Why Osama bin Laden’s dead picture shouldn’t be released

Osama Bin Laden’s dead picture shouldn’t be released by the US government because it’ll play right into al-Qaeda’s hands.

Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders aren’t stupid. In fact, they’re highly strategic and they knew exactly what they were doing.

According to extracts of writings by Saif al-Adel, a high-ranking al-Qaeda member, al-Qaeda’s strategy is the following:

Incite the US to invade a Muslim country, incite Muslims to hate the US for doing so, expand US military involvement across the Muslim world, and bankrupt the US in the process.

Strategically, this plan is brilliant because it follows the historic blueprint of bringing down empires. It pushes the US down the path of military over-extension and hopes the US economy will collapse because of it. Once the US economy collapses, it’ll no longer be relevant as a superpower, paving the way for the re-emergence of the Muslim Caliphate empire.

The fall of Western dominance and the rise of a Muslim empire in its place, of course, is al-Qaeda's ultimate goal.

Since bin Laden’s death, Muslim extremists (who already believe bin Laden is dead and don’t need any proof) have already hailed bin Laden as a ‘martyr’ and used his ‘martyrdom’ to incite hatred against the US.

If the US releases gruesome pictures of Osama's corpse, it’ll only fuel the fire. It will goad more people in the Muslim world to attack the US, which will in turn goad the US to commit more military resources against the Muslim world.

Not only should the US not release the pictures of bin Laden’s dead body, it never should have announced his death in the first place. It should have just killed bin Laden and not said anything.

Of course, news of bin Laden’s death brings closure to the families of 9/11 victims. It’s also a cause for celebration and a reason for Americans to be proud of their military.

However, even the jubilant celebrations in America will now be used by al-Qaeda as material to fuel hate against the U.S.

Everything the death of bin Laden has done to incite Muslim hate against the US outweighs any benefits gained from publicly announcing it. Adding a public picture of his corpse to the mix would only add one more mistake on top of everything else.