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Afghanistan
Geraldo sez Binny's shaved and skipped
2001-12-17
  • Fox News General Geraldo Rivera reported this morning that Osama bin Laden had skipped Tora Bora for Peshawar during the "surrender negotiations." He has shaved his beard, is wearing western attire, and is being protected by a local Pashtun leader. Reaction to "missing" Osama isn't as indignant as one might expect. He's done the same thing Mullah Omar did, retiring from the battlefield and leaving his cannon fodder behind to be captured or killed -- doesn't matter which, because they're cheap and easy to replace, aren't they? At this point, he thinks he can simply move underground and do an Abu Nidal. But, like Mullah Omar, he's been shown to be all bluster and other people's blood. Financial counterops should have cut off lots of his funding by now and he's hunted with a price on his head (shouldn't have done that -- it's a badge of honor in Pashtunistan). So he's severely weakened.

    He'll have to go to ground someplace the US can't reach him, like Chechnya. If it's Somalia we'll take the country apart to get him like we did Afghanistan; if it's Sudan, ditto. If it's Iraq it'll be the briar patch -- we'll be taking it apart almost before the announcement's been made. Chechnya, with US-Russian backyard sensitivities to tangle things would be his best bet, but he'd also stand a fairly good chance of being caught by some very competent Russers and quietly but painfully killed. Yemen might provide an Arabian-peninsula solution, but Sanaa can't be sure the US won't stomp that country flat, just as it would Somalia. And it might even be truly tired of this terrorism nonsense by now. (Link to GOSIZDATPROM via Libertarian Samizdatelstvo. The Russian version is comprehensible.)

    Staying put in Pakland might be his best bet, at least for the short run. He owns half the government and most of the intel services, and he has a few "mini-Talibans" already up and running. The maulvis (mullahs) are up in arms over restrictions on the madrassahs. To replace al-Qaeda, he has Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the smaller jihadi groups in the west. A coup against Musharraf unless he falls into line with the fundos would be a fair likelihood. On the downside, war with India looks like it's just over the horizon because the eastern jihadis went too far with their assault on Parliament. And Pakland will lose a war with India.

    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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