Zuckerberg's Folly could talk of nothing else this morning than the reported (reporters who hadn't seen the corpse might have said "alleged") death of Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the vivid and memorable events that culminated in the deaths of some 3000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, in NYC, DC, and Shanksville, PA.
It is Dr. Woody's highly trained and sharply honed instinct to be skeptical. I try NEVER to take anything like this at face value: The ONLY sources are 'official' ones. I smell politics, of course: Remember, please, that this is the same outfit which 1) told us how a heroic Jessica Lynch was captured killing her attackers (while NOT saying anything about the Native woman soldier killed beside her) and then made a reality show about her subsequent (farcical) rescue; 2) told us Abu Ghraib was just a few "bad apples," 3) invented a fairy-tale about how Pat Tilman died heroically under enemy fire.
Why is not some skepticism warranted now?
Don't forget, either: There's a campaign starting about now, and "ThePrez" 'promised' to start withdrawing troops from AfPakistan this summer, in 2011. He's going to have to redeem some part of that promise to round up enough of the disaffected Left for his re-election. Unfortunately, he can't claim "victory" and just leave; Nixon already pulled that one. Also, unfortunately, he cannot claim any battlefield victories sufficient to assert that an enemy has been vanquished, peace restored, and ponies; so we can withdraw.
But killing Osama gives "ThePrez" cover. By claiming to have dispatched the great, fearsome, elusive, seemingly immortal Arab Satan--a veritable Abdul A Bulbul Emir (not particularly tough act to stage, ceteris paribus)--Obama again looks like a "winner," and he's defused the most immediate reason for accusing him of 'leaving the job undone' when he starts the show of pulling troops out (how many? when" to where?) this summer. Top THAT, Chump!
Killing Osama does NOTHING to affect the war on the ground for us in a good way. But it completely changes the politics of the war at home. Without Osama "dead," if O'Bama had stuck to promises to draw down the force levels, he would have caught flack for "leaving without having finished the job" from the chickenhawks and war-mongering Xians. The deadline to start promised summer withdrawals (howsoever meaningful/less they are in the long run) is fast approaching. Announcing the death of the "Saudi Satan" opens the door for the politically necessary simulacrum of ending the wars.
And the solution for the disposition of the body is/was nothing short of brilliant: dump it in the fuukin ocean. Wanna bet they make the "long form" DEATH Certificate available, right smart, on line, by tonight?
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