New Quaker Notebook

Today another report surfaced that Osama bin Laden is dead.¹ Based on "a confidential document from the DGSE intelligence service citing an uncorroborated report from Saudi secret services that the leader of the al-Qaida terror network had died," the news circulating now is that bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month. French President Jacques Chirac says that this is "in no way whatsoever confirmed."²

So, comme d'habitude, like other reports about bin Laden's death.³ Despite the usefulness of his continued existence for the Bush administration's curious War on Terror (since Americans all have to be a state of perpetual fear in order to remain in support of this so-called war) bin Laden has died before—several times, in fact.⁴ He died in 2001 due to an untreated lung complication⁵ and he died again in 2002 of apparent kidney failure⁶. And it seems this has happened at other times as well.⁷

Meanwhile, Canada Free Press today has Osama bin Laden's biographer, Hamid Mir, calling these reports "rubbish." He says bin Laden is currently living in Pakistan and plotting "a nuclear attack on major metropolitan areas throughout the US."

1. "Oussama Ben Laden serait mort," L'Est Républicain, September 23, 2006.
2. "Chirac: Bin Laden intel not confirmed," AP, September 23, 2006.
3. See What Really Happened for an interesting online referral list of Osama bin Laden death notices.
4. Not as many times as the grandmothers of college students, however. See Mike Adams' classic (tongue-in-cheek) academic paper on "The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall of American Society," in The Connecticut Review, 1990. Most college professors know this syndrome well. The problem, Adams reports, is that a "student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year."
5. This according to the Pakistan Observer. See "Report: Bin Laden Already Dead," Fox News, December 26, 2001. There was even a funeral notice printed in Egypt's al-Wafd, December 26, 2001. See Welfare State for page photo and translation from the Egyptian newspaper. Oh, and his will was published, too.
6. "Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead," CNN, January 18, 2002.
7. See Snopes.com for several urban legends surrounding bin Laden.

Related Tags: death notices, Hamid Mir, Jacques Chirac, Osama bin Laden

Brain Freeze

With all of the glad tidings yesterday about the Senate bill that attempts to square the perverse desires of the Bush administration and the apparently noble intentions of Congress, one would think that the Geneva Conventions are preserved and that torture is finally off the table. Not so. According to Thursday's Washington Post:

The compromise language gives the president a dominant—but not exclusive—role in deciding which interrogation methods are permitted by that provision of the treaty. It also prohibits detainees from using the Geneva Conventions to challenge their imprisonment or seek civil damages for mistreatment, as the administration sought.

Apparently back on the table are rape, the continued use of secret evidence, and certain evidence acquired by means of torture.

And still there lingers another matter that keeps these proceedings from making any changes to the Bush administration's evil agenda. Whatever our feelings about Congress' role in preserving American moral leadership in world affairs, nothing will be effected until use of the so-called presidential signing statement is eliminated.

Pirattitude!

Freedom of Bluster

The tussle between Pasadena's All Saints Episcopal Church and the IRS is back in the news again. On Friday an IRS agent delivered a summons to the church's rector, Rev Ed Bacon, seeking copies of newsletters, emails, and other records that might indicate the church's departure from Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code prohibiting an organization from influencing legislation or participating in campaign activity for/against political candidates. This all began two years ago when emeritus rector Rev George Regas gave a "searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq" in a sermon at the church.¹ Now Rev Bacon is elevating the IRS inquiry to an assault against freedom of speech and freedom of religion. He devoted most of his twenty-minute sermon yesterday to the IRS encounter:

Bacon told the congregation that, although he recognized that the church could not endorse or oppose a political candidate, neither could it remain silent in the face of "dehumanization, injustice and violence."

"History is shamefully littered with the moral bankruptcy of people who were Christian in name but not behavior," Bacon said, citing indifference by some Christians to slavery and the Holocaust.

"Neutrality and silence in the face of oppression always aids the oppressor," he said. When he was done, Bacon received a minutelong standing ovation.²

As puffed up as the All Saints Episcopal Church tries to make this issue, still it isn't about free speech or religious oppression, but about its choice to remain a nonprofit organization. Take that away and we're left with just some cool balloon animals.

Yes, Virginia, there is an Osama bin Laden

Brain Freeze

Pirattitude!

Freedom of Bluster