It could be fun to come up with funny tombstone taglines for Osama Bin Laden, the infamous, mass-murdering cave-dweller. For instance...

Bin Laden's [un]marked grave says: "Dead and loving it".

Or "Bin Laden, may bat guano be upon him"

Or "Bin Laden - Waged Jihad, Died of AIDS"

Meanwhile, Bin Laden's cave-buddy may have been behind the Red Mosque attack: Zawahiri Behind Red Mosque Bloodbath :TimesOnline: AL-QAEDA’S leadership secretly directed the Islamic militants whose armed revolt at the Red Mosque in Islamabad ended last week with more than 100 deaths after it was stormed by the Pakistan army.

Are you implying that Bush is keeping the fear and loathing of bin Laden alive purely for political gain? That "those who attacked us on 9-11" are dead and gone and we're fighting phantoms? What kind of conspiratorial nonsense is this ;-)

Are you implying that Bush is keeping the fear and loathing of bin Laden alive purely for political gain? That "those who attacked us on 9-11" are dead and gone and we're fighting phantoms? What kind of conspiratorial nonsense is this ;-)

Freedom, remember this word: Infiltration.

I was listening to Monica Crowley yesterday, and she had an excellent show, with guests, covering this word. I suggest you check her show out, Freedom; she's on Saturdays, noon-3pm EST. I know her show's syndicated, but I don't know how many stations.

Mark, I'm starting to agree with you on this--if this pig is alive, then why doesn't he prove it?

I believe the likelihood of him actually still being alive is very very slim. Single percentage figures, if at all. More likely his medical condition got him a long time ago.

But that's the problem. That's the difficulty with making one very ill man the figurehead for a terrorist organization. NO other person is as associated with fear, and with the name of "Al-Qaeda" than he is. If someone were to release a video of the "new" head of Al-Qaeda, Abu Bish Bosh Bully-Wug, everyone would say "Who?" wheras if you say either Osama Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda whichever you don't say is going to be associated with what you did say.

And that's why the politics of fear is beginning to run out of steam. When they need to frighten people they have "Al-Qaeda" release another video, but it simply doesn't have the same fear factor without Bin Laden as it otherwise would, it's some bearded middle easterner spouting Arabic, and goodness only knows there are hundreds if not thousands of them! People look at the video and yawn. They no longer take notice.

The GWOT no longer has the same terror. Videos that show Bin Laden five years ago no longer have the same terror. The only thing that WILL is to have America attacked again, and find some new guy to pin it, and leadership of Al-Qaeda, on. They'd just better make sure the next person they choose is in a little bit better health.

Given the fear mongering this President has done either way it is bad for Bush.

1) Bin Laden is alive - which means after promising 6 years ago that it was the number one priority of the country he has failed completely in this aspect. Apparently Al-Queda is more determined to attack us then ever and just as strong as they were pre-9/11.

2) Bin Laden is dead - which means that Bush has spent the last several years keeping people in a state of fear. Refusing to give specific details about anything but keeping people afraid enough to keep their heads down while he and his cronies rob the country blind, politicize every department in the federal government, stack the supreme court with cronies, and either flat out ignore the constitution or try to find every possible way to skirt it in his endless pursuit to ensure a 'safe' America (safe for white Christians who agree with Bush).

Which is your choice? To boot - you have again conveniently ignored the fact that the Iraqi PM says that the US can deoccupy at "any time". So now we have the majority of Iraqis, the majority of Americans, and the Iraqi government wanting a time table or saying that we can leave Iraq any time. The only people who still want to be there are the imperialists..

You know... I don't think that OBL deserves to die in a dignified-- or martyriffic-- way... You know, people revere people who die in battle and such... Someone should just walk up to him and beat him over the head with a brick...

I don't think it matters (significantly) at this point if Bin Laden is alive or dead since he has become more of a ceremonial figurehead. His second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, seems to have taken over the reigns, operating with impunity from Waziristan. I think the real question is what do we do about Pakistan if they continue to refuse to take action? While we are bogged down in Iraq fighting an offshoot group that stole Al-Qaeda's name in 2004, the real Al-Qaeda is sitting pretty, rebuidling it's strength and there is little we can do about it without stirring up the pot in nuclear armed Pakistan.

All this rhetoric from Bush about fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq so they don't come here, is merely a distraction, since his administration is paralyzed when it comes to dealing with the real threat in the mountains of Pakistan.

rj
"Hit him over the head with a brick"??? WTF ?
spoken like a 20yo piss ant student from a liberal re-education camp filled with nutty professors.

You BETTER believe when osb, meets allah it will be from a MARINE, and the only brick involved will be a 2 lb "brick" of C-4

The smut rag magazines need to publish doctored pictures of UBL, in whatever box those types bury their dead, and then broadcast the news worldwide. The terrorists, who are mostly un-educated and believe these rags (e.g. GWB is the devil and had his horns removed) will latch on to this and demand, throughout their network, a curtain call. Then we'll know for sure.
These people have the largest egos on the planet, as we've witnessed with GT Grad and others that drive by B4B.

Well I know for fact OBL bieis alive and doing just fine...

Just the other day when I stop at Mac's, Elvis said "Hey Obbie, how many times do I have to tell you to wear a hair net when cooking those fries!!!"

If he is dead, aren't you upset that he wasn't punished for his actions? I want to see Bin Laden paraded down 6th avenue in a cage, pelted with eggs. That you casually think he is dead and don't care speaks volumes about your patriotism.

If he is dead, aren't you upset that he wasn't punished for his actions?

No use getting upset. He's being punished enough down there at his new residence.

Are you implying that Bush is keeping the fear and loathing of bin Laden alive purely for political gain?

No, congressive. If anyone's implying that, it's Bush's critics.

Who cares if Osama is dead or alive, the Decider doesn't think about him much so why should I? GWB=Douchebag.

Mark, I agree that it would be easy for bin laden to give some proof of life if he wanted to. And it would be to his advantage if his followers knew that he was still alive. There is no advantage for him to pose as dead, since we will always go by the assumption he is alive and act accordingly. Therefore, the probability is that he is dead. This should be becoming apparant to even the dems and chris matthews.

Moderate Voter,

Even if he were alive, I wouldn't want him paraded down 6th avenue to be abused by the crowd. He is our fellow human being, and while his claims upon our mercy and justice are low, they are not non-existent.

In the end, bin Laden, once 9/11 happened, became a rather unimportant figure and we were, in my view, wrong to go into Afghanistan after him - always and ever, our first target should have been Saddam's Iraq because bin Laden didn't cause terrorism; the nexis of oppression, despair and Islamo-fascism in the larger Arab/Moslem world caused it. Why Iraq? Because it is the strategic center of gravity in the middle east - hold it, and you hold the whole area...the enemy knows this full well, and that is why they are expending massive resources in trying to pry us out of there. We needed to hold the center and build up a new paradigm for the Arab/Moslem peoples - and that is precisely what we are doing, but had we gone into Iraq in early 2002 (as I would have preferred - with no preliminaries; just an American airborne division on Baghdad while a Marine division landed at Basra before anyone knew what was happening; the legal and moral justification already existed in the form of Saddam's violations of the 1991 cease fire - and US law already enjoined us to overthrow the Saddamite regime), we would be much further on the road to ultimate victory.

Be that as it may, we took the course we've taken - and bin Laden, alive or dead, is of no importance whatsoever.

our first target should have been Saddam's Iraq because bin Laden didn't cause terrorism; the nexis of oppression, despair and Islamo-fascism in the larger Arab/Moslem world caused it. Why Iraq? Because it is the strategic center of gravity in the middle east - hold it, and you hold the whole area...the enemy knows this full well, and that is why they are expending massive resources in trying to pry us out of there.

---

So there it is. The moment where Mark Noonan passed from almost certainly crazy to absolutely certifiable. I pray for your mental health.
So if I understand your argument correctly it is:

1) we shouldn't have gone after Bin Laden - even though he and his group were the masterminds of the actual attack on 9/11 and other terrorist attacks. Of course - you will still blame Clinton for not going after him because he is a democrat and therefore you have to attack everything he does regardless if it makes any sense to or not

2) we should have gone into Iraq because it is "strategic" in the middle east. This , I think represents the clearest case of your imperialistic leanings. You cannot simply occupy a country because it would be strategic for you to do so? Would you accept Iran deciding to capture Las Vegas because they decided it was strategic in their objectives to do so? Secondly, how in gods name was it strategic to hold Iraq in the war in terrorism when we invaded. Since we know for a fact that the center of terrorism was in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Your argument - like all your arguments - are complete nonsensical rationalizations of a failed imperialistic policy. You make up justifications for actions where there is clearly ulterior motivations, when Bush's policies fail you claim they weren't important in the first place, and you outright just fail to comprehend even the most basic tenets of how one should act on the global scene.
Thankfully - you and your friends have lost and the whole world knows it. BUHH BYE...

kblack,

Your problem - which is endemic on the left - is that you don't view this as a war; and you also lack basic knowledge of how a war is fought. What in blazes would having bin Laden's head on a pike do for us? It would be a trophy, to be sure - but wars aren't won by collecting trophies. Additionally, bin Laden in our custody or certainly killed by our forces is a martyr for the cause - rather than a man who ran away.

Our enemy in this war isn't bin Laden - no more than our enemy in World War Two was Yamamoto or Guderian - the system which spawns the bin Ladens is the enemy. Kill bin Laden - heck, kill every single member of al-Qaeda and you won't have done a lick of good work if you haven't changed the socio-political system which bred them. The key is to fundamentally change the Arab/Moslem world so that the average Arab/Moslem citizen has hope for a better future - and thus is no longer listening to people who propose jihad, and blowing up innocent people in Tel Aviv and New York City. We can't do that around the edges of the Arab/Moslem world, and we can't do that by playing whack-a-mole with particular terror masterminds - we have to go right to the center of the problem, and then work from inside out.

We're trying to make bin Laden - and his successors - cranks hiding in caves and issuing lunatic pronouncements no one but a few other cranks listen to. We're trying to make people who can one day bring a nuke to New York City into David Koresh hiding out in rural nowhere with a small band of crazed followers - something mostly non-threatening, and easily handled by the local police if they get out of hand.

And I hate to put it this way, but there is no other way: You fool! Talking of "imperialism" and other horse-puckey! Do you even know what imperialism is? For crying out loud, what do I want with a bunch of Moslems in Iraq? What does a man who proposes drilling in ANWAR and a crash-program in nuclear power plant construction want with Iraq's oil? I want us out of there as quickly as possible - the Iraqis are my brothers and sisters and I am morally responsible to help them as much as possible, but I've no interest in their particular internal quarrels and believe that I've got enough here at home to worry about without taking other people's problems on board; and yet, we must be there, in order to help our Iraqi brothers and sisters and, by extension, all of our brothers and sisters in the Arab/Moslem world - help them to freedom, and justice, and hope. Once we've done that, we're outta there...

Mark if you want to hold a country for it's strategic values, change the soci-political system and impose our western beliefs on that country then that is imperialism. You may want American troops out of there as soon as possible but presumably the government will be expected to remain in line with the US thus US influence will always be there in the background. The US and Britain may not be colonialists in the traditional sense now but they are neo-colonialists, they pull strings behind the scenes and expect governments to follow their wishes or else.

The British didn't want a whole lot of 'natives' when they went and took their lands, resources and destroyed their traditional societies whilst forcing change on them they may or may not have wanted but that didn't bother the British, no we steamed right in with out bothering to consult the local people. Decisions the British took still affect many of these countries today and in some cases has lead to tribal warfare resulting in many deaths, Kenya being one example.

Since you study history one thing you should know well is that one day people will rise up, and they will decide their own future. It happened in former British colonies, former soviet countries and so on. You can put in place a government that you believe will serve the people of Iraq (or the west, after all thats what Saddam did for so long, we didn't care then that he was gassing people he was our best pal) However in the end the people of Iraq will stand up for what they want, it may be the current government or it may not but what can be guaranteed is that the west will be there trying to influence their decisions in various ways as happened in Nicaragua because we care only about the effect it will have on us and not the wishes and needs of the Iraqis or other peoples we wish to control.

Mark if you want to hold a country for it's strategic values, change the soci-political system and impose our western beliefs on that country then that is imperialism. You may want American troops out of there as soon as possible but presumably the government will be expected to remain in line with the US thus US influence will always be there in the background. The US and Britain may not be colonialists in the traditional sense now but they are neo-colonialists, they pull strings behind the scenes and expect governments to follow their wishes or else.

The British didn't want a whole lot of 'natives' when they went and took their lands, resources and destroyed their traditional societies whilst forcing change on them they may or may not have wanted but that didn't bother the British, no we steamed right in with out bothering to consult the local people. Decisions the British took still affect many of these countries today and in some cases has lead to tribal warfare resulting in many deaths, Kenya being one example.

Since you study history one thing you should know well is that one day people will rise up, and they will decide their own future. It happened in former British colonies, former soviet countries and so on. You can put in place a government that you believe will serve the people of Iraq (or the west, after all thats what Saddam did for so long, we didn't care then that he was gassing people he was our best pal) However in the end the people of Iraq will stand up for what they want, it may be the current government or it may not but what can be guaranteed is that the west will be there trying to influence their decisions in various ways as happened in Nicaragua because we care only about the effect it will have on us and not the wishes and needs of the Iraqis or other peoples we wish to control.

I believe UBL spoke of events since 9/11 in some of his videos.

I remain very disappointed he's still at-large considering tora bora.

Posted by: Mark Noonan at July 16, 2007 02:52 AM

Great post, Mark!