'Bin Laden Down and Insane Blues

It's almost worthy of a chapter in Revelations, where madness seizeth the multitude and driveth them wailing across the land and the streets and the retail outlets thereof. Let the sightings of Osama Bin Laden in supermarkets begin! He can't be dead because Obama says he is. And Obama has now gained so many brownie points from the operation that he has probably rescued his second term, which is what really hurts.
But it doesn't need to be that way, with Osama's help. All he has to do to bring down the Obama presidency now is to crank up the old camcorder, do the gig in his usual inimitable style, and post it off to AJ. Job done. So why doesn't he? Because he's dead.
I suspect that there is far too much wish-fulfillment behind the pose of 'scepticism' adopted by many at this time. If Osama were alive, Obama might yet be doomed. Which is comforting. Unless you overlook the fact that no sane president would ever dangle that sword of Damocles over his own head. Not even Nixon did that. And however dull and lifeless he may be, Obama is no Nixon.
Maybe America should be asking whether Obama is alive.

The Glorious Spiritual Leader Brutally Martyred

And now that the veritable Tsunami of outrage has spilled onto the streets in the form of mass violent demonstrations outside US embassies across the Islamic world... The Chant everywhere is: 'Osama Bin Laden - The Prophet's Son!'
No hang on. That never happened, did it?
That was Glenn Beck and Kelvin McKenzie talking. Not me. In fact, the Islamic world seems to feel the same way that everyone else does, on balance. That Bin Laden might have meant well, but allowed himself to be manipulated, and ended up killing the people he meant to free, and serving the powers he meant to destroy.
We need a modern Shakespeare to properly interpret the tragedy of Osama Bin Laden. And modern political methods to achieve political change. The methods of the C12th can never succeed.
The judgement of Pakistan can be pretty much left to the 'Aneurin Bevan Prosecution'.
If the Pakistan military didn't scrutinise every property within ten miles of its equivalent of Sandhurst, it is run by idiots not fit to manage a flock of goats.
If it did monitor the Bin Laden bunker, it would have discovered Bin Laden, who had been there for years. In which case it protected him. Given the ridiculous location, it might well have actively helped him. It stands doubly condemned. It is a failed nuclear state, and another legacy of the Cold war's attempts to crush civil liberty.
The Arab Spring started digging the grave of Global Jihad four months ago. After Tahrir Square it was already gaping wide. It seems fitting that its figurehead was dumped in it at this point. God's will, obviously. He knows when the Game is Up.
The real story today is not the understandable celebration of New Yorkers but the total apathy of the entire Muslim world. Not the minor demonstrations in Manhattan, but the yawning silence across three quarters of the globe.

Al Qaida R.I.P. February 18th 2011

Bin Laden's death won't effect AQ operations because AQ effectively died as a political force in Tahrir Square on February 18th 2011. A real, modern, relevant, positive, political force has emerged as an alternative to the negative, supernatural medieval agenda of Jihad. Young men do not want a harem of post-mortem virgins, and young women do not want a lifetime's imprisonment and the annual birth-bed, they want freedom to enjoy life here and now. 
Naturally, the conspiracy theorists are loving it. So if you come across one, and you will, the question to ask is: If you were Sammy B today, sitting there watching the reports of your own death over your bacon and eggs, what would be the first delicious line of the video-speech you were planning in your head?
"To quote the illustrious American author Mark Twain...' No maybe not.. What would you (OSB) think would be the nicest way to break the news to the US people and the American President?
When George Bush Jnr falls off his dune-buggy we can all have closure.