no answers, but another question: has the bounty on bin laden’s head been raised to a greater amount? i read that it has been $5 million for the last 5-8 years, but now i’m reading it’s still at $5 million. has it been upped?
He’s welcome at my house…I’d hide him so good, you’d never hear from him agin…
I think he should be taken to one of the few remaining Soviet era gulags-aren’t there still one or two in Perm?
Seriously. Have him live in what my professor described as “The Box.”
Death would be too good for the bastard.
Disguised as a bush and moving six paces to the left at a time.
“Death would be too good for the bastard.”
fine, he said he was ready for it that he had a long life already.
Anyway, they asked him to willingly leave. They didn’t say they were about to force hime to leave.
Exactly. He WANTS to be killed. We shouldn’t give him what he wants.
Give him the Box.
a) Asking him to leave is almost worse than harboring him. At least if a criminal who’s been demanded by the UN for years now is in Afganistan under protection of the government than it’s fair and right to wage war against that government. Turning him loose is still protecting him, just not taking responsibility for it. Would you rather a) know the Son of Sam was holed up in some guys house but not facing justice or b) know he’s out on the street in places unknown?
b) Experts seem to indicate he’ll most likely flee into remote regions in northwestern Pakistan. This saddens me personally, because I have friends in Pakistan and I suspect we’ll be waging war there soon. I am, of course, an American first, but it still saddens me.
If he goes he needn’t tell anyone where.
If we go ahead and bomb afghanistan and he surfaces in Sudan(or wherever), the entire Islamic world will say the Taliban condemned the attack, they asked him to leave and you STILL bombed him. How dare you?
China and the various “Stan’s” have been actively countering extremist Muslim threats from Afganistan for years. They show no inclination to harbor OBL.
This issue was partly covered in this thread
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87183
China has been waging it’s own war against muslim fundamentalists for years. There have been terrorist bombs exploded in Beijing and elsewhere linked to muslim extremists. Xinjiang Province is IIRC about 40% ethnic muslims. There have been small scale uprisings against Han Chinese rule numerous times over the past 50 odd years.
In June 2001, there was the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the presidents of the so-called “Shanghai Five” – China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan – added a new member, Uzbekistan, and signed an agreement on fighting terrorism and extremism. The SCO has as it’s aim stability in Central Asia, and the biggest threat at this time is Afganistan.
Both China and the region have been aware of this threat and have already been active in countering the threat. China is also quite skilled at gaining concessions, and would likely use this opportunity to advance their agenda. What that might be vis-a-vis Taiwan, Spratleys, restricted technology, investment in oil pipelines, etc etc is open to speculation.
For the Taliban, this is the perfect backpedle. It says :‘Bin Laden, you went to far, you are no longer welcome’. The message is a clear signal to Afganistan’s Allies that they are distancing themselves from the OBL. They are, however not exactly ‘complying’ with the US, which would be a loss of face. That is what the Taliban is looking for IMO. They don’t want to lose face to the arab world for jumping through the US’s hoops.
It also makes the US/NATO the badguys if they attack. The world leaders have yet to form an opinion on whether the Taliban’s offer is ‘good enough’. Bush said ‘we will make no distinction between the terrorists that did this and the country that harbours him’. Afganistan no longer harbours him. The question whether a war is justified becomes muddled in the eyes of the western world. Some have voiced the opinion that the terrorist attacks are (in part) a consequence of the US’s foreign policy. Starting a war might put the US in an unfavourable light.
So asking Bin Laden to leave was the best move for Afganistan, even if it means they will go to war over it. At least they do so with dignity (in their own minds).
What if Bin Laden anticipated this and allready did some plastic surgery (as Vinnie sugested) and is now unrecognisable? He still has millions to his name. He could easily hide out someplace and start all over in a couple of years.
Plastic surgery and a shave would be a brilliant move. Then the world have to start looking for a man who kinda looked like OBL, which to average white people means all Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs, Persians, Tajiks, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Malays, Brazilians, Greeks, Gypsies, Egyptians, Kurds, Turks, Indians, Cherokees, Aboriginees, Lebanese, Mulattos, Italians, Mexiacans, Eskimos, Puerto Ricans, Rastafarians, and dark-skinned Jews.
Racial profiling, chaos, internal strife of all kinds. Everyone suspect, everyone paranoid. Yeesh. We’d better get him soon.