The American Spectator

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Our Osama Complex

9.11.07 @ 12:01AM

HIDE-AND-NO-SEEK
Re: Christopher Orlet's Why Can't We Find Osama?:

Great article. Now if someone will just read it to Bush.
-- Elaine Kyle

Christopher Orlet makes a compelling case for finding and terminating Osama bin Laden. The logistics of completing the circuit in this case are daunting and as yet unproductive, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. To showcase bin Laden's bullet-riddled body -- or better yet -- to ignominiously hang him with a rope would send a potentially decisive message to those Islamists or Democratic congress -- people who would believe the U.S. is not the strong horse. Certainly, other vermin would rise (or sink) to replace bin Laden, but the necessary message would have been delivered. It also does not appear that other Islamist "leaders" who have gotten their 72 virgins the hard way have been elevated to martyr status in such a way that our task in the Middle East has been made materially more difficult. Saddam and Sons and Zarkawi are simply now missing from the equation and apparently no one rallies around their martyrdom. So it should be with bin Laden.

How to do it then? Inasmuch as Islamic "culture" is a hyper-macho, hypersensitive honor cult, let's try to get bin Laden to show himself, rather than searching the trackless deserts and mountains in which he hides. Insult him and his minions personally, publicly and massively. Impugn his brand of Islam. Question his manhood and courage. Photoshop pictures of him with young boys, Paris Hilton and Nancy Pelosi and drop the whole mess all over Pakistan, Afghanistan or whatever -Stan may hold him. Do this long enough, and loud enough, and bin Laden may make a fatal mistake or decide to make a stand. Rambo hasn't worked; so try Don Rickles. He could probably use the work.
-- Deane Fish
Altamont, New York

Mr. Orlet's rant is mildly entertaining but off point: the only way to find Osama is with a regiment of agriculture specialists armed with backhoes. Osama has been dead for years. The most potent weapon in the terrorist's arsenal is their public relations effort. Backed by their willing accomplices in the mainstream media, Al-Qaeda and their ilk reap recruiting bonanzas each time they take to the airwaves, denouncing the Great Satan. Do you think Osama would remain silent these past few years if he were still capable of hurling threats our way? The latest tape is a complete hoax and the only way we will find Osama is by digging him out of his crypt.
-- Ralph Alter
Carmel, Indiana

Much as I hate it, I have to agree with Mr. Orlet and his assessment of the situation. May I also suggest that it is a disgrace that we can/could not remove Maqtada al Sadr and his nonsense from the scene? We had him in the crosshairs also, and were ordered to stand down. When a nation decides to go to war, it needs to decide to do what is necessary to see the fighting through to a satisfactory conclusion, at the earliest possible date. That responsibility does NOT lie with the military; it lies with the political types in the Oval Office, starting at the very top. Unfortunately, Pres. Bush has chosen to fight a PC war, and he has appointed flag rank officers and political appointees that will see to that decision. It is because of these decisions that the militant Jihadists neither respect nor fear us.
-- Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

I'd pay good money to see Christopher Orlet call General Tommy Franks "incompetent and unprepared" to his face. The undercard could be Sen. Harry Reid telling Gen. Petraeus that he's a Bush lackey.

I expect much more class from American Spectator writers than this.
-- Steve Boggs
Columbus, Ohio

In your article, you make the statement:

"It is easy to see why war criminals like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic remain at large. The United Nations' EUFOR is charged with their capture."

It was our job to find these two for several years while we had troops in Bosnia, and Kosovo. We weren't any more successful finding them than we have been in finding bin Laden. Sadly, our CIA does not have the capability to conduct covert, or overt, assassinations. Our only success through the years was capture of Che Guevara, and that was largely an accident.

Of course, when the Congress passed a law (Remember Bob Torricelli?) in the late 90's which forbade the CIA from using unsavory characters for intelligence sources, we lost all capability to spy, or ferret out the bad guys.

Regrettably, Congress still hasn't passed a law banning guys like Torricelli from serving in its halls.

We haven't lost a city yet in the War on Terror. So, we really haven't gotten serious yet.
-- R. Goodson
Vero Beach, Florida

The recent kerfuffle about the Bin Laden's "Just For Men" video overlooks past reports he has been hiding in Iran and shaved his beard to resemble Pakistani Pashtuns. In Yossef Bodansky's Secret History of the Iraq War, page 298, he recounts the report that the senior Al Qaeda leadership, along with Bin Laden "arrived in Tehran in early May" of 2003 to help plan the escalation of terrorism in Iraq.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Foreign Policy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mainstream Media, Television, Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, United Nations, NATO, Immigration