11:15 PM Sun, May 18, 2008 | Permalink
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Nearly seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden is still distributing audio recordings with his take on the news. How is this possible?
In a new recording, bin Laden calls on Muslims "to ignore the Islamic prohibition against raising arms against fellow Muslims," according to the Associated Press, "claiming it was legitimate to rise up against leaders who are not governing according to Islamic law."
Typically, the U.S. government reviews these audio or video recordings, and sources in the "U.S. intelligence community" requesting anonymity confirm the identity of the speaker is believed to be bin Laden.
I asked a conservative Republican friend of mine for his opinion.
"I think he's dead," he said flatly. "I think al-Qaida is trying to keep the fight going in Iraq."
A friend of mine who considers himself a conservative Democrat told me: "He's definitely still alive."
"Should we try to find him?" I asked.
"That opens up a whole different issue there," he said.
Is America still trying to find Osama bin Laden?
I was having trouble remembering.
We don't do nearly as many news stories about him as we did a few years ago.
Certainly, someone must be searching.
Bin Laden is at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, complete with the offer of a Powerball-sized reward: "$25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin Laden. An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association," according to the FBI.
But my conservative Democrat friend remained skeptical.
"I find it interesting that the government can find out what kind of bagel I ordered the other day, but they can't find him," he said. "How did they find Saddam Hussein in a spider hole, but they can't find an old man on a dialysis machine in a cave in Afghanistan?"
My conservative Republican friend who thinks bin Laden is dead pointed to America's 140,000 troops in Iraq compared with a much smaller force in Afghanistan.
But he said it does surprise him that nobody has claimed the reward.
"You don't think somebody in that country would have?"
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