LITTLE ROCK — DEAR Saif al-Adel . . . or Muhammad al-Makkawi . . . or Ibrahim al-Madani . . . or whatever you’re calling yourself these days to keep from being, as the infantry says, Caught in the Open,
In the name of Allah, the merciful, the beneficent, I send affectionate greetings, some news, and a few packages you might want to be very careful with. (Don’t shake them. Also keep them away from open flames. Take my word for it.)
It seems your promotion has made the news in the West. That’s good and bad. It’s good because now you’ve Made It Big. It’s bad because now you’ve Made It Big. Which means the infidels who are always tracking us probably have a good idea of what you look like.
They certainly have a good idea of what I look like, and have since that glorious 11th day of September, 2001. My bearded face has been in the papers more in the last 10 years than Brittney Lohan, or whatever her name is. I know. Even from this cave I still get the news from the West. Newspapers are easy enough to smuggle. And every now and then we’ll get electricity for a while, and I can fire up my laptop and catch up with the latest news. (Did John Edwards win the presidency of the United States? I had a five-spot riding on him.)
My informers tell me that the Great Satan and all its allies in the West, and East, and North and South, have learned of your promotion to Commander of Operations against the West. It’s a glorious position to have in al-Qaida. I’d take the job myself, you understand, but I’m a bit busy these days. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. And I have to move quite frequently. The demand for videos is so high that I have to put out a new one every six months or so. Yes, I would gladly take the battle to the enemy myself except I have to keep hiring new food-tasters every week. They go fast. And signing promotion forms like yours. What a bother administration is. Plus my back hurts.
Your mission is simple, even if it won’t be easy: Persuade the West that the fight against terror is unwinnable. Then we’ll be able to take over a failing state again. Since the Americans and their Europeans poodles are already in Afghanistan, we’ll have to settle for some scenic spot like Somalia or Yemen. One or the other. I get them confused.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a cozy little state, just a shell of a government, principality or power-or just a real bed. We had the Taliban protecting us in Afghanistan until the Americans took offense after 9/11. Touchy, touchy. They’re really quite uneducable. Can’t they realize that if they just stop defending themselves, we’ll stop killing them? Eventually.
Even if our next stop is Somalia, we’ll just have to make do. I used to live across the road in Sudan. The rural parts of Central Africa aren’t exactly Cape Cod, U.S.A., but they’re better than this place. You wouldn’t believe the size of the spiders in these caves.
IURGE you to be aggressive in your fight against the infidels. Don’t worry about sending others into harm’s way. Recruits are a dinar a dozen. We hate life, remember? Our enemy loves life, which is his biggest weakness. And if you yourself fall in battle, remember that others are waiting in line for promotions, too. Don’t worry about us. We’ll carry on.
Now, go and be relentless. Consider that an order. We’ll consider it a favor, since for every drone tracking you, that’s one less tracking me. And that’s important, Saif. Imagine the PR disaster if the infidels make a crater out of me! That, we cannot have. In fact, if the enemy gets too close, I may order you to go outside and wave your arms around. Then you could make the Ultimate Sacrifice-in a blinding flash-and I could slip away again. Help a brother out, won’t you?
Anyway, congrats again on your promotion. It’ll look good on a résumé in your future, should you have one.
Me? Just now I need to find another cave. Perhaps tonight I’ll use AA-12-South. I’ve heard it hasn’t been watched in weeks, and the spiders there are smallish.
Signed,
Your Brother in Well-Concealed Arms, OBL
Editorial, Pages 14 on 11/23/2010