Bin Laden Update: Corpse Photo Could Be Released Today

Bin Laden Update: Corpse Photo Could Be Released Today

With the Osama bin Laden assassination dominating the news cycle, it can be hard to keep track of all the emerging details. Here are the latest developments and insights, in digest form:

--It took mere minutes for people on Twitter and other platforms to start asking, "Where's the body?" Hoping to quash conspiracy theories, the White House is planning to release photo and/or video evidence of bin Laden's death, perhaps as early as today. As Obama told reporters on Monday, he wants to make sure "nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama Bin Laden.” [via Slatest]

--The Navy SEALS who carried out this weekend's risky mission in Abbottabad, Pakistan, seized computer equipment containing what is being called "the mother lode of intelligence" from bin Laden's compound. “They cleaned it out," said a U.S. official. "Can you imagine what’s on Osama bin Laden’s hard drive?” The intelligence community must be practically drooling. [via Politico]

--Although bin Laden apparently had plenty of computer equipment at his compound, he did not have internet or phone service -- a fact that helped tip off intelligence officers to bin Laden's whereabouts. A U.S. official noted that it was suspicious that "the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it." [via AFP]

--Some right-wing groups have been quick to claim that torture was instrumental in nabbing bin Laden, but Donald Rumsfeld (of all people) suggested on Monday that that was not the case. "It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance," he said. "But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding." [via ThinkProgress]

--From the annals of unlikely praise, both Donald Trump and George W. Bush congratulated President Obama on the bin Laden mission. Trump went so far as to say that "We should spend the next several days not debating party politics." (So cue a return to Trump's BS, starting about Wednesday). [via ABC and the Houston Chronicle]

--And from the annals of expected douchebaggery, Rush Limbaugh dissed Obama on his radio show while managing to fool a bunch of media outlets into thinking he was praising the president in a "Kumbaya moment." [via Media Matters for America]

By Lauren Kelley | Sourced from AlterNet

Posted at May 3, 2011, 7:51 am

ENDS

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