The current issue of Time magazine has a picture of Osama bin
Laden on the cover. Beneath it is a question, “Why
can’t we find him?” Well, because he’s
hiding.
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are on the run, so they are now
fighting a different type of war, they are fighting a propaganda
war. They are desperately trying to reclaim the momentum they lost
after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The audiotape made by Osama bin Laden shouldn’t be taken
as a warning, but as a pep talk for his troops. Osama bin Laden now
has the same symbolic power of a clichéd Halloween movie
villain who just keeps coming back until you get tired of them.
The recent audiotape with his voice on it proved as much. He
won’t show his face, because doing so would imply some type
of action to follow. He can only threaten us with words. The words
have become cheap talk. The tape, its contents available in many
newspapers and at CNN.com, contains bin Laden attempting to gain
credit for terrorist acts unconnected to him in Moscow and Bali,
Indonesia.
Bin Laden is desperately trying to maintain his credibility.
With all the recent attention placed on Saddam Hussein and the
possible United States-led war against Iraq, people pass over bin
Laden’s al-Qaeda organization as yesterday’s news.
Furthermore, Osama bin Laden realizes that no government, no
matter how much they hate the United States would be willing to
host him and his al-Qaeda group. After what happened to the
Taliban, every anti-U.S. regime is careful not to associate itself
with bin Laden or his group.
Even Saddam Hussein, whether or not he has weapons of mass
destruction, will not admit to any ties to the group. Saddam is a
secular autocrat, interested in his own power. He will only invoke
the symbols of Islam if it suits his purposes. The phrase
“God is Great” was only added to the Iraqi flag to
improve their Islamic image. He is unlikely to proclaim a Jihad
against the United States. First of all because he can’t.
Second, such an act would undermine his own legitimacy.
Nevertheless, Hussein and bin Laden are unlikely allies. Bin
Laden should be the first person to argue that the war with Iraq is
a distraction. It has pulled attention away from Osama bin Laden,
who until the release of the tape was considered dead in the
mountains of Tora Bora.
The recent death of a top al-Qaeda agent seems to have forced
Osama bin Laden to make this tape. An U.S. Air Force specialist
killed the agent by pressing X on the controller of a
remotely-controlled Predator drone. Like playing Nintendo,
Playstation and XBox, the “War on Terrorism” has
transformed itself into a high-tech version of cat and mouse, with
Osama as the mouse.
Don’t get me wrong, Osama bin Laden’s continued
existence is still a threat. However killing an al-Qaeda agent by
remote control sends a powerful message to any terrorist group. The
message is, “The United States of America is willing to kill
you if they find you, even if you’re driving in a deserted
desert road or high atop the mountains of a place called Tora
Bora.”
That’s why the mouse is hiding in his hole, and
that’s why we can’t catch him. He will have to come out
eventually. All we need is the right cheese and then,
“Boom!”