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President Bush knows damn well that UBL has been dead for quite some time. But why would Bush keep it to himself? If he were to disclose his knowledge that UBL is dead he would blow John Kerry's doors off in the election, and yet he remains silent. Why?

Because he has bigger fish to fry. he knows the WOT is bigger than one figurehead. Everyone needs a "boogeyman" to focus upon and bin laden is ours. Heck, even with one he hasn't been able to keep 50% of the country interested in the fight. With the poster child of terror dead they'd just dust off their hands and say job done, bring everyone home and stop the war. Clearly this is not what we want to happen. We have the geographic center of "terrorland" and he have many more bad players to deal with.

Zawahiri decided that it was better to just pretend that UBL was alive because there was no plausible martyr story to tell. UBL went out running for his life like a coward. He is dead.

True, hard to spin the head guy's death less than two months into the war. Here's a few more reasons they have been quiet about it...

Zarqawi, once aware of Bin Laden's death, had three primary worries...personal survival, terrorist morale/recruitment, and finances.

Personal survival becomes easier if you can have your enemy chasing a ghost. Feints and strategically planted (Pakistani Intelligence) false sightings of the #1 "most wanted" target would buy some breathing room.

From a morale/recruiting perspective being routed from Afghanistan and having your head guy vaporized in a matter of weeks doesn't do wonders for either. He needed to keep spirits up because at that point they were in the fight of their collective lives. Since most everyone around Bin laden in Tora Bora shared his fate it probably wasn't too difficult to keep his demise a secret. They likely had enough "canned" PR crap from him already to keep what little momentum they had at that point going.

Finances were probably his biggest concern. With Bin laden gone it's possible many of their sources would dry up. Zarqawi is an Egyptian and did not have the depth of relationships in Saudi that Bin laden had. Additionally, given the nature of their financial network (Hawala) he certainly would have wanted to assure that all existing funds were secure and accessible by him before any word got out about "The Sheik's" death. If not a lot of it might have simply disappeared.

It's pretty easy to understand what would drive Al Quaeda to keep the death a secret. What intrigues me now is how long they'll try to get away with it, and when they'll finally admit Bin Laden's in Hell.

And last but not least, I agree...bin laden's worm food...

Usama could be dead without Bush knowing of his demise, or Usama could be alive. I personally believe the latter scenario. Let us nevertheless suppose for the moment that Usama is dead and that Bush knows it. Why wouldn't he say it? Perhaps it has more to do with domestic politics than with cosigning Usama to martyrdom.

If Usama is dead, Democrats would snort, "why fight any more war on terrorism?" Of course we need to kill not only Usama bin Laden but also his entire terrorist apparatus. Unless we continue to hunt the terrorists, we cannot defeat them. The leadership of Usama bin Laden can be replaced if al-Qaida were unmolested. We're trying to capture or kill not one terrorist but all of terrorists.

We need to pressure and reform the potential disaster that is Pakistan. We must inspire Muslims to reject terrorists and their ideology of hatred by giving them the opportunity to embrace their God-given freedom.

In short, the war on terrorism is bigger than Usama bin Laden. But in the minds of many, taking out Usama would end the war. In reality, the war must continue until our enemies and their ideology face utter and complete defeat and ridicule.

So why reveal Usama's demise--when it does occur? There's no particularly good reason. Many Americans and our allies would cease supporting the war, believing us to have won a war when in fact we would have won only a mere battle.

Then there's the intelligence possibilities. If Usama could communicate to the terrorists while in American custody, would the terrorists necessarily know of his fate? If terrorist operatives were awaiting approval from a deceased Usama for an operation, might the operation fail or become known if that approval never came? Why tell the terrorists that their leader is dead? What purpose does that serve for our operations? Yes, it might demoralize them, but that would be temporary and expedite the approval of a replacement.