Ace - of course UBL is dead.

I've been saying that since December, 2001. And I am always right!

No, the truth is that I think that UBL went up into a pink spray under a Daisy Cutter in Tora Bora, so we don't know that he is dead, but we certainly have no proof that he is alive.

Calling him dead without absolute proof is very problematic - he could maybe, just possibly be sucking air through a ventilator somewhere. And, given that a lot of people seem to think that the war on terror = bin Laden, if he's dead, then we must be through.

I think the CIA is purposely keeping bin Laden "alive" by saying that it is his voice on tape on purpose. In fact, I think that the tape they let out in January is entirely a product of the CIA.

By putting out false stuff, we rattle their cages, plus he was bitching about the fascists in the region, how they were a bigger problem than the US. That's an okay message for us.

Whether he is or isn't KIA is largely irrelevant.

To much of the world, he is the guy who finally gave the US a bitch slap and got away with it. They may not approve of his theology, his tactics, but by God, the little guy gave the big guy a bloody nose!! Akin to in America, why we romanticized bank robbers in the Depression and train robbers in the Wild West.

Binnie could be alive, and thus seen as surviving by his wits so far. Waiting to basically go "nah, nah, na-na, nah" on video after the next big Al Qaeda hit.

Binnie could be dead, but no prominant CIA person or politician is willing to say so without DNA from his dead body proving otherwise, for fear he may pop up in a video with a Oil at 59 a barrel newspaper.

Binnie could be dead, but still useful. The old John McCain joke that if Greenspan died, he'd have the body pickled and put sunglasses on it for a few more years. Ghostwrite his pronouncements. Then set up a good fake death - Binnie on a suicide boat that sinks an oil freighter, Binnie surrounded by friends, Mullahs, and family dying peacefully issuing his "Last Will and Testament for Eternal Jihad Against the Infidel".

Or just let him pass into myth, saying he left Jihad, departing with one trusted friend to spend the rest of his life in spiritual reflection in an obscure place known to none. He's only 48, or would be only 48 if he's still alive. That gives him 30 more years of "Elvis Lives!" treatment.

Ann Coulter was on Alan Colmes' radio show last week and she said that here in the U.S. the labs I.D. the tapes as 90% likely, but then they send the tapes to Switzerland where they're shown to be forgeries. They have much better equipment in Sweden.

He's deader than a doornail. Clearly were we to say that in Dec 2001 then the "world" and the left would have screamed bloody murder for us to fold up our tent in Afghanistan and let things return to their normal state of screwed up. Arguments that the WOT is more than just one man would have fallen on the same deaf ears that don't want to hear that rogue Arab states with WMD interests and capabilities probably shouldn't be left to their own devices. I mean for crying out loud Kerry wants to give Iran fuel to "call their bluff." What fucking bluff? They announce each week their closer to a bomb, but the navel gazing left will gosh darn it just never know for sure. Anyway, its convenient for OBL to be possibly alive for both us and AQ, but the President has made an offhand remark himself that he's not worried about OBL.

Oh and for the record I'm aware than Iran is not an "arab" state. That should read Middle Eastern.

"Clearly were we to say that in Dec 2001 then the "world" and the left would have screamed bloody murder for us to fold up our tent in Afghanistan and let things return to their normal state of screwed up."

If OBL died at Tora Bora or somewhere else, it is irrelevant. There are good reasons for us to keep proof of his demise secret, however for this administration, I wouldn't think "world opinion" would be one of them.

If OBL is dead and no one on the al-qaeda side declares it:

OBL is certianly no longer able to be the one to give orders.

OBL cannot be declared a martyr for his cause, and their is no aniversery of his death to celebrate with terror.

No one else is able to "take charge" whithout appearing to usurp OBL's powers.

Any internal struggle as to who is the terror networks "secret leader" plays into our hand to spy on and infiltrate their network.

Well according to a story in some Spanish newspaper (via Information Clearing House), OBL is alive and in Chinese custody. Who'da thunk?

http://207.44.245.159/article7077.htm

Another rumor I heard is that OBL has changed his appearence (very likely, actually) and now lives as a cleric in Iran.

for the GWOT an AWOL UBL is AOK

CJ has been saying this on Little Green Footballs for years now. All they need to do is produce one video with Bin Laden holding up a recent newspaper and they'd have credibility.

It would have been nice if someone had brought up Binnie dubious continued existence to take some of the wind ut of Kerry's sails but the administrations seems attached to keeping up the facade.

Paul B - I mean for crying out loud Kerry wants to give Iran fuel to "call their bluff." What fucking bluff? They announce each week their closer to a bomb, but the navel gazing left will gosh darn it just never know for sure.

Factually inaccurate, Paul. The Iranians obviously have not announced they are closer to the bomb each week.

They are following a strategy that worked for the Indians, Pakistanis, Zionists - nuclear ambiguity. Claim "peaceful nuclear" power and research is your only goal until you are ready to go for the Bomb. They claim that they only want a full cycle under national control, hence the centrifuge technology went to them "purely" for enrichment of nuclear fuel rods.

Kerry is actually smart on this, saying the Euros, Russia, and the USA should call their bluff and offer 3% enriched fuel if they allow inspections under the nuclear NPT. Giving them fuel is no biggie, since the days of reactor operation are easily monitored and assure that the Iranians burn it long enough that the chain reactions produce "bad Plutonium" - the 240, 241 isotopes - along with the "Good" 239 bomb stuff.

If the Iranians refuse the offer of Europe, Russia, and the USA - then we know that they are at least threatening to go nuclear or build the capacity to go nuke anytime they wish. In fact, they told France to screw off the other day, but haven't been faced by the USA & Russia warning of consequences, yet.

They are actually in a good position. The nuclear-armed Zionists have never been more hated, so Iran can link it's NOT going nuclear to Israel ceasing to point it's nuclear missiles and bombers at Muslim countries, and reducing it's stockpile to 10-20 weapons from the 250-300 they now have...oh, and fully withdrawing from the Occupied Territories to the 1967 lines. That would be approved of by a 180-2-9 vote in the UN.

The US itself may not be eager to go with a Draft, spend 200 billion more, and lose 2-10,000 casualties in a war with Iran to save the Zionist Colonies that America also has opposed since UN Res 242. After the Iraq mess, and 9 of 10 Army Divisions involved in Occupation rotation there - all the American Israel PAC money in the world may not be enough to convince politicians to buck US domestic opinion about going totally alone into another major war.

It's a very interesting chess game. Mind that the "secular" Iranians "hungry for democracy" strongly support Iran's nuclear efforts as a matter of national pride. It is not a matter of the US bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, killing thousands, and then walking in to another bogus Neocon fantasy of rose petals thrown at our feet from grateful Iranian students.

Hey Russia, I hear you'd like a warm water port.

Yes! Al understands the "Great Game" part of the chess game. Players Russia, UK, USA, Persia.

I pretty much tuned out after the second use of "Zionist".

Cedarford, even though Iran's Bushehr reactor is closer to town, there's no reason to assume such a strike would kill thousands. The Israeli Osirak strike killed about twenty (my copy of Raid on the Sun is at work) inside the reactor. Hell, Saddam shot more guards than the Israelis killed. No runaway reaction or nuclear fallout.

That's not guaranteed, of course, but it seems likely. I think it's a no brainer: the risk of a strike possibly causing a nuclear reaction at Bushehr, which it didn't do in 1982 at Osirak; vs. the risk of Iran getting a nuke and using it in a way we don't like.

Pro-US sentiment is high in Iran--probably more so than in any middle eastern country--this from Iranians. They don't want the mullahs getting a nuke any more than we do; that freezes any hope of democratization. If Iran gets the bomb, it becomes North Korea.

This isn't a neocon fantasy. You've clearly thought about this quite a bit, Cedarford, but I'm not sure why you assume why we would invade after we hit the reactor. Not even Michael "Faster Please" Ledeen is talking about that, and he was one of the chief neocons urging the invasion of Iraq.

However, even though their reactor use is "easily monitored" that assumes they won't cheat, or better yet, just throw out the inspectors as soon as they get the fuel and go to converting HEU. Kerry trusts them not to do that.

I sure as hell don't. Bushehr delenda est.

As for OBL, he has every incentive to lay low and rock us gently back to sleep. The transmission and publication of a videotape or whatever involves creating a traceable record and a certain amount of risk. If he's working on another plan now, why would he jeopardize that?

I'll make some decisions about whether he's alive after the next 9-11. If he pops up to gloat, he's alive. If he doesn't, then I'll believe he's dead. May God grant that my uncertainty remains.

Until then, barring his capture, we just don't know what's up with OBL. After all, Zarqawi's at large in Fallujah and there's an assload of Marines itching to pop him. Zawahiri's still alive. Some of Saddam's hotshots like Al-Douri are probably still ambulatory. OBie could very well have escaped us. There's NO WAY that Pakistan's ISI would have let him slip through, of course. No way at all.

There's some value to these thought experiments about "what would Osama do?" if he were alive. But he's pretty screwed up and momomanic and irrational. I think the only way we can really get inside his head is with a rusty icepick.

Cedarford -

Hell, as the Agreed Framework worked so well with the North Koreans, it just makes good sense for Kerry to suggest we dust off the ol' playbook a second time, eh?

And I'm sure you're right that - in a region where most of the literati consider Blood Libel as established historic fact - the Zionists must spend whole nights worrying about negatively influencing popular opinion.

And I do see your point that all rational pundits everywhere are nervously pondering whether the Iranians are planning on "going nuclear".

But ...your breath-taking display of erudition in pointing out how slyly devious the House Republicans were by bringing to the floor and voting 402-2 against HR163 (introduced by Rangel D-NY) ...I mean, your ability to discern that the real reason the Repug's MUST have voted down a Selective Service bill authored by a Democrat must be so THEY could take credit later for reintroducing the draft in a controversial election year, is so breathtakingly deep ...well, it just leaves me stunned and in awe ...yes, you see deep in the game, my friend. Very, very deep.

Thanks EVER so much for deigning to share your brilliantly illuminating pontification with us formerly naive proles.

Wow. It's like one of the gods just came down from Mt. Olympus on a ray of blinding light or something. Now I know exactly how the Lycaonians must have felt.

...like, where do you get your information, DU troll? Off of IRNA?

There are claims that OBL is now in Iran, as claimed by the author of the book "Shadow War".

I think we can assume that OBL's body has not been found, then for certain, we cannot know whether he is alive or dead.

If alive, the reason he hasn't shown his face is probably because he has completely changed his appearance, and wishes to remain in secret.

While I do believe he is dead, recent actions (and even inactions) have done little to prove that theory either way.

No shit Sherlock.

He's dead. I'm sorry, but I cannot believe such a camera whore would not show up here and there during the war on terror. Even if he were in disguise, why not drop it to send out a morale boosting video tape or two? It's not beyond the ken of western technology, or your basic magician down the street, to adopt and drop a disguise as you see fit. If anything, he'd come out and recommend, in no minor terms, the actions of his underlings in Iraq.

He hasn't. If anything, and to the Left's great delight, the man has been utterly absent in spirit and substance during the war in Iraq. That doesn't strike me as someone alive and waging jihad on the west.

Osama's dead. Case closed. And we fight to subdue any who'd get an itch to follow in his path.

I get the idea the Bush administration wants to flat out say he's dead, but they bank on the %5 possibility, and don't want to risk that he might show up someday. Because declaring a main enemy dead and then having him certifiably show up is beyond embarrassment. So they play it safe. But I get the feeling, from Bush's statements, they think he's dead too.

"Hey Russia, I hear you'd like a warm water port."

By the way, this is the Best. Response. Ever.

No runaway reaction at Osirak because fuel wasn't loaded in the reactor. It was going to be loaded the next day. The day is coming for Bushehr.

Iran has already laughed at the laughable suggestion that we would give, or sell them fuel if they just made sure to return it. Their answer is basically, we are going to enrich uranium and you are going to like it. Forget plutonium, they are headed to nuclear weapons the quick and dirty way.

PS 2 CW - Ledeen urged against invasion of Iraq, preferring the approach of supporting Chalabi and the INC.

See Dubya - The reactor isn't the problem. This isn't a "one bombing run, end of problem" situation. The problem is the Highly Enriched Uranium program. We don't know where the Iranians have squirreled their centrifuges away. They have scattered that technology in various locations, several unknown. The reactor can produce bomb grade stuff only if the Russian fuel is burned

Brandon Davis - We invade Iran to search for and destroy all their enrichment facilities, we will go in alone. We don't have a big enough Army, currently. Your observation that the House voted 402-2 against the Draft as currently not required is a non-sequiter. What would be required if we had to invade Iran, and the world saw it as being done purely to help Israel maintain it's nuclear monopoly and Settlements, and refused to help? In that circumstance, a Draft is not unthinkable.

Blaster - Ledeen did have the crackpot idea of his pal Chalabi and other exiles just walking in to cheers and rosepetals. Then he said maybe with a few thousand special ops people. Then he was OK with the US Army&Marines going in in force so they could next invade Syria and Lebanon. After the US disposed of those two other problems for Israel once the Iraq cakewalk was done - Ledeen said we either had to subvert Iran through it's "pro-American" dissidents, or invade in force. All part of his many "Faster, Faster, please" writings.

Bin Laden is dead.

Bin Laden was evil but he was not totally stupid.

Al Qaida put a bomb in a Koran use it to smuggle the bomb into a mosque in Mecca. They set off a bomb in the holiest spot on earth to the Moslems.

Bin Laden has to be dead as he would have never allowed a bombing of a mosque in Mecca using a Koran.

Cedarford -

"Your observation that the House voted 402-2 against the Draft as currently not required is a non-sequiter."

Your grasp of military essentials is somewhat less then breath-taking. About on a par with your grasp of logic (but, expected from someone who, in the best tradition of anti-Semite racists everywhere, has the intellectual "depth" to buy into accepting the filth of Blood Libel).

The US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force is composed of highly trained, dedicated professionals; the best fighting machine the WORLD has ever seen (the drive to Baghdad will be a text book study for the next 2,000 years in military colleges ...not hype: we still study Sun Tzu c. 500BC) ...and they have no desire to waste their incredibly valuable resources and limited time training slackers.

To achieve an effective fighting force under present conditions may not take any more valour or courage, but it sure as hell takes a lot more dedication and training then the traditional 2 years of service allots, to be a useful member of that fighting machine.

It would be a moronic policy decision on several levels to re-institute the draft, given the foreseeable demands that we're likely to make on the Services for the next 25-50 years or so. Worse, a draft wouldn't even be effective in the short term: it would take YEARS to ramp up, for the Services to be able to absorb a large force of draftees.

The world has changed. The battlefield has changed. We no longer consider it efficacious to send massed groups of armed men out to slaughter other massed groups of equally armed men in Flander's Field (with deepest respect to those brave men who lie in that hallowed ground). The focus now is on smarter, lighter, DEADLIER.

But let's suppose that a hypothetical Democrat administration and Congress did decide to moronically reinstitute general military service: how long do you realistically think it would take for the military to ramp into the basing, training, and logistical necessities to effectively absorb millions of young "persons"? How long to develop and staff the training cadres? (What, you think NCOs and officers grow on trees? Do you think we've enough of them that we're going to rotate them from current tactical needs to training bases?) How long to change the direction and focus of THIRTY YEARS of DD focus on "smarter, lighter, DEADLIER", to go back to an obsolete military model?

C'mon, give us all the illuminating benefit of your enlightened, well-thought-out, expertise ....

NOTE: Using WWI/II, etc. as an example isn't going to be helpful for determining any proposed personnel estimates and ramp-up, for the reasons previously stated ...no help there. You'll just have to wing it.

...umm, you might want to keep in mind that when responding to the lead-in to tactical conflict in IRAQ, with already trained and experienced professionals, we took almost a year-and-a-half ...just thought I'd be helpful.

Your draft scenario suppositions are specious, ignoring both political and military realities ...and your *non-sequiter* conclusion was both misleading and non-responsive. !!SMACK!!! Don't try that again. The Dems publicly ADMITTED they brought up the issue to be divisive, and subsequent ploys HAVE amply illustrated the truth of their intent ...and it is simply ludicrous to straw-man it as anything other then dispicable partisan electioneering.

"We invade Iran to search for and destroy all their enrichment facilities, we will go in alone."

Your point being? European national militaries have deteriorated in force projection effectiveness SINCE the Gulf War, to the point where their ability to be of use - even to interface command-and-control or be operationally effective at the minimal battlefield level - in the modern theatre of war settings that the US war-games at (as anything other then security cadres) is almost totally useless.

(Now ...if you wanna argue that their current ineffectiveness is largely the result of US policy of the last 50 years, I'd probably take a pass.)

The ONLY other army in the world capable of interfacing with the US units tactically, on the battlefield is the one already at our side: Great Britain's. (Well, maybe I should have said "in Europe", instead of "the world" ...Australia and Israel are also operationally effective forces with the US, both technically and tactically ...the Ozzies actually plan their force structure on interoperability with the US.)

The US military "goes it alone" at the theatre level of war - due to the operational necessities - by preference.

As far as "destroy[ing] all their enrichment facilities" ...who cares? You incorrectly start with the erroneous assumption that to destroy their nuclear weapons program, we have to destroy ALL the parts of the program, and argue to a baseless conclusion.. Why? - Why such assume specious waste of the military? Why make the rash assumption of assuming a lack of cooperation from the young democratic dissidents (that SOps teams are probably already supporting)? Why not combine regime change with the destruction of the dangerous parts of enough of that program to set the goal post of weapons production some twenty-five years (or more) off? - Makes a helluva lot more sense to me then your infantile and baseless realpolitik scenario.

"We don't have a big enough Army..."

Yeah. That's why we needed such a large initial force in Afghanistan, eh?

I am usually speechless with the lack of sophistication that statements like this reveal: 150,000 troops is a "big Army"? Approximately 10 divisions? Compared to what? When? You think V Corps in Germany - about 50,000 combatants plus support personnel - isn't available? The South Korean divisions? Why?

Tight? Yeah, maybe. But the tactical scenario has to have already been war-gamed at various response levels, so I won't be worried about it once it begins ...I have a great deal of confidence in the professionalism of the Services (more, I might add, then I have in politicians to exhibit spines).

So I think it is much more valid to argue (at our level of access) that - with the ongoing and accelerating (why do you think that is, hmmmmm?) problems of the mullahcracy viz. the dissidents agitating for democratic revolution - that the military response in Iran is probably going to resemble what happened in Afghanistan more then what was necessary to guard our back in Iraq.

Sederford? - I'm going to give you a break here, because observing your counterpoint (and from your constructions), you seem to be attempting to exhibit at least rudimentary intellectual thought. I'm also hoping that you're just young, and that the racist bile you've spewed hasn't had time to harden any nascent moral compass into a concrete matrix.

Frankly, your primary intel sources suck, kid.

It's obvious from even a cursory glance at both your points and your examples that you are overly reliant upon the MSM for facts. And "garbage in, garbage out" goes as much for carbon-based thought as silicon-based collating.

You need to dig deeper ...there's lots of good sources available, even at the google level. But while partisan MSM writers who majored in journalism in their salad days may be practiced at demagoguing, their rampant predilection for intellectual laziness (these days), makes them poor sources of primary information

Ditto for the mindless Leftist screedy crap that you attempt to develop your own arguments on. Those ranting idiots on the campus quad that you're listening to at noon excercise rational thought that is barely above the level of single-cell motility ...impassioned volume is utterly useless for practicing rational discourse. Lose it.

Read Sun Tzu. Clauswitz. Some military history (start with Victor Davis Hanson ...and may I be so bold as to suggest starting with the most excellent treatise Carnage and Culture). You wanna make military arguments against the way we're conducting WWIV from a Leftist perspective, fine. But make informed arguments.

I don't understand why the lack of evidence is evidence.

Here's a scenario I may subscribe to:
He keeps his actual wherabouts unknown, and if he is even alive ambigous. That way no one knows whether to look for him or not.

Greg -

Respectfully.

It is an appropriate exercise in rational discourse to speculate upon the likely meaning of his present "behaviour", drawing upon inferences to known biographical details considered relevant to the discussion.

Which is what those who argue that he's dead are doing: based upon his past seeming predilection to public notoriety, his current silence seems ...suspect.

The arguments of those who suggest that to "lay low" would be as likely and more rational as an explanation for his long silence ...could generally be accepted as an equally valid view ...IF we all accepted that UBL's known biographical details indicated he consistently acted in a rational manner.

And THAT is the hinge the door of the overall argument swings on ...

The consensus of most observers here is that his psychological history appears to be more indicative of a decided predilection toward publicly fanatical religious fantasizing, rather then calmly rational strategic preparation and judicious tactical execution ....

To wit: the biographical details suggest that the genocidal maniac would BE the public poster boy to aid in Al Qaeda Islamofascist recruitment efforts IF he was NOT already a smear on a cave wall somewhere deep in Afghanistan.

BD, I'll reiterate my objection to concluding he's dead. Even crazy people can act rationally in pursuit of a crazy objective. And they can take elaborate, obsessive steps to avoiod detection and capture. See: serial killers, 9-11, OKC 1995. All these folks can plan, game the system, and control impulses just like we can in pursuit of objectives--the difference is that their objective is to punish the Demon Worms of Fozklog living in their curry.

OBL could have learned from his mistakes--remember that it was broadcast by the media that we were intercepting his satellite phone, and he stopped using it--and went into hiding for a while. Or he could be entertaining his 72 raisins. We just don't know.

The stories about him being in Iran aren't credible to me--think of the propaganda victory were Iran to hand over this (Sunni) terrorist, with no skin off their nose.

We assumed there were WMD's in Iraq because of a similar thought experiment: "Saddam had them. He was a megalomaniac. Why would he destroy them?" And we got burned with that one.

I'm with Dubya on this one--I'm not too concerned about OBL. Right now there are plenty of known, credible threats on our radar screen. If Osama pops up we'll deal with him, but let's check out the mullahs and Assad's chemical stockpiles first.

See Dubya -

What an interesting position philosophical discussion this can lead to: "...crazy people can act rationally in pursuit of a crazy objective...".

Hmm. Does that mean that rationality has no basis in sanity, or vice-versa? Or ...is it just that crazy people can insanely take on the appearance of rationality, thereby achieving crazy objectives through a kind of semblance of rational action? Or ...is it just that rationality is a methodology that is as useful to crazy people as it is to sane people in the accomplishment of ANY objective? Or ...is it that crazy objectives still require rational bases of behaviour regardless of craziness? Or ...etc.

Enough fun, though.

I will accept that your explanation addresses my "...if he acted in a rational...etc" as at least a responsive counterpoint, although I am not sure that the weight of your argument can equally account for the recruiting losses AQ appears to be experiencing.

(Great line "...punish[ing] the Demon Worms of Fozklog living in their curry" though.)

Regardless, it's awfully hard to disagree with a "We just don't know" position, if you're also intimating [what I would see as] a high degree of probability is a necessity for suppositional certitude in a discussion of UBL's current state of corporeality.

My question (retort?) would have to be: "Why discuss the subject at all then?"

But I do find your drawing even a faint analogy between a genocidal maniac's actions, and a megalomaniac's actions, as rather absurd.

Did you really mean to give as an example the one maniac's actions as a basis for believing you can predict the rationale of another maniac's actions?

Huh? - What loopy school of modern psychology (hmm, is that phrase an oxymoron?) are you following, which appears to posit that you can successfully make predictions of one maniac's actions by observing another maniac? They're maniacs, dude.

...rather bizarre, put like that ...don't you think?

Care to have another go at it, then?

"We assumed there were WMD's in Iraq because... And we got burned..."

No. I certainly disagree.

We did NOT make WMD assumptions based upon a "thought experiment" (though I did actually appreciate the picturesque analogy).

We - and EVERYONE else - made assumptions based upon the hard evidence of prior use, and the unexceptional certitude of stated intent.

The now-apparently-exposed-as-baseless assumption that Sadaam would rationally act to keep his regime intact was merely a minor - though understandable - component of our WMD rationale.

The blackly humourous part of all this is that we seem to have been accidentally correct ...he did act rationally (at least in part), but his thoroughness at projecting a deceptive image was, well, too good.

Sadaam does - NOW - appear to have destroyed the majority of his WMD stocks in violation of his treaty obligations, which ALSO required him to allow the certainty of VERIFICATION of the destruction of the stocks.

The treaties obligated Sadaam to assure the UN that the Iraqi stocks were VERIFIABLY destroyed, and that the development programs were VERIFIABLY dismantled.

And the "black humour"? -

The latter part of Deulfer Report - conveniently bypassed by the Left as unimportant as they irrationally parroted the "NO WMDs - Bush Lied" meme - seems to show the [rational] reason behind his [seeming] madness:

1. The conclusion of the report was that Sadaam fully intended, and had the capability, to restart the WMD program at end of sanctions.

2. Sadaam was counting on out-lasting the resolve of the US to enforce the resolutions, by gaming the UN Security Council with the perfidious complicity of the French, Germans, and Russians via the Oil For Food program.

He was counting on the Tripartite Coalition in the Security Council to have been a sound investment of his "hedge" funds ...but the unexpected result was his geopolitical calculations going slightly awry as Bush continued to show that rarest of political anomalies: a spine.

HOWEVER ...and finally: I stand in thorough agreement with your concluding remark. I too am unconcerned with the certain-sure current status of UBL so long as Al Qaeda continues to remain operationally ineffective in the strategic sense.

I tend to believe that perhaps Madame Secretary Albright was obliquely correct: OBL is on ice, doing some VERY, VERY hard time. It's just that he'll neven be seen again.

The complete lack of activity likley means he is dead or incommunicado. Dead or on the rack, makes no difference to me. At least he isn't trying to kill me anymore...

BD-- There's different kindsa crazy, sure. My point is that trying to diagnose them remotely and think like they do is pretty unreliable. We failed to predict one kinfd of maniac, so why we would we expect to do any better with a different sort? It's a great blog topic, and a great bar topic, but I would hate to have to seriously predicate some policy based on our best guess about OBL's status.

I remember when the snipers were shooting up DC, there was an article on Fox News about how this guy had to have a pattern. Unless he was a "dice man", then that was his pattern, to act on some random process like a dice roll.

Total BS. The crazy dudes didn't match the profile and they were just driving around shooting people that caught their eye. I'm still not sure why they did it--they seemed to have cooked up the ransom plan as they went along. Different maniacs still. We tried to get into their heads, and failed.

There was a great article in a 2002 Hoover Digest about trying to see this from Al-Qaeda's point of view, and the combination of rationality on the pursuit of wacko ideas. It was called Al-Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology, by Lee Harris. If you like these mindgames you might find it worthwhile: http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris.html

See Dubya -

Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology was ...QUITE interesting.

But does the explanation offered by Harris actually change the course of our necessary action - either stratigically, or tactically - in the military sense?

(By which question I unsurprisingly reveal that I'm definitely a Clauswitzian in the terms of the Harris article. Heh: I've been called worse.)

I don't think so.

Hmm. Actually, the more I "think out loud" about his conclusion, the more sure I am that his thesis changes nothing in our military conduct of the war ...and further, that the fortunate choice of "liberating" Afghanistan, and then Iraq, fits quite nicely as offering the alternate "liberating fantasy" of democracy to both combat AND replace the "ideological epidemic" of the Islamofascist "belief fantasy".

"Democratic revolution" as both antibiotic and vaccine, if you will.

Isn't it also striking that his conclusion of an epidemiological meme being the logical approach to conceptualize the problem, is also the best way to conduct the campaign against the Islamofascist "belief fantasy" ...and [the epidemiological approach] is essentially the same solution immortalized by Ann Coulter in her "Kill all the men, and convert the women and children to Christianity" statement just post 9/11?

No wonder someone hadn't linked me to the article prior to this though ...it's pure poison to the Political Correctness crowd.

Thank YOU for the link, however. I'll be thinking about THAT one for days to come.

Lee Harris published a book soon after this called Civilization and Its Enemies--more of the same if you like that piece. Or he's written a few more good big pieces for Policy Review like that one. And for a while he wrote columns for Tech Central Station; you can find them in an author search from their homepage. He hasn't been very active for several months though.

No, I think his epidemiological analysis changes very little about what we're doing: cut out the metastasized portions and graft in good tissue; pray that it takes, lather, rinse, repeat. It explains why ameliorative or palliative solutions (ie negotiations and appeasement) aren't going to work.

I don't think he would agree with Coulter--he might instead say, kill the malignant men, convert everyone else to democracy.

Greg:

The ONLY other army in the world capable of interfacing with the US units tactically, on the battlefield is the one already at our side: Great Britain's. (Well, maybe I should have said "in Europe", instead of "the world" ...Australia and Israel are also operationally effective forces with the US, both technically and tactically ...the Ozzies actually plan their force structure on interoperability with the US.)

There is another you may be overlooking, viz., the Iraqi Army. They already are operating jointly with US Army and Marine units. As they build up and Iraq becomes pacified, they will have excess capacity that can be used to further and defend freedom.

Please note the absence of a military draft in Iraq. By injecting a fatal dose of liberty into Islam, Muslims themselves enlist into the fight for liberty and against jihad.

Never failing to add my inconsequential peep to the end of a great cacophany...I agree that it doesn't matter if OBL is alive or dead. If he's dead, yeah ok great.

If he's alive and captured, I'm glad we're keeping it secret and not parading him around.

If he's alive and free, his ability to move about or communicate has been neutralized to a great extent.
I hardly think that pressure will stop at any time in the foreseeable future.

Dean Douthat -

Thank you for pointing out the Iraqi units, and I stand corrected ...your observation is an astutue one: for the next few years, the "Reformed" Iraqi Army (pun intended) will be rather fully interoperational with the US military, at least on the tactical level.

Hmm. Shall we riff on this idea for a bit?

Wouldn't it be ...interestingly provocative ...if the soon to be newly elected democratic government of Iraq, were to offer to the US several elite units of what I'm sure will be their quite effective army, in other campaigns (that I can't see being avoided) within the region?

...the primarily (wholly?) Muslim units, operating under US command-and-control, against, say the Syrian Ba'athist army forces, perhaps?

What an utterly delicious prospect.

And if you think Iraqi units co-operating fully with the United States military in out-country ops wouldn't send massive tremors throughout the entire region, your lack of speculative imagination needs an immediate infusion of whimsy.

I ...hadn't really given much thought along these lines before ...but particularly on a strategic level, if Iraqi units were to become active participants in the war within the region, what a cunning hand would have been revealed at the helm in the strategic planning for the US effort within the Middle East. Brilliantly effective, eh?

...the ghost of Belisarius casting a shadow, indeed.

Brandon:

Ooops, I misread your comment as being from Greg, sorry about that.

Here is a quote form the President's speech in NJ today:

America is safer today because Afghanistan and Iraq are fighting terrorists instead of harboring them.

As you can see, Bush understands the significance of having Muslims fighting against jihad. Indeed, I believe this has been a key strategic element in this administrations thinking from 9/11 onwards. Also, note the snowball effect as each liberated and reformed nation both subtracts from the jihadis side and adds to the coalition side.