Walt Disney Pictures and UrbisMedia ©2004
Question: Is Osama bin Laden smarter than Boosh?
Of course he is; a cherrystone clam is probably smarter than Bush. (And a cherrystone clam is probably more willing to show up for his National Guard duties than Boosh. But we’ll get into that another time.) In fact, I think bin Laden just might be a genius, and more than just a genius of terror. And that’s extra scary.
Thanks to some dirty tricks and Justice Scalia, a dim-witted man becomes president of the Unites States. That’s the same U.S. that supplied OBL with arms to fight he Ruskies in Afghanistan. But that was before the U.S. sniggled into Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and has been hanging around defiling sacred Muslin ground and backing up those pesky Israelis. OBL and his ilk don’t like that he wants to put some hurt on us for that. Some of my friends are of the more apocryphal perspective on that – “they hate is and want us all dead” paranoia point of view – but that’s a lot of stuff that falls out of the back end of bulls. If the “they” are the Muslim extremists, that may be true; but the they are neither a nation, a people, or a faith.
But, OBL needs to think of how the U.S. might respond if he does something really horrific. He has to consider who’s going to make that decision. And lo and behold, Allah delivers him an arrogant fool from Texas. Someone who the Republicans will think that The Holy Ghost has provided them with a Davidic champion right out of his failed oil fields in Texas who will smite the infidel from those more copious oil fields in the Middle East. Someone with the hubris to believe he is the anointed one. OBL knew that the Boosh could be counted on not to understand the complexities of the cultural clashes because there is no chapter in The Hungry Caterpillar that covers that subject. Somebody who sees the world in black (them) and white (us), and “with us or agin’ us”.
And the evil genius of terror unleashed his “home made WMDs” on 9-11.
And, so, after leaving his kindergarten disciples to read for themselves, on the third day the W one arose from his rabbit hole in Nebraska ready for the “crusade.” Meanwhile, OBL descended into his Afghan caves and waited for the W to make his move. The Boosh, as expected, came after OBL, and might have ended this contest of wills, but let the Muslim out of grasp. But flush with his victory over the despicable Taliban the Boosh headed off to vanquish another Middle East nasty fellow. Having cooked “intelligence” to justify his long hankered for war with Saddam, and having ignored the counsel of wiser minds, the Boosh ensnared himself in his own deceptions and vaulting ambitions. He had “broken” two nations and now he “owned” them both and had to fix them.
And OBL smiled in his cave. Brer Rabbit had punched the Tar Baby and now he was good and stuck. With insufficient troops to do either campaign justice, the Boosh would get his country involved in the fruitless “nation-building” he had disavowed as a candidate, sapping his own country’s resources, both military and fiscal, sewing deep and acrimonious political divisions within it, and between in and other nations, and diverting attention and funds from its own homeland security. OBL had only to watch and wait. OBL’s intel was not cooked and self-deluding. He knew what happened to America in the Vietnam War. He had participated in the equally long and divisive Soviet-Afghan War that helped bring down the USSR. It was a good bet, he figured, that a man who not only avoided Vietnam, but doubtless avoided reading about it, was no match for a battle-tested war veteran like himself. His legions of martyrs would show those camo-suited kids from West Virginia a thing or two.
And so OBL could re-organize and recruit, abetted by photos of Boosh’s troops torturing Muslim prisoners. He would be freer to orchestrate acts of terror elsewhere while the Americans terrorized themselves were terrorized by their own leaders, with code oranges, destroying their airlines, causing the intelligent, creative people who used to flock to its universities and corporations to seek friendlier nations. He could join in the growing Iraqi resistance to American “occupation” and conduct a guerilla insurgency, picking off their confused and ill-equipped troops, almost at will. He would keep his mission “un-accomplished.” He could, without much expenditure at all, watch America debilitate itself militarily, economically, and spiritually. Even now the Boosh has slipped, betraying what is in the back of his mind that the “war on terrorism is not winnable.” His own intelligence people have said as much in their reports But like the August 2001 PDB, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack US,” he ignored any good advice and went off to consult his Bible. Allah had delivered OBL a stubborn religious zealot, who believes he never makes mistakes.
So now, what must OBL do? If he signals for another act of terror on American soil will it deny the Boosh’s his re-election, or insure it? Will it bring into office Kerry, a man of equal or better height and intelligence, and like himself, one who knows war first-hand? What will serve the ends of humbling the world’s most powerful nation better? Perhaps better to allow the fool to remain in office, stuck to the Tar Baby of his own making. After all, he still has one arm and one leg. Yes, from his cave, he can almost feel, ironically, that he , OBL, not the Boosh, is really the President of the United States. That the Boosh is only his puppet.
Perhaps better to leave things be. Unless, of course, the American people decide to elect as real leader, one who fights, rather than politically exploits, terror.
___________________________________
©2004, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 9.18.2004)