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In an editorial that asks whether some of the world’s most notorious leaders are still alive, Joshua Keating, for Foreign Policy plays the Osama card. The editorial reads as follows:
OSAMA BIN LADEN
Location: ???
Last appearance: Most recent audiotape released Jan. 29
The evidence: There have been persistent rumors of bin Laden’s death ever since the 9/11 attacks and his reported escape from Tora Bora. Both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari have said they think bin Laden has been killed, though top U.S. intelligence and military officials have gone on record to say that he’s somewhere in the tribal badlands along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
If the terrorist mastermind is alive, he’s not doing much to help his case. While there have been dozens of audiotapes purporting to be of bin Laden released in recent years, al Qaeda hasn’t released a video of him since he appeared in 2007 to commemorate the sixth anniversary of 9/11 (and it was unclear when that one was actually recorded). Some experts think bin Laden suffers from kidney failure and is on dialysis, but others dispute that analysis.
Do you believe Osama Bin Laden to be deceased, or is he still hiding out, undisclosed, biding his time? I ask further: does it even matter? Yes, redemption seekers which to see him “caught,” and perhaps others argue that we need to know his whereabouts so he can no longer serve as a leader to those Jihadists that wish to do us harm. However, it appears as if his role has finished: the war in Afghanistan wages on, and he will continue to inspire radical Islamists from beyond the grave, or to adopt another perspective, it seems as if his leadership is no longer needed in the current diffuse, decentralized structure of modern al Qaeda.
To visit the full accompanying story please visit Foreign Policy at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/04/dead_or_alive?page=0,4
