Bin Laden Is Fast Becoming A Jihadi Elvis

Will the real Bin Laden please stand up? Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

The Associated Press chimed in this week with an update on the whereabouts of one Osama bin Laden.  “Robert Gates says the United States has not had good intelligence on the whereabouts of terrorist Osama bin Laden in years,” the AP notes.

This is, of course, not much of a shock.  Despite dubious videos to the contrary, the world has not heard much from the super-villain-esque Al Qaeda mastermind since the 9/11 attacks eight years ago.  Truth be told, Bin Laden is probably dead; there are but so many places one can hide a 6-foot-tall, internationally-infamous world-celebrity on kidney dialysis in caves in Afghanistan.

Of course, if the United States had a body or some other proof of death it would be trumpeting it from the rooftops. Few US Presidents would give up the political capital that Bin Laden’s body would be worth. Certainly for the GOP, confirmation of Bin Laden’s death would almost certainly have altered the entire narrative of the Bush Presidency, perhaps with dramatic consequences for the 2008 election.  Obama would likewise benefit from a disclosure;  Bin Laden’s death would no doubt prove a foreign policy coup for this administration and one that would single-handedly wipe away Republican criticisms of his youth and inexperience in executive matters.

Of course without that proof the United States will have to keep its proverbial lips sealed. Declaring Bin Laden dead presents a bit of a problem if he turns up alive.  Indeed, such a declaration in the absence of proof allows “Bin Laden’s” habit of releasing videos – faked or otherwise – to commit the United States to a seemingly endless media campagin wherein various extremists who can find a tall guy with a beard attempt to hijack the mantle of Bin Laden and the United States seeks to defend its word in the international community.

Certainly one might think that years of silence from one of the world’s most infamous of international terrorists would constitute convincing proof of his demise and yet, no one’s heard from Elvis in 30 years either.