Osama: Bin the conspiracy theories

Everyone will remember what they were doing when they heard that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, much as everyone will remember where they were when they heard that the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon had been subject to terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.
Some will recount to their children and their grandchildren the disgust they felt at 9/11. Others will look back upon the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death and recall their relief that justice had finally been done for the victims of the worst terrorist atrocity in history. Still others may struggle to explain exactly how they felt on May 1st 2011, finding in retrospect only hazy memories of an evening lost to the ‘Osama Bin Laden Drinking Game’ (didn’t take long, did it?).

A minority, however, will recall with glee the excitement they felt upon both occasions. I refer not to Islamic extremists, of course; I hear that they were, on the whole, rather put out by the death of the Bearded One. No, I refer instead to a group clearly not so dangerous, but arguably not much less deranged than Bin Laden himself. I refer, in fact, to conspiracy theorists.

There was a time, I believe, when conspiracy theorists were a rare breed, seldom seen outside of their dingy basement habitat. Shy creatures, they tended to shun the light of day, and instead used the internet to distribute their bizarre theories. Yet today they are a force to be reckoned with. 10 percent of Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim and even more – some 25 percent – believe him to have faked his own birth certificate in order to run for Presidency. It seems a minor miracle that Donald Trump has failed to pick up on the size of Obama’s ears, identify him as Jedi Master Yoda and demand that he hand over his light sabre.
When it had been announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed and buried, and no pictures had been released of his dead body, the conspiracy community went into overdrive. It could’ve been a democratic plot, aimed at ensuring Obama’s re-election in 2012. He could’ve been dead for years, kept on ice until it was politically expedient for his death to be announced. Hell, it could even have been that Bin Laden defected, converted to Judaism and is now working as PA and occasional tennis partner to the President himself.

All, apparently, are perfectly plausible, and all have graced my Twitter or Facebook feeds at one point or another. Never mind the fact that, if Bin Laden were still alive, he could rear his ugly head, make a new video ridiculing Obama, derail his Presidential campaign and give a huge boost to world terrorism.

Never mind those DNA tests proving his death – they could have been faked. After all, if Barack Obama faked his birth certificate, he could probably easily fake the killing of the world’s most wanted man in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Anyway, it’s not like the CIA hasn’t had the practice, right? Didn’t they mislead us on the killings of Elvis, JFK and John Lennon? Haven’t they been hiding the fact that Hitler’s still alive and working as a farmer in South America for a while?

Well, no. They didn’t, and they haven’t. And quite how intelligent people – students at the University of Warwick, no less – can entertain the notion that Obama has been keeping Bin Laden in his freezer for the last few years is well beyond me. Doubtless the conspiracy nuts will be sustained for years by predictable ‘sightings’, as over-imaginative story-chasers convince themselves that they really did see him praying in a Mosque in Teheran, selling sheep in Patagonia, playing cards with Nessie or whatever.

But please, readers of this paper, do not insult yourself by indulging. Sit back and relax in the knowledge that the world’s most infamous terrorist is dead as a dodo, and probably making a lot of hungry fish very happy indeed.