Going Nuts in Waziristan

By Alan Caruba

Okay, so let’s pretend you were one of the sons of one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. You were guaranteed a good job. You had a couple of wives. The problem was that you just didn’t feel fulfilled. You weren’t a member of the royal family of Saud, so you could never be king. You probably would not become president of the family business no matter how hard you worked or prayed. So, there you are, stuck with a couple of million, a family, and a lot of time on your hands.

What would you do? You’d leave all that behind and go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet army! You would show everyone how brilliant you were and create an organization called al Qaeda. Then, after the war was successful, having nothing better to do, you would organize and fund a plan to destroy the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

You almost pulled it off, too, except for those Americans that fought your hand-picked terrorists…er, jihadists and brought down the fourth plane in a Pennsylvania field. No one was more surprised than you when both towers fell. The Pentagon suffered damage, but was repaired. A lot of people died, but they were mostly infidels.

What followed was the failed uprising in Iraq because your guy there managed to kill enough Iraqis to piss them off and turn them against al Qaeda. Someone snitched on him and he got blown to hell. Your other efforts to demonstrate your piety and love of Islam only seemed to turn more people against you.

So, here you are, going slowly nuts in some god forsaken wilderness in Waziristan on the northwest border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. No high definition television. No air conditioning. Everything is just one damned mountain after another. The nearest pizza parlor is a couple of hundred miles away.

Worse yet, none of the leaders of the Arab nations like you and the Iranians don’t either.

What is there left to do? You can send audio messages via al Jazeera. Your best buddy, Ayman al-Zawahri has been doing the same, but who cares what he says, eh? You’re Osama bin Laden, Mr. Islam Big Shot.

So that’s what Osama has been doing. First to denounce the 60th anniversary of Israel and again, last Sunday, to denounce Arab leaders for doing nothing to help the poor Palestinians who haven’t gotten the message that the Israelis have won every war waged against them and maybe peace is not such a bad idea.

“They have decided that peace with the Zionists is their strategic option, so damn their decision.”

Not satisfied with just getting the Arab leaders angry with him, Osama also found time to denounce the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who is busy trying to take over Lebanon instead of attacking Israel. No word yet on his opinion of Hamas, but we can be pretty sure he thinks they haven’t had enough casualties to prove their bona fides.

It’s a sure sign that the end of the Palestinian resistance is near when Osama bin Laden picks up the cause. He’s the kind of guy that wants to run to the front of the parade.

So far Osama bin Laden has been run out of Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Afghanistan, and everywhere else in the region other than Waziristan, a place where starting a fire involves rubbing two sticks together and bathroom facilities are a hole in the ground behind a big rock.

You’ve got your face on T-shirts and you can get media coverage any time you open your yap and talk about anything on your mind, but your mind is slowly waving bye-bye to you.