May 13, 2011 11:27 PM UTC

Do You Need To See Osama bin Laden on Ice?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the AP reports via the Durango Herald, here’s something else that Colorado Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman don’t agree on–an interesting parallel with their opposing positions on cuts to the Department of Defense.

A Colorado congressman who has viewed photos taken of Osama bin Laden after he was killed thinks the least graphic of the images should be made public.

Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn said he viewed the photos for about 10 minutes Thursday at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Lamborn said seeing images showing bin Laden shot in the head helped give him closure on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He thinks they could do the same for relatives of victims and other Americans…

[Rep. Mike] Coffman said he backs President Barack Obama’s decision not to release the photos to the public and praised him for keeping the operation to kill bin Laden and its aftermath free of politics. He said the administration may have more intelligence about the potential global ramifications of releasing the photos than members of Congress do. [Pols emphasis]

We don’t have a strong opinion on whether or not the post-mortem photos of Osama bin Laden should be made public–putting to bed conspiracy theories has value, but so does not further inflaming tensions in the Middle East by doing so. But we do take Rep. Coffman at his word in this story; both his respect for the administration’s handling of the situation, as well as his own combat experience making personal viewing of the photos unnecessary.

As for Lamborn? It’s tough to know if his reasoning is as well thought out as Coffman’s, regardless of whether you agree with his bottom line. But in the absence of a better explanation from Lamborn as to what releasing the photos would help, we’re inclined to accept Coffman’s assessment above–the part about “intelligence” possessed by many members of Congress, though maybe not exactly the way Coffman meant that.