Waiting for Osama

Every time John Kerry claims that President Bush let Osama bin Laden get away or erred by taking the focus off bin Laden by going to war in Iraq, I have to choke back the rising bile.

I'm pretty sure Osama is dead. Gregory Djerejian explains the logic behind this conclusion.

Folks, bottom line: we have to go all the way back to December 26th 2001 to see a video of UBL that really seems to get close to passing a smell test evidencing that's he actually, you know, alive (and he didn't look too smashing in it either).

Now, does anyone seriously believe that UBL wouldn't, if he were alive, be doing his very damnedest to release a tape, soonest, rubbing Bush's nose in it for not having caught him--dead or alive? Just as a little pre-election present, say, maybe to give the opposition a little assist in hyping the disingenous Tora Bora meme? Doubtless, he would, no? Unless, of course, he's dead. Which, I'm beginning to feel pretty comfortable concluding, may well be the happy reality as we sit here today.

One might wonder why the President doesn't use this logic to answer John Kerry's charge that Osama got away. I read a response similar to the following somewhere in the blogosphere, and can't for the life of me remember where. But the answer is this: the President has a war to fight. Should he declare Osama dead, he would create a thousand martyrs eager to destroy the Great American Satan in the name of the glorious martyr of their cause. But if he pretends Osama is still alive, then Waiting for Godot is replayed thousands of times as al-Qaeda operatives grow increasingly impatient for a word from their leader. Only slowly, and gradually will they come to the unsettling conclusion that Osama's rotting corpse is lying in a collapsed cave in Afghanistan. Not very glorious at all.

John Kerry, on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about fighting a war. He'll say anything, regardless of how it might affect this war. He'll even stoop to insulting our allies. What does he care? He doesn't have to work with them. (And if we get out the vote, he never will.)

What about Kerry's charge that the war in Iraq was wrong because it took the focus off the true sources of terror: Osama bin Laden and the Taliban? If Mr. Kerry thinks that terrorism begins and ends with Osama, or that terrorists were only to be found in Afghanistan, Mr. Kerry is far too stupid to be allowed the keys to the White House.

UPDATE: I remembered where I'd read it.

[T]he President knows that making UBL a martyr would serve to further inspire his minions, and he realizes that preventing this from happening is more important than his re-election. Instead, UBL remains forever silent even as his recruits yearn to hear his voice. Eventually these cultists will realize themselves that UBL went out like a punk, not a martyr and that the AQ head shed has been lying to them for years. That realization combined with US combat boots knocking their teeth down their throats will go a long way to beating this cult into submission. But it is important to recognize that the President's committment to killing terrorists supercedes his committment to his own re-election. I'm sure he hopes that the American people will come to this conclusion on their own and vote for him anyway, but it is quite a risk to take in the ultimate ME situation.

This kind of integrity and committment stands in stark contrast to his opponent. Kerry has proved to be a Blue Falcon, a traitor, a louse, a shameless opportunist, and an lazy bureaucrat that pads his resume. Kerry is a smart guy too, and he realizes what is going on. But it hasn't stopped him from trying to bait the President into abandoning a critical propaganda victory in the GWOT by incessantly peddling his Tora Bora "outsourcing" charge in all three debates. He knows that the President will not respond to this charge so he is free to make it. Just like the Cheney lesbian scheme, this is a coordinated hatchet job, but this is on an issue that Kerry knows the President must choose to either defend the SOF troops that got the job done or remain silent. To his personal credit he never took the bait, but to his professional detriment he must let an unanswered charge linger.

Go read the whole post.