Saturday, February 24, 2007

Aberrant Alibis on Osama bin Laden

It turns out that the self-confessed killer of 3,000 innocent American civilians could run and hide.

Today's theocons and neocons thrive on describing Osama bin Laden as a sort of modern day Hitler or Mussolini and the war against terror as a war against the global threat of 'Islamofacism', comparable to the challenge met by our Greatest Generation which triumphed in World War II.

But, within this context, the evolution of George Bush's policy seems grotesquely incomprehensible . Initially, after the 911 attacks, on 13-September 2001, Bush pledged,
The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.
But, less than a year later, on 13-March 2002, Bush had all but forgotten about him:
I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority. . . I am truly not that concerned about him.
Now, Bush's Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker says in a speech to the Rotary Club of Fort Worth:
He's not the only source of the problem, obviously. . . . If you killed him tomorrow, you'd still have a problem with al-Qaeda . . . . I don't know whether we'll find him.I don't know that it's all that important, frankly.

So we get him, and then what? There's a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today. He's hiding, and he knows we're looking for him. We know he's not particularly effective. I'm not sure there's that great of a return . . . .
So, the only 'justice' that mass-murderer Osama bin Laden faces is the dismal prospect most of us contend with: dying a natural death in his ripe old age.