I expect many of our readers have read at least part of Deterrence 1 and 2 at Eject!Eject!Eject! Bill Whittle's argument that the stick is far more reliable than the carrot is airtight. Since I’ve been a realist since my college days, I found much to agree with while reading these posts, but the section that really made me think was Bill’s conclusion that OBL is dead. Some highlights:

Osama made endless videotapes. Lecturing, preaching, instructing, firing an AK-47: all the things that make young jihadis feel funny in the pants. After 9/11, he wowed ‘em in several tapes gloating and laughing over the attack and its aftermath. He was reliably heard on the radio during the final phase of Tora Bora, then…nothing.

Maybe he escaped. It’s possible.

Then came the videotape condemning the Israeli incursion into Ramallah and Jenin…only it didn’t. The US corporate scandals? Silence. Anniversary of Holy Tuesday? Cue the tumbleweeds.

The freaking invasion of a Muslim country by the Great Satan, and this new Caliph, the Leader of the Oppressed, cannot bring himself to shoot a crummy VHS in front of a white wall condemning this outrage? This glory-seeking egomaniac, the New Saladin riding the White Horse across the desert, who practically put out a 10 DVD commemorative set every time the US so much as hiccupped, is now suddenly silent, and has been for three years?

You may call that a Terror Mastermind. I call it a greasy wet spot on the wall of a cave in Afghanistan.

The man is dead. Dead, or just possibly captured. The likelihood of him having been killed at Tora Bora by US “outsourcing” was rising with his deafening silence concerning each American counterstroke and became 100% when nothing was heard from the late Osama after the US invasion of Iraq.

Like many, if not most, Americans all I really wanted for Christmas in December 2001 was the evidence that OBL had been annihilated by US forces. Three years later, I’m still waiting. If Bill is right and OBL is dead, why haven’t we heard? Bill has a compelling response:

Does President Bush know what became of him? I would say, very likely. We know what did not become of him: he didn’t become a Martyr. He did not become the symbol of Glorious Death resisting the Great Satan. He did not become a Symbol or a Cause or an Example to Them All.

He became, if you will pardon the expression, AWOL. Bugged out. Handed in his walking papers. Fizzle…poof. Gone.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately, I do not have fake (but accurate!) documents to back this claim up. I just have common sense, a psychological history, and the ability to see Naked Emperors. The man is dead – just possibly captured; he has been for years.

Now, do I fault President Bush for not announcing this? I do not. For the President to not disclose something so beneficial to himself, politically, must mean that there is a reason of great magnitude behind the official silence. Are we, the American People, entitled to know what this secret is?

We are not.

Consider the following: OBL is dead, President Bush knows, and the reason for secrecy has passed. Can the administration now shout “mission accomplished” from the rooftops? Not if he wants to win the election. Right away, Kerry & Company would screech that the president kept the truth from the American people in order to garner momentum before the election. The NYT and its ilk would proclaim “Bush Lied, BUSH LIED” every day until November 2. Those that believe the war is just a law enforcement effort would conclude the task was done and we could go back to arguing over which taxes to raise to fund what government program.

The entire reason for reelecting President Bush would seem to evaporate at the moment when we need his resolve most. Let’s face it, we all want OBL dead or alive (preferably dead) but he is not the greatest threat to our safety; if alive, he is just an old man in a cave. He will die but the Islamo-fascists will live on, preparing to kill us in exotic vacation spots, on our public transportation systems, and among our school systems. Even if OBL is, as Bill imagines, in “several thousand crispy pieces” we cannot switch to auto-pilot. Like Bill, I’d rather wait and hear about OBL’s last day sometime in the far future while sitting on a couch (or in front of my laptop) in pajamas, knowing that we fought the terrorists and won.

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