The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

Commentary on the Flux of Events

Reports are flying around the wires and the Net that Osama and his comrades are "fighting for their lives" in the crags and defiles of Tora Bora, and that may be so. A story emanating from Russian TV news has one of Osama's several wives, Sabiha, 45, saying that Osama intends to have his sons shoot him on a live TV feed to the al-Jazeera TV network, based in Gulf state Qatar -- and that this will be a signal for al Qaeda operatives in London, Paris, and Rome to blow up some monuments. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But more likely, in the anticlimactic tradition of Real History, he'll just be shot by anonymous foot-soldiers, his lifeless body will be lugged like a meat puppet to a provincial morgue, Che Guevera style, photographed on the slab once for the news pool, and finally cremated and dispersed so as to avoid the creation of a pilgrimage site.

But web commentator George Ure (Urban Survival.com) proffers an interesting alternative scenario. He theorizes that Osama will be "taken into custody" by a state friendly to him, where he will cool his heels and write a book -- a la Hitler at Landsberg Prison -- exhorting Islam to rise everywhere against western infidels. Then, he will make a startling live appearance at Mecca at the time of the Hajj, and electrify all of Islam with a call to arms. Pretty weird huh?

Personally, I'd be a bit surprised if Osama had not managed to slip out of Afghanistan somehow long before the military noose began to tighten. The guy has the means to hire any means of transport from a camel to Gulfstream jet, and there are at least a few places in the world that would more or less have to let him in. It is inconceivable to me that the US Military has not by now captured at least a few people who knew of Osama's fairly recent whereabouts, or, at least, whether he remains in Afghanistan at all -- which would mean that the action in Tora Bora is about netting only his underling and henchmen. If the mystery is not cleared up within the next few days, then I believe it would be safe to assume that Osama has slipped through the net.