Osama on the Rocks

 

For those of you concerned about an October surprise, it ain’t gonna be the capture of Osama bin Laden. He’s been dead for three years; he died in the Tora Bora bombings. His Al Qaeda cohorts have kept him on ice since then; literally. His body is encased in a plastic box filled with heavily-garlicked gelatin, which sits on a bed of dry ice in a small but popular cave on the Afghan-Pakistani border, jokingly referred to as the Omni-Osama.

He still looks like his pictures, except not as good, and the garlic covers the smell of the inevitable decomposition.

I am the first Western reporter to have seen this scene. The head of marketing and development for Al Qaeda thought now would be a good time to pile on the CIA, which for the past three years has been saying the tapes delivered to Al Jazeera were probably Osama. Wrongo. Since 2001, they’ve been producing fake Osama statements using the same $39 audio editing software I use to produced SetonnoteS.

I asked about the coming US election...who did they want to win? Bush, of course, they answered, laughing at what they considered the obvious. Why? I prodded, knowing that it might not be obvious to some of my listeners. Three reasons, they said, first, Bush has virtually destroyed the Western alliance. Second, he’s done wonders for terrorist recruitment. And third, his support for Sharon prevents peace in the Middle East.

Would their candidate be harmed by this revelation? I asked. They laughed scornfully. Look at all those Americans who people still think Saddam helped us with Nine-Eleven. Or that he had WMDs. They don’t scare us. As long as they watch Fox News.

Was it true, I asked, did Al Qaeda actually own Fox, repeating what should have been a scurrilous rumor. Not all of it, they responded; we don’t need to.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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