Extreme Bumbling: FBI Steals Image of Spanish Politician to Make Bin Laden Poster

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

Reader Carleandria sent us this sorry piece of news:

Spanish lawmaker [Gaspar Llamazares] was horrified to find out the FBI used his photograph as part of a digitally enhanced image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.

When I first saw this bit, it seemed like a pretty laughable piece of police work, to be quickly forgotten. But when I think about it more, it seems to exemplify the profoundly inefficient and superficial way that the US Government has carried out the War on Terror, usually to the detriment of Arabs & Muslims the world over (not to mention its own citizens) – or simply anyone who might look remotely like a “terrorist’.

I have to wonder if the FBI has done something like this before and no one has noticed.  It just so happens that this made headlines because the FBI – for some unthinkable reason – used the image of someone with rank; a leftist politician, of all things.

At a press conference last week Llamazares said:

“I was surprised and angered because it’s the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist…It’s almost like out of a comedy if it didn’t deal with matters as serious as bin Laden and citizens’ security.”

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Image courtesy of AP Photo/Getty Images via ABC