POST SCRIPTS

France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm the report in French regional daily L'Est Republicain which quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.

By Sunday the validity of the story had further diminished:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that Osama bin Laden had died, shedding further doubt on a secret document leaked in France that said Saudi secret services believed he had died last month.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington issued the following statement: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no evidence to support recent media reports that Osama bin Laden is dead. Information that has been reported
otherwise is purely speculative and cannot be independently verified."

Whether Osama is dead or alive we can be certain that the terror threat continues. A recent interview with Hamid Mir (no friend of the Bush Administration) posted at WorldThreats.com by Ryan Mauro contains information and insight that no American can afford to ignore.

"...best known as the last journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden, and the only one to do so after the attacks of September 11, 2001. He is currently the Bureau Chief of Islamabad for Geo TV and is writing a biography on Osama Bin Laden. He has interviewed countless members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban...most recently he said that Osama Bin Laden was going to issue a new tape, but the mainstream media did not report it. A few days later, a tape was released. He was the only one to predict the event."

After 9/11, it is the present Iranian regime which is secretly helping Al-Qaeda because the U.S. is supporting Israel openly.

"I am very careful when speaking about Al-Qaeda's nuclear capabilities. I've met many people in Al-Qaeda who have claimed that uranium and nuclear bombs were smuggled to America, and I'll quote them in my book. However, when I speak for myself, I don't rely on claims by Al-Qaeda. I rely upon my own investigations."

"As far as I know, they smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Europe. They smuggled many kilos of enriched uranium inside America for their dirty bomb projects. They said in 1999 that they must have material for more than six dirty bombs in America."

"They have planned an attack bigger than 9/11, even before 9/11 happened. Osama Bin Laden trained 42 fighters to destroy the American economy and military might. 19 were used on 9/11, 23 are still "sleeping" inside America waiting for a wake-up call from Bin Laden."

"They are waiting for the proper time. They want the U.S. to be involved in a mass killing of Muslims, so that they will have some justification. That is what I was told by a top Al-Qaeda leader in the Kunar Mountains of Afghanistan."

"Saddam Hussein was not popular in the Muslim world. Osama hated him. Iran hated him. He was once considered an American agent. The majority of Muslims were initially happy that Saddam was dislodged, but then anger spread against the U.S. after the Abu Ghraib jail scandal. Now Muslims think that America invaded Iraq for oil, not for WMDs. Where are the WMDs? America must answer this question NOW."

Ah, and now we discover why he and others are against the Bush Administration. The negative slant and spin reported on the "Abu Graib jail scandal" by our media coupled with the "war for oil" screed spewed by leftist activist has been responsible for the shift in support for some in the Muslim world. Defeat of terrorist thugs that are threatening people all around the world was deemed irrelevant to the left as they blindly focused on the number one priority, discrediting Bush to further their own chances for being returned to power. Whether vengeful or
driven by ego these disloyal bents represent a shameful truth we cannot ignore or deny, the fact that it has diminished and undermined our efforts to stop terrorism.

Today we cannot be certain of the capacity of Osama bin Ladan to lead, we cannot be certain we are safe, but we can be certain that we have failed to present a unified front in the war. Disloyal acts of disinformation, propaganda and skewed reporting by our media has not helped us, but instead has helped them. Patriotism, as Jack said, matters especially when the stakes are deadly.