AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY

Osama bin Laden, severly injured in an American attack, is in a US Army medical facility, when he asks the attending doctor, "Doc, when will I die?"

"Unsure of the exact time of death," his Western doctor says. "But you will die on an American holiday."

"How do you know it will be on an American holiday?" asks the terrorist.

"Oh," said the doctor, "Any day that you die will be an American holiday."

-- gene ward (gward34847@aol.com), September 28, 2001

Answers

Actually that holiday may not be that far off. According to the New York Times today there have been special forces teams in Afghanistan since September 13th trying to track him down. Orders are to capture, kill or call in air strikes.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 28, 2001.

We can only wish thats it's pretty soon.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), September 28, 2001.

Bin Laden's had a lot of experience ducking and dodging. Don't hold your breath waiting on news of his demise, this may well turn out to be another Pancho Villa chase.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

"Oak" Bin Laden ain't no Pancho Villa. Has anyone thought that if we do KILL bin laden that he will become a martyr to all the terrorist groups?

(K)

-- K & S (healthywizard@earthlink.net), September 28, 2001.

I'm of the opinion that the government and, even more so, the media have heightened the significance of Osama bin Laden way beyond his true value to the worldwide anti-American terrorism movement. Certainly they needed to put a face on terrorism because the American people need an enemy on which they can focus. Otherwise, there would be even more anti-Middle East bias here than has already been created by this horrific event.

Personally, I'm almost more concerned about the relaxation of security were he captured or killed today than I am worried about him with the now-heightened security we have. We've never faced a nameless, faceless, headless enemy with no fixed assets (no land to take and occupy, no planes to down, no ships to sink) before.

Tough security is inconvenient and restrictive. We are a nation of personal freedoms, independence and autonomy. The idea of an armed military or pseudo-military presence in daily life is abhorrent to most of us. Isreal has the toughest security around. An armed military presence is a part of everyday life there. Airline passengers typically arrive 2-3 hours early to allow security there time to check everyone thoroughly. El Al, Isreal's national airline, has not had a hijacking since 1968. The flip side is that Israeli television regularly runs public service announcements for free counseling services to help Israelis deal with the stress of everyday life in an armed environment. Utilization of these counseling sessions is ever-increasing.

I have no answers. I only wanted to present some of the alternatives we may have to face.

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), September 28, 2001.

Far better, I would think, to take him and his cadre out in a "surgical strike" than to have mass deaths. If mass deaths, then there are many who will use it as further justification for a "holy" war. Of course, you don't have to stop after him, or even make him the first step, but step-by-step with achievable and measurable objectives is better than trying to do it (whatever "it" means) all at once.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 28, 2001.

personally, i don't want to see him die. i would prefer to see him put in solitary confinement, cut his left arm off, and feed him nothing but pork. those two things would put him in his own personal purgatory.

-- gene ward (gward34847@aol.com), September 28, 2001.

He's already eluded us for longer than Villa ever did, we've been looking for Bin Laden for years and have yet to come up with his head.

A surgical strike necessitates knowing precisely where your target is and that we do not. Bin Laden has had a thorough education in a hard school in not being found when he doesn't want to be since the Soviets were quite willing to use tactics and strategies that we generally won't. Afghanistan is the size of Texas and has some of the most rugged mountain terrain in the world.

Even if we do take his head (and I hope we do) what will we do when we find that we haven't eliminated our enemy at all? Bin Laden is just a man and our enemy here is a movement called Militant Islam. When we kill him we are quite likely to find three more springing up to take his place. Terrorism is a *tactic*, not an enemy and it's a tactic that we have used ourselves when we found it expedient to do so. Whether we won't to admit it or not there are one Hell of a lot of muslims out there who have a real beef with the U.S., in some cases for good reason, who are going to give aid and comfort to Bin Laden and his ilk though they'll probably never publically admit this.

Terrorists are no different than any other guerilla force and they have the same weaknesses now that they did when we were fighting the plains indians over a century ago and it's going to necessitate using the same strageties - eliminate their bases, their refuges, and their sources of supply. This means whomping the stuffing out of any nation we find giving them aid and comfort. A guerilla can blend and hide but the nation that makes it possible for him to exist by giving him a refuge cannot.

If our government is truly serious about doing something about international terrorism rather than simply giving the appearance of doing something meaningful then we're going to have to spend some real treasure - both monetary and blood - to have any hope of succeeding.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

Answer to Gene Ward's post: I think you're letting him off too easy. Eagle

-- eagle (eagle@alpha1.net), October 02, 2001.

eagle, gene is refering to the fact that they use the left to wipe with and the right hand to eat plus they view pork as evil.

I'd ad put him in a room with pigs and give him a plastic fork.

-- w.w. (ww@freedom.net), October 04, 2001.

w.w. I see what you mean. Thanks. I'm in full agreement with both you and Gene. Eagle

-- eagle (eagle@alpha1.net), October 04, 2001.