where's Osama?
Bob Geiger, currently on hiatus, asks the question “Where’s Osama?” every week. Bush continues to fail to provide an answer to that question (possibly because Bush is "not that concerned" about the "virtually impotent" terrorist) although bin Laden remains atop the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list. It is now six years since American Flight 11 struck the North tower of the World Trade Center, beginning the events that fixed 9/11 as a day of tragedy in our history, and the current “Where’s Osama?” clock reads as follows:
Here's the amount of time that has passed since President Bush said he would get Osama bin Laden dead or alive:
2185 days, 8 hours, 46 minutes, and 31 seconds
As our military is mired in the Iraqi desert--after being called away from the hunt for bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora--the question “Where’s Osama?” is more relevant than ever. His recent message reminds us that he is still alive and free, and provides more evidence of Bush’s miserable failure to get him “dead or alive.”
Bin Laden’s address is even more incoherent than usual, but only one aspect of this has been widely noted: his observations that “the Democrats haven’t made a move worth mentioning” and have “fail[ed] to stop the war.” There is also a mention of Noam Chomsky, the suggestion of conspiracy in JFK’s assassination, as well as some invective against globalization, “major corporations,” and “the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.” However, bin Laden is a devoutly religious man who praises submission to god's will, decries the separation of church and state, and supports a flat tax; these alliances with distinctly Republican positions have gone unmentioned by the “liberal” media.
Andrew Sullivan taunted bin Laden’s beard-dyeing vanity in this post about “Just for Mullahs” coloring for facial hair; this reader’s response makes an excellent point about bin Laden and his effect on our politics:
He is a despicable low-life criminal who should have been arrested and put on trial ages ago. Instead, the Bush administration and the entire Fox News Fear Factory turned him into a large-than-life villain, and let him escape with impunity.Now the Giulianis and Hewitts run around doing his work for him by terrorizing Americans, spreading fear instead of confidence, pretending that Bin Laden's pipe dreams of world domination should frighten Americans into giving up our civil liberties.
Now, more than ever, we need an FDR moment: we must turn our backs on fear, and live free and unafraid. When the West faced a truly existential threat from Hitler, we didn't spend our time terrorizing ourselves into a frenzy. We knew that confidence, humility and good cheer are far more valuable.
When we most needed a true leader, our president displayed inaction and incompetence:
In the aftermath of 9/11, the administration's response worsened; there was a dearth of leadership while we received admonitions to “watch what we say” and exhortations to avoid lamenting our lost liberty. The administration smothered the media with incessant scares about Iraq’s (nonexistent) “mobile production facilities” and their (nonexistent) nuclear program exploding a “mushroom cloud” over America, fanned the flames of fear with DHS color-coded threat levels, and suggested that we “[s]eal the room with duct tape and plastic sheeting” against chemical and biological weapons.
This panic and paranoia fueled GOP electoral victories in 2002 and 2004, but the scales have since fallen from the eyes of all but the reddest of Busheviks; the symbiotic relationship between Bush and bin Laden has been clearly revealed. Six years of failure down; only 497 days to go.