The Many Non-Deaths of Osama Bin Laden: The Show That Never Ends

 

The society whose modernization has reached the stage of the integrated spectacle is characterized by the combined effect of five principal features: incessant technological renewal; integration of state and economy; generalized secrecy; unanswerable lies; an eternal present.

–Guy Debord, Comments on The Society of the Spectacle

 

Every time he dies, there he is again. On video. Osama Bin Laden.

A Partial Time Line of Osama Deaths and Resurrections

Bin Laden first died on December 26, 2001. It was not widely reported here, but there’s an archived translation of the news from an Egyptian newspaper at welfarestate.com.

I’ll reprint it below:

Translation of Funeral Article in Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633

News of Bin Laden’s Death
and Funeral 10 days ago

Islamabad -
A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa’da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, stated to The Observer of Pakistan that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial in Tora Bora 10 days ago. He mentioned that 30 of al-Qa’da fighters attended the burial as well as members of his family and some friends from the Taleban. In the farewell ceremony to his final rest guns were fired in the air. The official stated that it is difficult to pinpoint the burial location of bin Laden because according to the Wahhabi tradition no mark is left by the grave. He stressed that it is unlikely that the American forces would ever uncover any traces of bin Laden.

(You can find the original Arabic report (or at least what’s purported to be) at the same site. Feel free to be skeptical. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the translation or even what the original says. I don’t know Arabic. Chances are, neither do you. Which is why you should be on guard about believing these reports too quickly.)

 

The Bin Laden death report seemed to receive an echo of support from Pakistani ruler Musharraf in January of 2002.

From CNN.com:

I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient,” Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. “One was specifically for his own personal use,” he said.

“I don’t know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. … I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan.”

Then in July of 2002, we had an FBI counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, telling us he believed Bin Laden was dead.

From CBSnews.com:

(CBS) FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson said Wednesday he believes Osama bin Laden is dead — the first time a senior U.S. law enforcement official has publicly given an opinion on the al Qaeda leader’s status.

Watson, speaking at a conference of law enforcement officials at a downtown hotel, quickly emphasized that he had no evidence that bin Laden was dead, but his comments suggest that the FBI has no intelligence that proves bin Laden is alive.

“Is (bin Laden) alive or is he dead?” Watson said. “I am not really sure of the answer … I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that.”

Then, in September of 2006, we had a leaked French intelligence memo also guessing that Bin Laden had died.

 

Here’s the lede from MSNBC.com:

PARIS - President Jacques Chirac and Saudi officials said Saturday that information contained in a leaked intelligence document raising the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan last month is “in no way whatsoever confirmed.”

Chirac said he was “a bit surprised” at the leak and has asked Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to probe how a document from a French foreign intelligence service was published in the French press.

The regional newspaper l’Est Republicain on Saturday printed what it described as a copy of 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 article goes on to say that Saudi intelligence claimed to have no evidence to confirm the rumors of Bin Laden’s death.

Anyone else starting to see a pattern here?

Dead and Alive: You’re Being Hypnotized

You have a whole slew of very dubious Bin Laden videos (welfarestate.com tracks them pretty well up to 2004) appearing sporadically since 9/11 and gaining lots of corporate media promotion. In between the dubious videos, you have the same corporate media briefly reporting on stories of his death. The videos are always purported to come from Al Qaeda via Al Jazeera or some “Jihad” website. Meanwhile, the “Bin Laden is Dead” stories tend to focus on speculation by representatives of the State, here and abroad, either in the form of statements by officials (President Musharaff, FBI Chief Watson, Jaque Chirac) or leaked documents. These stories, in turn, always come with the disclaimer that there’s no solid evidence that Osama’s dead. The unspoken corollary also holds true: there’s no solid evidence that he’s alive either–no evidence that can’t be faked, anyway.

The exception to the pattern is that original Egyptian paper’s report of Bin Laden’s death back in December of 2001, which certainly didn’t get any direct corporate media traction. Yet, even that report carries an air of uncertainty to it. What was the name of the Taliban official telling the Egyptian paper that he’d attended Bin Laden’s funeral? Oh, right. It doesn’t say. What it does tell you, though, is that this guy says that it is unlikely that the U.S. forces would “ever uncover any traces” of Bin Laden. That could be a matter of fact.

Or just a matter of convenience.

So what’s going on here?

One thing this reminds me of is what in hypnosis is called a pattern-interrupt. After having induced a trance in someone, you all of a sudden change the topic, make a non sequitur, simply say something that seems at odds with what came before. This seems to momentarily break the trance, but it also throws the subject off guard so that when the hypnotist re-induces the trance a moment later, it can be deepened.

Seems to me, whether Bin Laden is dead or alive, both parts of this pattern re-enforce each other. Each is a pattern interrupt in relation to the other. But what’s the larger trance, the greater suggestion?

Notes From the Memory Hole

I wonder if anyone remembers this event, though. It came immediately, way before that first “smoking gun” Bin Laden video was found all those years ago; you know, the one the U.S. forces conveniently found in a cave in Afghanistan, the one where Osama or someone admitted to having ordered 9/11? Well, before that, there was this:

September 17, 2001; from CNN:

In a statement issued to the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, bin Laden said, “The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it.

“I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons,” bin Laden’s statement said.

“I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders’ rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations,” bin Laden said.

So what do you do with that? Because it’s a part of the pattern of conflicting information, too. And so are Bin Laden’s known CIA connections, including that special visit he received from CIA while receiving treatment in a hospital in Dubai in July of 2001. As is the Bin Laden family’s business ties to the Bushes.

What do you do with all of that?

What indeed.

Something’s going on. Whatever it is, I suspect a big part of it is designed to make us confused and paranoid; and it’s been pretty effective in many corners of this country. And what a wonderful tool paranoia can be when its induced in individuals who have not chosen it for themselves on clear grounds. Paranoia can lead to an inability to properly take action, an inability to reason well. That, in turn, leads to heightened suggestibility, and chaos, in both individual and collective psyches. And where that chaos leads depends on what you do with it–or what forces are calling the destination and the route.

Perhaps this is part of the marketing campaign to psychologically prime us for a trumped-up war with Iran.

Maybe.

All I know is that we’re being sold something and whatever it is, I don’t like it.

And whatever we’re being distracted from, chances are it’s something very simple, something very clear, that we have all but forgotten.

And something tells me we better remember.