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Killing off a character

You’ve probably all heard about the bin Laden martyrdom tape by now. In it, OBL says he will probably die in a martydom operation this year.

OBL is the leader and financial backer of al Qaeda. It is difficult to believe he would voluntarily remove himself unless there were a good reason to do so. I posit several possibilities.

  1. He’s actually been dead since Tora Bora. The new leadership has found him a useful bogey man against the West. They have tried to make the Afghanistan front look like a US failure by saying OBL escaped. They can’t run the game forever. As in a soap opera, they must remove the character eventually but wish to do so in a story enhancing way. If there is a successful and terrible attack on the US, they may claim OBL was personally responsible. If no identifiable bits are found, they claim he ascended bodily into heaven like Jesus. At the very least they create a Legendary Mythic Figure; at best they Deify Him.
  2. OBL’s kidney problem or complications from it due to his Tora Bora stay or perhaps injuries are such he has only a limited time to live. He has decided he will do more for his cause by becoming Mythic than by dying in a bed.
  3. OBL is having internal problems as has been hinted. We have been wrecking his organization and morale is bad. He is stepping aside and will use his death to become a Mythic rallying point for existing forces. He would expect a spectacular death, whether it was true or not, would bring in a flood of new recruits.
  4. OBL is simply a religious fanatic and wants to go to Allah and claim his houris. Perhaps, but I do not read him as stupid. He is probably willing to die in his cause but only if – in his eyes – it advances his over all cause.
  5. We have fatally disrupted his network. He prefers death to the humiliation of capture. If he does so spectacularly, he becomes Mythic and Immortal. He may hope to inspire another to arise and take up his cause in the future.

We should be prepared for the Diefication card. It’s not been played in centuries.

8 comments to Killing off a character

  • In 20 years from now, both followers will walk to the caves at Tora Bora to pray to the greasy smudge that stains a wall there.

  • Fred Boness

    Maybe those caves can be dual purpose. Bin Laden faithful can go there for a pilgrimage and Americans can use the caves to store nuclear waste.

  • Another possibility is that OBL has changed his identity and wants to do away with the old one.

    Personally, I think the bearded one has been dead since Tora Bora.

  • If OBL was alive, the tapes coming out of Al Queda would show him alive. But they don’t; which is why I’m convinced he’s dead. Leave the “But they never found the body” theory to the comic books where they belong.

  • Dave Farrell

    Everything points to the likelihood that bin Laden is deceased, an ex-terrorist. If he was alive we’d be seeing professional video tape as we did before, not suspiciously scratchy audiotape that the Swiss experts would not certify contained his voice.

    The odd thing is that it is in the interest of both sides to pretend otherwise. As someone pointed out, if he was dead, the anti-war people would be saying “war on terror over, let’s call it a day”.

    And it’s been jolly thughtful of him to pop up just when Colin Powell and co need to prop up their theory of an al-Qaeda-Iraq link — and just before the Blix report to the Security Council.

    From the Islamist radical point of view, belief in his continued existence is vital in order to keep the centre from disintegrating. There are a lot of disparate groups and,as we have seen in the West Bank, the power struggle between factions can be pretty vicious.

    And al-Jazeera is a very handy outlet for both sides too …

  • “At the very least they create a Legendary Mythic Figure; at best they Deify Him.”

    Only if they want to cut off all Muslim support. That would start a whole new religion, and they’d have their hands full avoiding Muslims who want to kill them, never mind the Great Satan.

  • That’s one thing that’s inventive about Catholicism–they can deify people if they want. Damned convenient.

  • Julian Morrison

    Has anyone considered how convenient the recent tape is for the USA leadership? Plenty of people in their government-security-intelligence services could find a use for a puppet opponent. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”