[Peace-discuss] Osama bin MacGuffin

[C. G. Estabrook]

["A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the 
characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no 
importance otherwise. The element that distinguishes a MacGuffin from other 
types of plot devices is that it is not important what the object specifically 
is. Anything that serves as a motivation will do. The MacGuffin might even be 
ambiguous. Its importance is accepted by the story's characters, but it does not 
actually have any effect on the story. It can be generic or left open to 
interpretation. The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. 
Commonly, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in 
the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations 
of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is all but forgotten by the end 
of the film." (Wikipedia)  The USG needs OBL because it can't admit that the 
real reason that we're killing people in the Mideast is to suppress resistance 
to US domination of the region with the world's greatest energy resources.]


	Pentagon chief likens bin Laden hunt to Unabomber
	By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - How long might it really take to find al Qaeda leader 
Osama bin Laden? U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggests the FBI's 17-year 
hunt for convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski as a reasonable guide.

Or worse still, Gates said on Wednesday, consider the fate of Americans taken 
hostage decades ago in Lebanon who died before the United States could find and 
rescue them.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Gates dismissed the notion that something 
might be amiss because bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, 
remain free more than seven years after the September 11 attacks.

"To a certain extent, I think too many people go to too many movies. Finding 
these guys is really hard, and especially if they have some kind of a support 
network," he said.

Bin Laden and Zawahri, widely blamed in the 2001 attacks on New York and 
Washington that prompted the U.S. war on terrorism, are believed hiding in the 
rugged terrain along Afghanistan's mountainous border with Pakistan.

Failure to track down the two men haunted the presidency of George W. Bush, 
despite his 2001 vow to "smoke them out" of hiding.

But Gates drew a historical parallel between bin Laden's hide-out and the 
mountain cabin in Montana where federal agents found Kaczynski in 1995, after he 
had killed three people and injured 23 others in a bombing campaign that began 
in 1978.

"Look at how long it took ... years and years -- in the United States," the U.S. 
defense chief said.

"We never did find our hostages in Beirut despite all of the efforts of the 
American government," he added. "So this is a lot harder than it looks."

The United States in recent months has stepped up efforts to attack al Qaeda 
safe havens in Pakistan's tribal areas with missile strikes from unmanned drones 
operated by the CIA.

"We've done some serious damage to al Qaeda over the last number of months," 
Gates, a former CIA director, said without confirming any missile attacks 
against al Qaeda targets.

"Everybody continues to look for No. 1 and No. 2. And we will continue that 
effort and I think everyone's hope is that one of these days, we'll be 
successful," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52H7X320090318?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews