Not So Terrribly Much Wanted, Dead or Alive
Well, here's another reason it would have been good for us to have squashed bin Laden. According to al-Zawahiri, OBL is still running their little jihad. Me, I don't know whether OBL's alive or dead, and--needless to say--al-Zawahiri's word on it means absolutely nothing one way or the other. One might wonder, however, why OBL himself isn't on the tape...
But what we need here is a confirmed kill. It won't do as much good now as it would have done 4 years ago, but I guess it'd still be something.
Well, here's another reason it would have been good for us to have squashed bin Laden. According to al-Zawahiri, OBL is still running their little jihad. Me, I don't know whether OBL's alive or dead, and--needless to say--al-Zawahiri's word on it means absolutely nothing one way or the other. One might wonder, however, why OBL himself isn't on the tape...
But what we need here is a confirmed kill. It won't do as much good now as it would have done 4 years ago, but I guess it'd still be something.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:42 AM
4 Comments:
My guess is that if Osama's alive, he looks terrible because of health problems, either his reputed kidney disease or from injuries.
"...when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."---OBL
Hope you're right, but what we need is proof. At this rate the bastard's gonna turn into the D. B. Cooper of world terrorism.
In fact, it would be very, very bad if he dies and is buried secretly, and continues to "live" as a legend.
Have I mentioned how only massive incompetence could have forced us to face this possibility?
Yes. There is, as usual, principled disagreement.
"Thus, the only reason we had anyone 'trapped' at Tora Bora at all was that we had totally surprised and defeated them strategically. Put simply, if there were enough US troops in the theater to surround and assault Tora Bora, it would have been April, not December, and god only knows what we would have provoked in the process of getting them there."
This conforms to my understanding of the tactical situation at the time, that only the Rumsfeldian "quick and mobile" approach got us up into those mountains in the first place.
As for OBL, it was also feared at the time he'd become some sort of martyr, begetting thousands to rise in his place. This dingy denouement has been serendipitous.
"The crucial point is that while bin Laden was already in Pakistan, General Tommy Franks at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, was being directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to concentrate on toppling Saddam Hussein."
Yup.
The reporter's conclusions do not follow from this fact. Quote for information, not from authority.
Blitzkreig, which pulled off the Afghanistan victory, is necessarily "understaffed." That's the point.
What, does Pepe think that bin Laden compliantly would have sat in his bunker as we, snail-like, surrounded him? I don't mind comparing OBL to Hitler, but OBL had options.
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