He will be used as a tool, whether he was captured last year, last month, today, a month from now, or the day after the Inagural - regardless if it’s Bush or Kerry that took the oath the day before.
IMO, OBL isn’t going to be captured alive. His death will most likely be rumor until it becomes a generally accepted fact. Any other scenario helps his cause.
A capture by Pakistan, Afghanistan, or the United States will “rally the troops” and turn any trial into a focal point for terrorism. A fight to the death will make him a martyr.
Quiet and forgotten is the goal of all concerned.
Excellent point. I wonder if he may be known to be dead but it is expedient to keep this quiet. A dead person can be seen as a martyr, a quiet unheard unavailable person as a coward.
If we had captured Osama, Bush woulda done a photo-op of himself, wearing a cowboy hat, roping bin Laden with a lasso, giving a big smile and thumb’s up. With a red, white, & blue kerchief.
Hell, that’d make a great cover for Time.
I meant to add another thought. If his remains are found after-the-fact then he will still appear as a martyr to some. But he will also be perceived as broken and defeated in the eyes of history. Finding a couple of bones scattered around a cave is not the glorified end of a warrior.
He will be as you said, a coward hiding in the dark.