They Whacked The Beard!

So they finally whacked The Beard.

Nobody in a passing car has shouted anything about it; no little kids have accosted me with thrown rocks.

Only one of my students mentioned anything about it, asking me if I thought it was true.

"I guess so," I said. "I saw the same thing that you did on the news," I hedged.

The student shrugged and let the subject drop.

My colleagues, however, are full of theories; some believe the one that he's been dead for a while and the US has only now revealed it; the most popular one seems to be that he's not actually dead, he was abducted and is being held in a secret prison somewhere to be tortured and interrogated at the US's leisure.

That does make more sense than the theory that the whole incident was faked for PR purposes; I mean, how would they get Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda to go along with it?

Unless maybe they did it to smoke the real Bin Ladin out of hiding. . . or maybe the whole of Al Qaeda is just a crypto-fascist government plot . . . in which case why would they fake Bin Ladin's death now? And why reveal it now, unless they needed good news after the J-Quake and the tornados in America. . .

Anyway, let's leave that serpent to devour its own tail.

So assuming that it all happened much as reported, that a crack team of US badasses gunned him down in cold blood -- is this really going to incite extremism?

Think it through -- what, was the whole of Al Qaeda sitting around waiting, going, "Okay, well, we'll give the foreign devils one more chance -- OH NO THEY KILLED BIN LADIN! NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!"

I mean, they ALREADY hated us and tried terrorist attacks all the time. What will change?

The average person in the Middle East is probably not going to be too swayed one way or the other here; Bin Ladin was a very vocal self-professed enemy of the US, vowing more death and terrorism, and the US finally manged to kill him.

So what's the problem? He's going to Paradise for the cause anyway right? With his 40 virgins or whatever.

It's the thousands upon thousands of completely innocent Muslims killed in Iraq that incited people to hate the US; compared to THAT, how can you hate a country for killing a guy who was their sworn enemy?

And now we hear that they shot him when he was completely unarmed; the only REAL question that raises to his fans is, why was the guy who was supposedly the most dangerous terrorist in the world completely unarmed and helpless, when it came right down to The Moment of Truth?

His WIFE was rushing to protect HIM, or so recent reports have it. AND he was in his pajamas when they blasted him.

News stories a while back had him living in caves and wired with explosives so he could never be taken alive; and in the end he gets killed so ignominiously, in a suburban compound retreat.

So basically, all the unrest in Egypt, Syria, Libya etc, is a lot more on people's minds then the death of The Kingdom's most infamous son. A revolution that undoubtedly wants more money, video games and Internet porn, and less old school terrorism.

Anyway, I'm packing my piece of pipe with the tape around it in my backpack; so far, no unrest or confrontations to report from Desert Station X. Observing all standard high PERSEC and OPSEC.

Over and out.