05.12.11
Another way of viewing the bin Laden journal
The government, along with the media, will squeeze all the terror ichor possible out of the detritus of Osama bin Laden.
It’s now baldly obvious bin Laden was a slack old man but one who, in isolation, still thought he meant quite a bit. And he was a pack rat.
The only impediment to reading through the stuff must be the sheer amount of it.
And if you had a button to push that would now immediately annihilate any person using the word “trove” on TV or in print in speaking about the man’s worldly remains, you’d use it.
Here’s the “trove” of “trove” usages.
And now there’s his journal, revealing all his plots. Or his wishful thinking.
Until Navy SEALs killed him a week ago, bin Laden dispensed chilling advice to the leaders of al-Qaida groups from Yemen to London: Hit Los Angeles, not just New York, he wrote. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on significant dates, such as the Fourth of July and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Above all, he urged, kill more Americans in a single attack, to drive them from the Arab world.
Bin Laden’s written words show that counterterrorist officials worldwide underestimated how key he remained to running the organization, shattering the conventional thinking that he had been reduced through isolation to being an inspirational figurehead, U.S. officials said Wednesday …
In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, bin Laden’s writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that the smaller, scattered attacks since the 9/11 attacks had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of 9/11, would shift U.S. policy.
He also schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another …
It’s enough to make you laugh. One way of looking at is to view bin Laden’s musings as similar to Hitler moving around nonexistent armies on his maps down in the Fuhrer bunker just before the end.
And here’s another question: How does one write and publish something like “[he] schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another …” and maintain a straight face?
That’s the collective conduct of assholes — in this case, the usual anonymous leakers and journalists.
Very few can maintain over an entire decade. Bin Laden was no exception. It was probably never in the cards. One is curious if he ever questioned why his men weren’t more effective as the years came and went.
Meriting more laughter, the oh so busy man
The writings of Osama bin Laden, much in the news the last couple of days, amount to a single notebook of “10 or so pages” in his handwriting, a senior U.S. intelligence official says.
The singular impression of analysts, said the official: “He was down in the weeds … a micromanager.”
Where the well of counterfeit astonishment is seemingly bottomless.