Piss Off, Osama bin Shithead
That's right. I'm in no mood for subtlety.
With the emergence of the new tape, we can give up on the hope/fear that OBL, SOB is dead. On the one hand, I had hoped that he had already died a miserable death in a cave in Pakistan. On the other hand, a natural death is too good for him, and, as I've said before, I really want him to expire from a severe case of MOAB-itis. So, bad news: he's still alive; good news: we can still kill him.
Unfortunately, he's already won the propaganda war by surviving this long, and killing him now won't change that. In fact, we basically screwed this up as badly as we possibly could. We desperately needed to kill him immediately after 9/11 in order to make it clear that, if you launch an attack of that kind against the U.S., you die certainly and immediately. No matter what we do now, OBL has shown that that ain't so.
In fact, should we find him now, it'll probably just make things worse. He'll be shoved back to center stage, and we'll have to kill him which means martyring him.
This psychotic asshole--with the help of the radically incompetent Bush administration--has managed to do almost nothing but win against us. As I've said many times: strategically speaking, I'd still rather be us than him. But nobody could have predicted that, six years after 9/11, we would still not have decisively won a confrontation with a handful of third-world religious fanatics. And, with the help of American conservatives and the media, this little bad of nuts has been exaggerated into a Threat Against The Very Existence Of Liberal Democracy!!!!
Egad. Our only hope may be that our opponents are even stupider and less competent than we are.
Keep your fingers crossed.
That's right. I'm in no mood for subtlety.
With the emergence of the new tape, we can give up on the hope/fear that OBL, SOB is dead. On the one hand, I had hoped that he had already died a miserable death in a cave in Pakistan. On the other hand, a natural death is too good for him, and, as I've said before, I really want him to expire from a severe case of MOAB-itis. So, bad news: he's still alive; good news: we can still kill him.
Unfortunately, he's already won the propaganda war by surviving this long, and killing him now won't change that. In fact, we basically screwed this up as badly as we possibly could. We desperately needed to kill him immediately after 9/11 in order to make it clear that, if you launch an attack of that kind against the U.S., you die certainly and immediately. No matter what we do now, OBL has shown that that ain't so.
In fact, should we find him now, it'll probably just make things worse. He'll be shoved back to center stage, and we'll have to kill him which means martyring him.
This psychotic asshole--with the help of the radically incompetent Bush administration--has managed to do almost nothing but win against us. As I've said many times: strategically speaking, I'd still rather be us than him. But nobody could have predicted that, six years after 9/11, we would still not have decisively won a confrontation with a handful of third-world religious fanatics. And, with the help of American conservatives and the media, this little bad of nuts has been exaggerated into a Threat Against The Very Existence Of Liberal Democracy!!!!
Egad. Our only hope may be that our opponents are even stupider and less competent than we are.
Keep your fingers crossed.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:50 AM
8 Comments:
Osama has lost the propaganda war, surfacing only every year or three and this time around in a patently fake beard. Better this than a martyr, a myth. It's quite pleasingly pathetic.
Moreover, his movement has lost the propaganda war with their patent butchery in Iraq. 9/11 was designed as a clarion call for global jihad, but al-Qaeda won't be leading it. These guys suck and now everybody knows it.
I kinda agree with you that the GWOT is already won, at least strategically. The rest is tactical, and losing thousands of citizens and major hunks of real estate remains unacceptable to the Live Free or Die crowd, of which I consider meself one.
The Germans and Brits, too, if you've been following the news---even at a greater theoretical threat to their "civil rights" than any American right or left would consider.
Dear Osama,
You suck, and I don't mind saying so.
Signed, Anonymous
Dear Bush,
You, too.
Signed, See Above
Not sure exactly what you mean by those last points...
As for th GWOT being won: actually, not. God knows what the GWOT (GSAVE, etc.) is really supposed to be... If it's really supposed to be a war against *terrorism* (the tactic), then give it up right now.
[Insert lecture on correctly identifying your opponents here.]
But as for our fight against al Qaeda--you know, the guys how attacked us? Who killed 3000 Americans? Who brought the WTC to the ground? Those guys? 'member?--well that one's almost impossible to lose. [repeat lecture on correctly identifying opponents].
But, then, it's virtually impossible for us to have not-won as flamboyantly as we have so far. Nobody could have predicted that they'd be so undefeated six years after 9/11. Nobody could have predicted the OBL would have been allowed to escape, and would still be walking around. So stranger things have happened.
As for "he's better alive than dead'--well, that's very unlikely to be true. You'll forgive me if I wonder whether this isn't the position a defender of G. W. "Get-'im-Dead-Or-Alive" Bush might take after, well, 'e's been gotten neither dead nor alive. And has made the president look even more like an ineffectual tool. As I say, you'll forgive my wondering. Ask yourself whether you'd be saying the same thing if a Democrat had failed under the same conditions, had let him go even after he was trapped. No, you wouldn't. I, on the other hand, would think basically the same thing about such a Democrat: stupid, criminally ineffectual tool.
And as for the alleged betterness of OBL still being alive and kicking: I'm not worried about the consequences. Mass murderers deserve death. OBL is a mass murderer. The conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
I still didn't get my pom-poms out when Barack Obama hinted we should violate Pakistan's sovereignty to get Osama. There's toolish, then there's foolish.
Hmmm. OBL meets sci-fi geekdom.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,779530,00.html
It all makes sense now.
I must say that WS is right one this one, we kill him now then it is only going to inspire more attacks. Had we got him within the first 6 months though it would have sent a strong message. As it is now I almost hope we don't get him till a new guy is elected. Let the new guy get him within the first 6 months and then we can say, now we mean business.
Why is Pakistan's sovereignty so precious if Iraq's wasn't? Or even Afghanistan's? Because Pakistan is nominally our ally?
Let's face it. If our "ally" can't or won't secure their territory against its use by bin Laden, aren't we obligated to ratchet up the pressure? And seriously, how many countries have we raided on much thinner national interests?
There are actually some benefits to killing Osama now. One of them is proof that we have a long memory, which is not often in evidence.
Yeah, as a supporter of the Iraq war, I don't know how you could possibly be worried about violating Pakistan's sovereignty in order to kill OBL.
Let's see..violate Iraq's sovereignty to..do nothing related to anything OR violate Pakistan's in order to kill the guy who attacked us..
*Loading, please wait..*
Musharraf's regime is fragile, and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty (especially a failed attack) would make his position even more tenuous. A successor regime would almost certainly be worse, and Pakistan has nukes.
This is turnip truck stuff, folks. I found OBL-as-sci-fi-geek much more interesting.
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