The Osama Factory

Sometimes it seems as Osama Bin Laden is a mythical creature.

While his is undoubtedly a household name by now, he remains mostly a fictional character in a story that only the craziest of writers could dream up. Known to most in the western world only by his grainy videos and cracked out yelling, it is from time to time a stretch of the imagination to believe that this guy is for real.

Also quite hard to believe is that someone hasn't already shot him.

But we haven't because we can't. Why? Because he has clones.

One inevitably concludes that Osama isn't really a human, but a manufactured product - like a plastic toy soldier. Our world acts as a crazy factory, solely devoted to manufacturing maniacs. Bin Laden is only just the latest in a long line of crazy assholes to roll off the assembly line.

When dealing with people like Osama Bin Laden, we should concern ourselves less with killing the man than killing the machine that made him. And looking at the current level of lunacy on the earth, it proves to be damn near impossible to do that.

You see, Osama Bin Laden may be a lot like Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King or Gandhi.

Now this equation is made not on a moral basis, but a comparison of movements. It would be easy to shoot Osama, but hard to kill Al-Qaeda if such an organization is as powerful as the Americans are led to believe.

By granting Osama martyrdom Dubyah may himself become a modern day Pilate. Some 2000 years after the death of Christ, the planet is covered with Christians. Osama's execution may work to accomplish the same result for Islamic fundamentalism. Bush most likely understands this (or, equivalently, his subordinates do) which would effectively explain why we haven't already seen a dead Osama Bin Laden. Then again, it also might be a little risky to leave the man alive.

Nobody needs to be told that this is a very fucked up situation.

But going back to the idea of lunatic manufacturing, I seem to have the recipe for crazy. Ripped out of grandma's very own cookbook:

How to make your very own Al-Qaeda

Ingredients

1 Cup of Braindead American Policies (say, its handling of the Softwood Lumber Agreement )
1 Handful of Easily Accessible Weapons (AK-47, C7 will suffice)
2 Servings of High Unemployment ( like supplanted loggers )
A Dash of Wealthy Financier ( like Osama Bin Laden or Paul Martin )

Mix ingredients well over a country with desperate population and lack of options.

Serves 8-10 countries a lot of grief.

You may have noticed that Canada has all the ingredients of a terrorist organization. In different circumstances, the United States' complete disregard of the rules of fair play when it comes to the NAFTA agreement or anything that doesn't completely serve its desires would result in a much graver situation. The only reason that Canada doesn't have its own merry band of terrorists is that we've managed to keep unemployment at reasonable levels.

If there existed a large group of desperate people north of the border, Canada's beef with the United States would be more than just a bunch of politicians talking in raised voices. A large number of people that has nothing more to do than sit around, critique American politics and arm themselves will eventually cause shit. A lot of shit. Pretty soon you have the Canadian Al-Qaeda/Republican Army/Freedom Fighters/militia.

Sure, there would have to be an extremely screwed up sequence of events before Canada spawns a bunch of anti-american would-be revolutionaries, but a lot of screwed up stuff has happened elsewhere in the world and it would be quite ridiculous to assume we're completely immune from it.

While Bush is trying to kill Osama ( or at least telling everyone that ) it is a fair assumption that he is giving most of the world the run around as he does in our NAFTA disputes. These actions don't make terrorists out of Canadians, it's understandable that a lot of people would get pissed off. While they are understandably mad, it is not tolerable that they deal with the hissy fit by blowing up cafes.

So what's all this mean anyways? Whats the solution?

There is none.

We're all screwed.

The Sun will become a red giant in 4-6 billion years, making this whole terrorist bit small potatoes.

Shit happens. Just settle down.