, we are seeing a portrait of weakness and cowardice. With or without the picture, the world is being exposed to a diminished and discredited Osama bin Laden.

The marketplace of ideas, especially the marketplace of reputation, is doing what the government has hesitated to do.

By now we have learned that bin Laden died in his underwear. We have been told that he tried to hide behind one of his wives. We have been told that when he saw the SEALs he was afraid and cowardly.

If you hadn’t known that terrorism is the recourse of cowards, you know now. Killing yourself while you kill others is a foolproof way of avoiding responsibility. Those who thought that the 9/11 hijackers were courageous do not understand the meaning of courage. (I am referring to Bill Maher and Susan Sontag.)

Yesterday, the picture of bin Laden’s last days became clearer as Reuters reported that he had collected an extensive stash of pornography. Link here.

Apparently, those who collect intelligence about jihadis were not surprised. Most of the great Islamic terrorists are seriously into porn.

And not only porn. Bin Laden also had a supply of a sexual stimulant called Avena; supposedly it’s akin to Viagra. One of his wives explained that he liked to eat a lot of watermelons, and everyone knows that watermelon has chemical properties similar to Viagra. To top it off he also had Vaseline-- use your imagination.

To which Roger Simon responds: “the greater the repression the greater the revolution.” Link here.

Huh? But, how could it be that a man living with three wives, a cache of sexual stimulants, and a stash of pornography was sexually repressed? Something doesn't feel quite right here.

It seems more reasonable to assume that bin Laden was afraid that the Westerners were going to come and take his women away... perhaps because Western men did better at providing for and protecting their women.

At the least, bin Laden would never have accepted that a woman have a free choice in selecting a mate.

To be fair, there is no evidence that bin Laden himself was watching the porn. But, how plausible is it that everyone but the “sheikh” was watching these tapes in his house, surrounded by his wives and children.

Simon argues that we should release the porn, but not the pictures of bin Laden with his face half blown off.

Here, I respectfully disagree... in part.

I can embrace the idea that we can humiliate bin Laden even more by releasing the titles of his favorite porn tapes. Yet, I do not agree that pictures of the dead Osama’s face would make him an instant martyr.

I very much doubt that this image would become iconic and would instantly adorn the tee shirts of millions of radicalized college students.

I see no risk that pictures of the dead Osama will supplant the heroic images of Che Guevara that have proven so popular on campus.

Keep in mind, no college student walks around campus sporting a tee shirt with a picture of the dead body of Che Guevara. As it happens, the image is widely available. The Bolivian soldiers who killed Che were far less squeamish than the Obama administration.

When you want to lionize someone you do not put a picture of his ultimate degradation on your tee shirt. You show him at his best, not his worst. You show him living his ideal, not compromising it.