The Death of Osama and Everything Else

There are so many moments and passages that illuminate and inspire in Bill Whittle's long essay, "DETERRENCE" at Eject! Eject! Eject!, that the only reasonable thing to do is to just point you towards it.

In case you feel you really don't have the time take in this small excerpt and see if you still feel that way.

Ladies, President Bush has freed the women of Afghanistan, and shut down the state-run rape and torture of women in Iraq. And for every one of those women who was raped and tortured to death, remember that half the entire country lived in daily fear of being spotted by some Ba’athist pig with too much time on his hands as he hid behind the tinted windows of his limousine, cruising the streets of Baghdad or Mosul or Basrah looking for a little fun.

Senator Kerry, on the other hand, has not only said, he has promised that he will do no such thing.

SENATOR KERRY: But we also have to be smart, Jim. And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking if off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Somewhere, in an infinity of alternate universes, there must be a place where at this very moment, Ben Stein is wandering the wasteland of Tora Bora with clipboard in hand, stumbling over the rocks, never looking up, and saying, “Osama..? Osama..? Osama..?”

God, the restraint that the President must have when that murdering bastard’s name is mentioned in derision as a sign of Bush’s incompetence. It’s practically superhuman.

First of all, you may recall that three years ago, the President -- correctly, in my estimation -- pointed out that this was not a criminal manhunt for Public Enemy Number One, but rather,

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

“Secret even in success…” An interesting phrase, that. What does that mean?

Osama bin Laden has not been seen since the battle of Tora Bora in December of 2001. Remember now, this is not someone like Abu Nidal, a genuine terror mastermind described by the US State Department as having carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. Targets include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul and the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in Greece in July 1988

Abu Nidal was rightfully phobic about being photographed. Anonymity was camouflage to him: incredibly tight operational security, even plastic surgery. The man wanted to remain unseen. In fact he did remain unseen, retiring in his golden years to a nice apartment in Baghdad until he was assassinated by Saddam just before the war to maintain the well-established fact that Saddam had no ties to terrorism. No living ties to terrorism. Well, to that terrorist. It’s all very nuanced and sophisticated.

Contrast this behavior to that of Osama bin Laden, who did not operationally plan the 9/11 attacks (see dead underlings, above) but was rather the figurehead for an international organization of many thousands of fanatics, their numbers much thinned now.

Osama made endless videotapes. Lecturing, preaching, instructing, firing an AK-47: all the things that make young jihadis feel funny in the pants. After 9/11, he wowed ‘em in several tapes gloating and laughing over the attack and its aftermath. He was reliably heard on the radio during the final phase of Tora Bora, then…nothing.

Maybe he escaped. It’s possible.

Then came the videotape condemning the Israeli incursion into Ramallah and Jenin…only it didn’t. The US corporate scandals? Silence. Anniversary of Holy Tuesday? Cue the tumbleweeds.

The freaking invasion of a Muslim country by the Great Satan, and this new Caliph, the Leader of the Oppressed, cannot bring himself to shoot a crummy VHS in front of a white wall condemning this outrage? This glory-seeking egomaniac, the New Saladin riding the White Horse across the desert, who practically put out a 10 DVD commemorative set every time the US so much as hiccupped, is now suddenly silent, and has been for three years?

You may call that a Terror Mastermind. I call it a greasy wet spot on the wall of a cave in Afghanistan.

The man is dead. Dead, or just possibly captured. The likelihood of him having been killed at Tora Bora by US “outsourcing” was rising with his deafening silence concerning each American counterstroke and became 100% when nothing was heard from the late Osama after the US invasion of Iraq.

Does President Bush know what became of him? I would say, very likely. We know what did not become of him: he didn’t become a Martyr. He did not become the symbol of Glorious Death resisting the Great Satan. He did not become a Symbol or a Cause or an Example to Them All.

He became, if you will pardon the expression, AWOL. Bugged out. Handed in his walking papers. Fizzle….poof. Gone.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately, I do not have fake (but accurate!) documents to back this claim up. I just have common sense, a psychological history, and the ability to see Naked Emperors. The man is dead – just possibly captured; he has been for years.

Now, do I fault President Bush for not announcing this? I do not. For the President to not disclose something so beneficial to himself, politically, must mean that there is a reason of great magnitude behind the official silence. Are we, the American People, entitled to know what this secret is?

We are not.

We are not for the same reason we were not entitled to know that allied cryptographers won WWII by breaking the Japanese and German codes and having the good sense to shut up about it. But don’t dare breathe such sentiments to the current editors of The New York Times. Had those people been running the paper in 1943, tomorrows headline would have read:

AMERICAN AND BRITISH CRYPTOGRAPHERS BREAK JAP AND NAZI WAR CODES – ALL FUTURE ENEMY MOVEMENTS NOW KNOWN WITH CERTAINTY BY ALLIED HIGH COMMAND.

I suspect that if I live another ten years, I’ll be sitting watching the History Channel some night in my pajamas and all will be revealed to me. Until then, I’m happy not to know. I know some people have a hard time with that. Go to hell. This is serious business. Not everything is about you.

Posted by Vanderleun at October 6, 2004 1:27 PM