Osama Bin Dyin'?
This article from the Washington Times reports that 40 suspected terrorists from the tribal areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan are dead of bubonic plague. Three thoughts on this;

a) Good.
b) Very Good.
c) When will the rest get it and die, too?

After my thirty seconds of near-orgasmic glee at the thought of dead terrorists who suffered horribly before they expired (without killing masses of us in the process), the implications of this began to sink in; forty terrorists are dead -- of bubonic-fuckin'-plague.

Which begs the question; how did they get the plague?

Well, plague is endemic to Asia. It wouldn't be surprising at all if these guys managed to contract the disease the old-fashioned way, and came into contact with infected animals and their fleas. I would assume that sanitary and living conditions in the tribal highlands of the Northwest Frontier haven't advanced much beyond the Stone Age. These guys practically live with their farm animals (when they aren't molesting them), and the parasites they carry or attract in their mud huts or caves, so I wouldn't think transmission of bubonic plague would be much of a problem under those conditions. Perfectly explainable.

And then there's another possibility; what if they were trying to purposely cultivate the plague for use as a weapon, and the experiment went horribly wrong, killing forty people they didn't intend to kill?

This is a question that haunts me, particularly today. For today, Barack Obama takes the oath of office. The same Barack Obama who says he will close Guantanamo Bay, and find a way to get America out of Iraq. The Lightworker who wouldn't torture a terrorist with a nuclear Sword of Damocles hanging over us --- not unless the lawyers told him it was okay, at least. In short, Barack Obama who preached a message of surrender on the terror front so that he could garner the anti-War vote and the adulation of squishy Europeans who's opinions don't really count.

What happens if those nutjobs in the mountains were actually trying to make a plague bomb? What would Barack Obama do?

There are some who would pooh-pooh that fear. Who would tell me "Matt, be serious. Do you really think The Anointed One would allow some Terrorist with a can of infected fleas to attack us?" And I think "Yeah, I think he would. Not on purpose, mind you, but I think this man is in so far over his head, and that democrats and the left are so panty-bunched over America's 'image problem', and the perception that the Bush Administration so compromised civil liberties in this country, that the methods we've used to avoid attack these last eight years will fall by the wayside. The people we count upon to protect us from retards with plague bombs will be hauled before Congressional tribunals and mercilessly questioned within inches of their lives, publicly identified and humiliated, if not prosecuted, putting their successors into permanent CYA mode.

The conditions which existed in the security apparatus of the 1990's will return, and another 9/11 would be almost assured, and perhaps, only a mater of time.

While it's all well-and-good that forty low-life, no-account, murderous-barbarian assholes are dead, I want to know why and how, because that suddenly seems important. It's of paramount importance to me now that a man who's resume wouldn't be sufficient to run your local Taco Bell is in charge of the security and military apparatus of this country, and he seems hostile to both, and beholden to a section of the political mass which thinks force is always wrong -- and doubly so when we (Americans) use it -- and who is wedded to the idea that we can always talk our differences with these fanatics out over a latte. Even while they kill everyone at the table.

Some might say there's a third possibility, and that these guys got the plague because we, The United States, gave them the plague. This is certainly what the 'Arab Street' will say in the coming days and months, and also certainly what the opponents of the War on Terror in the West will say. It will be a conspiracy theory bonanza for the Birkenstock set. The theories will run the gamut from the frustrated Bush team deciding to have one last, and brutal, shot at Osama before they leave office, to a complicated milleaux-- involving the American-Zionist Conspiracy, The Illuminati, and McDonald's -- designed to turn the pristine wilderness of the Northwest Frontier into a Capitalist Disneyland. That will probably make sense to someone, but you would reasonably expect that sort to be on some sort of heavy medication.

In any case, it's is imperative to find out how they got that thar' plague and died before the implications of that question become little more than an academic curiosity, and become a matter of life and death for us.

Update: Related article here about how unwelcome Osama's boys are making themselves. Perhaps between this and plague, they might have overstayed their welcome in Pakistan/Afghanistan.