October 20, 2004
"It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim; dead, Jim; dead, Jim..."
When's the last time anyone heard from the elusive Osama Bin Laden?
To be exact -- and if you even believe it was him -- it was the May 7 audio tape offering gold for the assassination of Jerry Bremer.
Prior to that was the European "truce" offered by audio tape that showed up in the wake of the Spanish train bombings, which, if memory serves, was unauthenticated by the CIA. Then was an audio tape that surfaced on Al Jazeera in early January.
Last time we SAW him? A year ago -- October 19, 2003 -- a video of Osama with no sound, looking hale and hearty (in stark contrast to the frail-looking Osama from the Tora Bora bombing era of December 2001) picking his way up a slope in an unidentified rocky region.
Gregory Djerejian points out the signs that are becoming increasingly obvious: that Osama is as dead as Elvis, lest he show up at your corner 7-Eleven.
Folks, bottom line: we have to go all the way back to December 26th 2001 to see a video of UBL that really seems to get close to passing a smell test evidencing that's he actually, you know, alive (and he didn't look too smashing in it either).But then again, I guess if Osama were truly dead, it would completely torpedo the Kerry arguement of military attention to "the target." Posted by mhking at October 20, 2004 10:32 AMNow, does anyone seriously believe that UBL wouldn't, if he were alive, be doing his very damnedest to release a tape, soonest, rubbing Bush's nose in it for not having caught him--dead or alive? Just as a little pre-election present, say, maybe to give the opposition a little assist in hyping the disingenous Tora Bora meme? Doubtless, he would, no? Unless, of course, he's dead. Which, I'm beginning to feel pretty comfortable concluding, may well be the happy reality as we sit here today.