Mark Steyn: Osama doesn’t matter any more

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 01/28/06 | Mark Steyn

[Pokey78]

Steyn ping!

[saveliberty]

LOL!

It’s clear from their taped messages that Omichael bin Mooren and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are news junkies

[DoughtyOne]

[Richard Kimball]

Steyn bump. Thanks Pokey

[Rummyfan]

Thanks Pokey!

The ‘exiled Saudi dissident’ (as the Associated Press described him)

Outrageous of the AP to describe him this way....

[kidd]

"Omichael bin Mooren"

That's a keeper.

[Rummyfan]

An excellent summation of where we are today. Thank you Mark Steyn!

[MEG33]

LOL! Steyn Bump!

[metesky]

Steyn bump.

[LiberationIT]

Did you catch the WSJ Editorial Board report on Fox this weekend?

One of the panelists said that without the terror threat this last Bin Laden tape could be mistaken for a Maureen Dowd column.

Laughed all day at that one.

[RicocheT]

I love Mark Steyn's use of the English language. He has an ear for a good phrase so reading his work is fun as well as informative.

[maica]

Needs to be read by every person who expresses an opinion on the World vs Osama today. Steyn can hit the essence of an issue better than any other writer I know.

[patriciamary]

Simple fact is the American public believes he is relevant.The Dem's say it's 5 Years and the Bush team did not do the job.They cannot kill him.WE need to finish off Bin Laden.I think it's extremely important to the Bush legacy as far as the average American's view.

[Moonman62]

In the 1970s, Congress dramatically reined in the CIA, gutting clandestine and covert operations. Then at the end of the decade the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and, with the loss of the Shah in Iran, even the Carter administration was smart enough to wonder: what if they don’t stop in Kabul? What if they decide to press on — to Tehran and the Gulf? So they decide to take the precaution of bogging them down in Afghanistan. In post-Watergate Washington, you can’t put down ‘Covert Operation to destabilise the Hindu Kush’ as a line item on the Federal budget. So the administration has a quiet word with their chums in the region, and the House of Saud, whose expenditures are subject to less rigorous audits than the CIA’s, agrees to pony up the cash and run the recruitment ads, and Pakistan’s ISI comes on board as the local liaison. The Democrats rage all the time about the ‘outsourcing’ of American jobs to the Third World, but the outsourcing of a critical anti-Soviet operation reverberated all the way to 9/11. It dramatically enhanced both the reach and prestige of Saudi Wahabism and the ISI, and it deluded the jihadi into believing they’d overthrown the Soviet Union because the Great Satan was a big sissy who was too scared to do it himself.

Wow.

[Gritty]

Simple fact is the American public believes he is relevant.The Dem's say it's 5 Years and the Bush team did not do the job.

True, but if we kill him, that puts the Dims in a bind: if Osama is dead, the War On Terror will be over, for the Donks, at least. That will take away their last excuse for supporting any action against Islamic Fascism.

But, the War will continue...

[Finalapproach29er]

Damn fool Canadian. OBL killed 3000 Americans.

He matters until his head is on a stick. IMO

[cgk]

Osama may be the most pitiful example of a man who made the mistake of confusing media conventional wisdom with reality

LOL. How true.

[Titan Magroyne]

Head office has already been obliged to send a memo to al-Zarkawi’s franchise in Iraq advising him to ease up on the bombings of mosques and shopping markets and the assassination of respected septuagenarian Sunni imams and so forth, and gently hinting that the marketing department wouldn’t mind seeing a return to the days when al-Qa’eda killed — what’s the word? — infidels. Hahahahahaha! What a gift Steyn has for the written word!

[alwaysconservative]

Great stuff bump; thanks for the ping!