The news is somewhat confusing. Depending on whom you listen to, Osama Bin Laden is dead from typhoid and has been for a month. Or isn’t. None of it has been confirmed but there is enough wild speculation on the various newsies to power a small city.
Here’s what is known. Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan, up near the Afghanistan border, either dead, or deeply unhappy. We do know he’s six foot six, probably lives in a cave and needs kidney dialysis frequently. We know Osama Bin Laden has taken credit for the 9/11 bombings as well as stirring up anti-American sentiment.
The likelihood of Osama Bin Laden showing up at the Lufthansa counter at Frankfurt Airport and buying a ticket to London Stanstead is slim, as his face is almost as well known as Paris Hilton or Mel Gibson. I suspect that Bin Laden’s Frequent-Flyer miles have expired from non-use, so he’s been staying in the same approximate place for a few years.
The Terror Trust of Dubya, Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld have had and continue to have the tools available to reach out and touch Osama Bin Laden. Had the Terror Trust really wanted to get Bin Laden in 2002, the trial would have been over in 2005 and our lives would have been eminently improved since.
The reason they didn’t (and have not) captured or killed Bin Laden is this: To run a war, you need a Demon. There has to be someone you can point to as "the bad guy": The Demon.
Check your history. World War I, it was the Kaiser and Germans in general. Berlin, Ontario was renamed Waterloo, Ontario. German Bay on Big Rideau Lake was immediately renamed Britain-Houghton Bay. We wanted nothing "German’ in our midst as they were the bad guys.
World War II, we demonized Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. Not that those three weren’t scumbags, but taking sauerkraut off the menu and shipping all residents of Japanese heritage to internment camps are not the actions of a tolerant society. Interestingly, the belt buckle of some units of the Germany Army had the initials IHR cast into the metal, which loosely translates as With God’s Help, meaning Germany was on God’s Side. Perhaps God was kidding that day.
In Korea, it was the Godless Communist "Chinee" Hordes swarming over the Yalu River and the 38th parallel to oppress the noble South Koreans under Syngman Rhee. Rhee was a rabid anti-communist who made Joe McCarthy look like a Socialist florist and part-time window dresser.
Viet Nam? Ho Chi Minh and black-pajama clad "gooks" sneaking around planting punji sticks on jungle paths. Never mind that the US used claymore mines and defoliated about half the country, those Godless Communists wanted to unseat whoever the US had propped up on the President’s chair that week. Even Wikipedia doesn’t have the list. I think everyone in South Viet Nam took turns being President of South Viet Nam for a week.
The Taliban? They were Freedom Fighters against the Godless Russian Communist Hordes. Ask Ollie North and the CIA about that one. Ooopsie. Sorry, the Taliban are now bad guys.
Panama had Pineapple Head, Manuel Noriega. He was obviously in bed with Drug Cartels. As an aside, Noriega was never, officially, the President of Panama. He was an ex-CIA punk and was well known as an election fixer, money launderer and founder of the "Dignity Battalions" that executed anyone who dared to oppose his reign.
Gulf War I: Saddam who invaded plucky Kuwait was the demon. We’ll overlook that the CIA supported Iraq in the war with Iran, as Iran was a bad guy at the time. We’ll also overlook Kuwait executing people in public for things like not wearing a veil correctly, or stealing enough bread to keep from starving to death.
Kosovo? Slobodan Milosevic was ethnically cleansing the Serbs, Croatians, Muslims, Christians and everyone else, except Slobodan Milosevic. Right?
Rwanda? Shhhh. We don’t talk about that one. Same with Somalia: Ixnay alkingtay boutay fricaaay.
Gulf War II, Brought to you by Raytheon and Haliburton, saw Saddam as the Demon Again. This time he was selling Weapons of Mass Destruction to Osama Bin Laden, who was determined to blow up the Wal-Mart in Cooksville, Tennessee.
With Bin Laden probably dead, nominations for Demon are now open. Nominees include:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: President of Iran
Kin Jong-Il: Supreme Being of North Korea
Hugo Chavez: Venezuelan President until the CIA overthrows him (See Salvador Allende & Chile)
Fidel Castro: Grandfathered in since 1962
Mr. Norris Flegus, 123 Main Street, Anywhere USA. He has the temerity to question us too much, therefore he’s a card-carrying member of the Evildoers of the Axis of Evil.
Without a Demon of some kind, the Terror Trust can’t keep us all jacked up on Paranoia and Fear. As soon as you question the Terror Trust for things like "Evidence" or "Reason" or "Rationale" they lose power. The last time the Terror Trust had evidence, reason and rationale was Osama Bin Laden, just after 9/11. The rest has been smoke, mirrors, fabrications and outright lying.
The mere fact that Osama Bin Laden has possibly died of natural causes tells me that Dubya, Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld are not serious about catching the bad guys. They are serious about keeping power at all costs.
RoadDave 