:BRIGHTSTUFF:..Personal & Political Musings & Rants by a Liberal Leftist Black & Asian Teacher

Recent news (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040318/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_hunt_32) says that Bin Laden's right hand man is surrounded by Pakistani forces right now and is very close to being captured.

Bin Laden, though, is still on the lam.

What's of interest of me to is that since the Occupation of Iraq, Bin Laden has almost become a bit of a non-issue. How often do you actually hear about the search for Bin Laden, current news aside?

My question is this: how hard is it to catch a sickly old man? I mean, how fast can he move, really? How fast can an elderly man with an effed up kidney scurry up and scale a mountain?

Back in 2002, the president of Pakistan, Musharraf went so far as to say that Bin Laden was probably already dead due to his kidney problems (http://www.broomfieldnews.com/news/terror/jan02/19abin.html.). Not sure if I believe this to be true, but what the hell? I'll bite.

In my opinion, and of course you're welcome to disagree, the Occupation served to deflect interest in finding Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. If the current administration of talking monkeys were really all that interested in catching Bin Laden, they would've, could've, should've approached members of the Saudi Royal Family who were known to give money to Bin Laden. They also would've approached the multibillionaire Bin Ladens themselves instead of hightailing them out of the country
two days after September 11th.

I don't buy that he's hiding out in a dank, dark cave somewhere. A man that damn sick would probably need treatment--- dialysis, even. My guess is that he's probably paying off someone in the Saudi Royal family (or someone who is sympathetic to Al Qaeda) and is living under the protection of someone who's getting nice and rich from the Bin Laden oil money.

Hey- I could be wrong.
Then again, I could be right...