Bin Laden's dead! Or not.
The French thought so, for a while; a respected Gallic journal reported that bin Laden had succumbed to typhus, of all things. The Saudis said they had no confirmation. (Note to the Saudis: People tend to wonder why you'd know such things. Is he calling up once a week to check his messages?) We've been here before. Bin Laden's death has been reported many times, but the fact that he didn't send a 9/11 anniversary video made many conclude that he's assumed cave temperature.
But let's say he's dead, just for grins. How might today's key players respond?
Ayman al-Zawahri: "Well, that's the end of the line for us, obviously. No point in going on. I'm calling the pope over for tea tomorrow, bygones be bygones. Right now we're having a going-out-of-business sale. Plans for American nuclear reactors, videotape of major bridges, this stupid suitcase nuke we bought from Russian mobsters who didn't include the combination for the locks. Everything must go. We'll even throw in a blooper reel from some of Osama's speeches. One day he was in one of those moods where you just can't pronounce `insidious Zoroastrian' to save your soul, and he gave up and started doing the speech in a Wolfman Jack imitation. He'll be missed."
Unnamed camp follower in Pakistan: "We thought he was dead a year ago, and I can tell you, the news of his death hit me hard in the heart, and the head, and the part between the heart and the head, and also the loins and right here, around the spleen? But it turns out that was actually a Tomahawk missile. Now that I learn he has been felled by an inglorious Zionist disease, I will commit myself to washing my hands nine times a day, and thus do my part for jihad. Aside from that, I'm going home to Egypt. I think I left the iron on."
Howard Dean: "After five years of failing to get bin Laden, it is remarkable that this administration still refuses to acknowledge that the illegal, ill-planned and incompetently executed war in Iraq deprived Afghanistan of the resources that could have been used to send Special Forces into sovereign Pakistani territory and sicken bin Laden three years ago. But they're perfectly content to let the victims of Katrina get typhus, and pay an ambulance surcharge because of high gas prices. In any case, the so-called death of bin Laden solves nothing, as long as we continue to enflame the world by shooting back at people who shoot at us."
Hugo Chavez: "He is dead? I bet he smells. Smells horrible. Do you smell that? Hah! Pull my finger. I wipe my nose with 20-dollar bills! Do you have the number for that woman who translated my remarks, because she sounded hot. Hah!"
President Ahmadinejad: "If a man such as bin Laden can die, then surely the cause is lost. I believe I will abandon my nukes and commit myself to reforming our government and inventing something useful the rest of the world will want to buy. Just kidding! Seriously, death to Israel."
Bill Clinton: "Now you listen, and listen good: I tried to give him typhus in 1998, but Jocelyn Elders nixed the plan. I'd also add that we signed treaties forbidding biological warfare, and there was unanimous consent among the military that we couldn't use biological agents like this, and those treaties were signed onto by Republican leadership, and Fox News covered it up because Rupert Murdoch takes money from space aliens, as Richard Clarke pointed out in his book."
Scratchy tape purporting to be bin Laden: "I'm not dead. I'm much better. Right now I am doing one-handed push-ups! I am feeling the burn!"
Perhaps in a few months it'll turn out that the French intelligence reports were inaccurate, and millions of people were needlessly disappointed.
Chirac lied, and people sighed!
