Have You Heard About Jihadistan?

[brynndragon]

Jihadistan: nickname for a large chunk of land stretching from well inside Pakistan almost to the border of Iran, comprised of territory that Pakistan recently gave up to Taliban allies and the part of Afghanistan they've retaken over the past year.

Oh, you didn't know about Jihadistan? You didn't hear about Pakistan's peace accord with jihadist militants? You didn't hear that they wouldn't arrest Osama as long as he agreed not to blow anyone up anymore? You didn't know about the article in Newsweek about the Taliban resurgence, which was the cover story everywhere in the world except here?

Well, now you do. The more important question is *why* haven't you heard about any of this? Why isn't this in the news? Why hasn't the President said word one about this? Indeed, he praised Pakistan's efforts to stop terrorism at a dinner a couple of nights ago. What the hell is going on here? Does Pakistan have oil reserves I didn't know about, or does Bush believe that we'll keep thinking that we won in Afghanistan as long as everyone keeps mum on this problem? What the hell?!?!?

Comments

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Oh, but Georgie has said things about it. Like, Osama isn't important. But, if we do find him, we'll go in. Except that Pakistan is a soverign nation, so we won't. But we're not looking. We're going to depend on a tip from a goatherd in Waziristan. Oh, but our Pakistani allies--led by their strong leader, Musharraf--will be looking for him. Well, maybe not. He isn't that important.

Any clearer? :-/

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

If Osama bin Laden is out there, does George W. Bush have (a) more or (b) less power than if he is not?

If the answer is (a), what personal motivation have you seen evidence of that is so strong that it will cancel out the desire for power, without which it is difficult to become President?

[tober.livejournal.com]

Actually... it has long seemed to me that ObL is in fact both more powerful and more dangerous as a (dead) martyr than as a living person... and therefore I figure that there is a good chance he already is dead and evidence to the contrary is a fairly carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign designed to keep at least a reasonable fraction of his followers thinking that he's alive. If he's still alive now, I don't expect to hear about it when he gets killed or otherwise dies. Several decades hence a general consensus will emerge that he must be dead (because he would otherwise be improbably old) and that will be that.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Shrug. If that's your pet theory, replace "Osama bin Laden is still out there" in my comment with "al Qaeda is still blowing people up" and it will work just as well. Better, in fact.

[white-and-nrdy.livejournal.com]

For one thing, we're approaching elections. It could cause problems for the Bush-friendly candidates if word of this was suddenly to spread like wildfire through the mainstream media, and people actually started asking some good hard QUESTIONS about it, for once. But that won't happen, because the vast majority of people are sheep who have been drugged into believing the "Bush good, terrorism bad" message that's already been hammered into their brains.

For another thing, Osama makes a great boogeyman to haul out from time to time, to instill fear into the masses and make them beg for yet more big government, civil right shredding measures to protect them from the bad guys.

I could go on and on and on, but I'll spare you and your readers. :)