Well, here's a big, juicy DUH! for whoever wrote this story and headline.

What really bothers me about this is the apparent inability to exercise the faculty of logic, whether on the part of the intelligence agency spokesman, or the reporter:

The officials all cautioned that it's impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the tapes, but they said the new material has strengthened the belief that bin Laden is ailing and that Zawahri may now be running al-Qaida or preparing to succeed a weakened bin Laden.

"I think there's a pretty broad consensus that bin Laden's probably alive but not well," said one senior official.

And the basis for such a "consensus" would be? There's certainly no evidence in this story that he's alive. None, zero, nada. Is this consensus based on some other evidence that isn't revealed here? I've seen no evidence whatsoever that he's alive. I know that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but in his case, considering what a camera hog he was prior to the Afghan liberation, and how important it would be to demonstrate to his followers that he was at a temperature warmer than ambient, I can't believe that if he were able to do so, he wouldn't.

I think that he's been fertilizing a cave in the Afghan mountains for almost two years. I wish that these dumb stories implying otherwise would tell us why they do so.

Hmmm...this NEWSWEEK piece paints a different picture.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/966399.asp

MARCU$

He's dead, Jim.

I've always said that when Osama didn't put out a tape on the first anniversary of 9/11: he's dead. No WAY would he have allowed that anniversary to go by without gloating, IF he was alive.

Which he isn't.

That's one of those beautiful things about intelligence pronouncements. They're like the Oracle at Delphi. They don't have to explain, present evidence or analysis, any of it. They just tell us: "trust us," when we've got ample evidence from the past that the intel folks are just as capable of overlooking things as the rest of us.

As columnist Mark Steyn said, Osama's bin Laden to rest, he's pushing up daisy-cutters.

I don't blame the intelligence agencies for not directly stating he's dead, even if they are 99% certain. There is always someone waiting to jump out and say Liar! Better to hedge your bets until you find the body.

> No WAY would he have allowed that anniversary
> to go by without gloating, IF he was alive.

How do you know what Ossy thinks? These guys mostly operate in the dark anyway.

> That's one of those beautiful things about
> intelligence pronouncements. They're like the
> Oracle at Delphi. They don't have to explain,
> present evidence or analysis, any of it. They
> just tell us: "trust us,"

Yeah -- like Iraqi WMDs! I know what you mean.

MARCU$

Who is this assclown marcu$, and why does he think MSNBC/Newsweek has the "inside scoop"?

The most reasonable explanation of why a still living Osama hasn't released a recent video of himself is that he's altered his appearance and doesn't want to give the new look away. On the other hand, if he were alive, I don't think there would be any doubt.

Um, guys -- you *did* see the video of him which was just released, yes? Time has obviously taken a heavy toll on him since the last video (which was from November 2001). His hair is whiter, his face is more lined, and he's walking kinda slowly. I seriously doubt that he aged so much between the November video and the battle at Tora Bora; more likely, this is what an Osama Bin Laden looks like after two hard years on the run.

Do you have some other explanation for the video?

As for him not releasing more tapes: during the Afghan campaign, he released a tape exhorting his faithful to kill, kill, kill, et cetera. Behind him was a cave wall, and geologists were able to identify exactly what kind of rock it was. Turns out that it was a highly endemic rock type which only appears in one very small region, which the US promptly (and correctly) blew to hell. Bin Laden is known to have survied that attack (he'd already moved on), but it probably taught him to be VERY paranoid about what kind of material he releases. Actually, I'm quite surprised that he released another video at all. If it indicates anything, it is either that he has A.) Just now died of his kidney ailment, and thus no longer in danger, or B.) Moved far, far away from the Pakistan frontier provence where the video was obviously shot. Like, say, Indonesia.

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

I believe the "experts" have noted that the flowers bloooming in the video bloom in the spring - thus the video is from several months ago, or even earlier.