Posted
by Joel Mathis
August 23, 2006 at 4:45 p.m.
Enough books. Time for some pop culturey goodness.
![][1]For some reason [J.D.][2] sees this story and [thinks of me:][3]_Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston. He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn't. He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar. It didn't seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives. I tried to hide my outrage at his racist remarks, but it would come to pass that for the entire time that I would be trapped in his palm, Whitney Houston's was the one name that would be mentioned constantly. How beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and her husband-Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed. In his briefcase I would come across photographs of the star, as well as copies of Playboy, but nobody in the West believes me when I tell them this._This story is one of the best things that's ever happened in the effort to defeat Osama Bin Laden.If you wanted to undermine a religious zealot terrorist mastermind without martyring him and inspiring thousands of potential followers to tread in his blood-soaked footsteps, what would be the most effective way of dealing with him?Maybe spreading a few stories about how he's not as pious as all that? So that potential followers either (A) turn away in disgust and disillusionment, or (B) think perhaps the West, and all the Whitney goodness that's there, isn't so bad after all? It's a propaganda coup. It's also deliciously perfect ... clever, funny and hilarious. It makes Osama a figure of mockery instead of somebody to respect (if you've got those sympathies, which I don't) or fear.Then again: Who hasn't, at some time or another, found Whitney Houston to be the ideal woman? It's all too plausible.UPDATE: It turns out that Boof, our narrator, may not be reliable. [From PeterBergen.com][4]: "The book is rife with howlers large and small, for instance, there is one vividly recounted scene in which Boof performs sex acts on a group that included bin Laden; Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two; Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden's mentor, and Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian jihadist theoretician. Boof says this happened in Morocco in 1996. However, in 1996 bin Laden was living in Sudan, Ayman al Zawahiri was imprisoned in Dagestan, Azzam had been assassinated in Pakistan thirteen years earlier, and Qutb had been lying in his grave for three decades."Stupid fact-checking. [1]: http://www.accesshollywood.com/assets/images/200608/200x150/7845.jpg [2]: http://www.evolution-nextstep.com/archives/3020 [3]: http://www.harpers.org/HisPrerogative.html [4]: http://www.peterbergen.com/bergen/articles/details.aspx?id=268
Comments
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lori (anonymous) says…
Joel says: "Who hasn't, at some time or another, found Whitney Houston to be the ideal woman? "
I'm thinking more along the lines of who hasn't, at some time or another, thought of having Bobby Brown killed?
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
Would it count that I once had a crush on her cousin? (Yes, ma'am, I certainly do know the way to San Jose.)
If you are a terrorist, do you still get points subtracted if you are a pig and a racist?
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
Lori: I don't want to incrimate myself...
thetom.. you always come up with the most thought provoking jewels. but, you know what they say...that's what friends are for
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
beatle:
Your killing me.
Softly
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
thetom..
i'm too tired to play this game. it's been a hard day's night.
j_d (Jason R. Dunavin) says…
You know you wanna dance with somebody.
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
I hope Dionne is not offended for my Roberta Flack mistake.
lizziemarie (anonymous) says…
good one Lori, very good.
Dazie (Aileen Dingus) says…
Thetom..
It's ok. Her psychic friends told her you were going to do it, so she forgave you in advance.
beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) says…
Yeah, I thought it was odd you used a non-dionne reference. That's why I went out there and used the Beatles.
Whatever happened to the psychic friend network? Maybe I don't do enough tv...
thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
He, He. My crush predates the psychic friends. I think it might predate cable. But I knew Gary Spivey when I lived in Tampa, if that counts.