Washington — It is all getting a bit thick, is it not? I am
referring to the increasingly implausible claims issuing from Araby
that the Rev. Osama bin Laden is alive and kicking, or belly
dancing or whatever Islamofascists do by way of dance. “I want to
reassure those impassioned with the jihad that…Sheikh Osama
bin Laden…[is] in good health,” an Arab broadcasting network
(Middle East Broadcasting Center) reports a bin Laden associate
declaring two weeks back. The associate’s name is revealing. His
name is Abu Laith Allibi, doubtless pronounced alibi.
This risible testimonial comes just after another of the Rev.
bin Laden’s colleagues affirmed that the holy creep “is in good and
prosperous health.” That affirmation was heard on a tape aired by
al-Jazeera, the Arab television station, not to be confused with
the Arab exercise salon, similarly named. Well, I am not buying
into this line. I side with the respected Arabist Mr. Mark Steyn,
who since March has been referring to the Rev. bin Laden as
“deceased” and “a few specks of DNA somewhere in the Hindu Kush.”
The Rev. could no more have survived our aerial assault and
military follow-up than could that other legendary survivor Bill
Clinton.
Steyn has it right. Bin Laden is dead and probably vaporized by
the force the infidels showered on him. That his remains are
indistinguishable from the dust of rural Afghanistan is probably
the reason that our intelligence agencies remain mum about what
they almost certainly have deduced, to wit, the erstwhile chief
blabbermouth of al Qaeda is dead. Without his body our
much-maligned intelligence community is not going to stick its
tender neck out and claim the old boy is a corpse. There would be
so many ways to embarrass them. Surely there must be thousands of
tall Arabs with dirty beards and scowls capable of being filmed
standing on an American flag and giggling about the slaughter of
September 11. But the Islamofascists will never deliver up their
fake bin Laden to be interviewed on “Nightline” or by the perky
Katie Couric. Bin Laden is dead.
Steyn, writing in the U.K.’s Telegraph papers and in London’s
Spectator, adduces three reasons for his charnel judgment. If bin
Laden were in Afghanistan the Afghans would turn him in. Almost all
hate him. If he were in Pakistan the venal impulses of Pakistani
sophisticates would be fetched by the $25 million bounty on his
head. “In the Pakistani badlands…he could perhaps rely on the
fact that the $25 million bounty… is too large to have any
meaning to your average Baluchistani villager, unschooled in such
matters as exchange rates. But those duplicitous ISI (Pakistani
intelligence) guys are another matter.” Supposedly bin Laden is in
need of constant medical care for kidney problems (a just
consequence of his playboy past spent as a student in Europe?).
Steyn believes once bin Laden turned up in a town capable of
serving him dialysis the ISI would go for the gold.
Finally, Steyn argues that our debonair President has made such
threats against the genius behind September 11 that no nation on
earth, no matter how sozzled by the Koran, would harbor him, not
even Saudi Arabia. I would add one final piece of reasoning behind
the argument that this Islamic Hitler has been dead for months. In
light of all the perceived victories that al Qaeda has achieved
since September 11, it is unthinkable that such a boastful fellow
as bin Laden would remain quiet. Surely were he alive he would be a
weekly presence on al-Jazeera, the Arab television station, not to
be confused with the Arab jazz joint, similarly named (and pounded
into dust by Hamas artillery fire sometime ago).
What “perceived victories” do I refer to? You must understand
that the Islamofascist sees the world differently from you or me.
What might look to you as defeats appear to him as victories, a
scientific breakthrough appears as an insult to the Prophet,
eternal salvation is 72 virgins whining and scheming for
toothpaste. By an Islamofascist’s calculations the Rev. bin Laden
set Araby on a roll: hundreds of his galoots captured and sent to
Camp X-Ray, hundreds more arrested world-wide or on the run,
thousands in no better condition than he, scabs under a rock. All
their state-of-the art caves have been rendered uninhabitable even
by bats. Most of the world, even millions of Arabs, hates Islamic
fundamentalists. The only agents of al Qaeda capable of carrying
out the boss’s orders are mental defectives and street ruffians
such as Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” and Jose Padilla, fabulist
of the “dirty bomb.” That might read like a string of defeats to
you. To a fantasist such as bin Laden it is the greatest string of
Arab victories since Saladin in the Twelfth Century. If alive,
surely the Rev. would be busting his buttons to brag.
If you still doubt my claim that this lunatic is long dead
consider the transcript of President Bush’s press conference a few
days back. Asked about whether we might apprehend bin Laden before
the anniversary of September 11, Mr. Bush replied “we haven’t heard
from him in a long time. I don’t know if the man’s living or the
man’s dead.” Twice in his press conference the President raised the
prospect that the Rev. is dead.
I think the President knows.
