Bin Laden: Never a Master of Marketing
When he wasn’t coming up with clever new names for his merry band of murderers, Osama apparently spent a fair bit of time watching cable news shows. (Let’s not be too judgmental here, folks. Admit it… you do too.) And while some are disputing whether the comments originated from bin Laden himself or Adam Gadahn, the al-Qaeda leadership was apparently not much enamored of Fox News, but thought MSNBC was pretty good. (At least until they fired Olbermann.)
In that regard, Osama falls in line nicely with a majority of the Neilsen families in the United States, but it still presents something of a puzzle. Why would a Fox-hating fan of MSNBC be determined to kill Obama? It simply doesn’t make sense. Then again, most geniuses are fickle and have eclectic tastes I suppose.
Bin Laden was also very much in tune with American politics, which should come as no surprise. But while he was busily plotting to knock off not only Barack Obama, but General David Petraeus as well, guess who didn’t make the hit list? Joe Biden.
No, Osama wanted Joking Joe left safe and sound right where he is, and the reason will seem completely obvious in retrospect. With Obama out of the way, Biden would take charge and, as the now dead jihadist put it, he is “totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis.”
I bet Biden is just fuming over that one, and probably regretting the fact that he advised Obama not to go ahead with the mission. Just goes to show you, there’s no accounting for taste. But in any event, you can download and read the full text of all the documents here. Draw your own conclusions, but one thing seems clear. Osama bin Laden had a story arc which went from his being one of the richest and most powerful sheiks in the Arab world to one of the most feared terrorist leaders on the planet, but he ended his days much more like a nerd holed up in his mom’s basement playing World of Warcraft all night. A marketing genius he wasn’t.
Here are some new slogans to ring in the summer:
MSNBC: Proud as a Terrorist (Don’t miss our Must-See Friday lineup)
Foxnews: The network Osama and Obama hope you won’t watch.
Obama/Biden 2012: Leadership In(to) Crisis
Winning Bin Laden’s Future
Er, you do realize that almost all of the Middle East is now Islamist? As well as a good portion of the rest of the Muslim world – if there are any moderate Muslims left, I have no idea where they are.
Bin Laden has won, I’m afraid.
The author seems be unclear on the difference between mocking your enemy, and defeating your enemy.
Or perhaps he thinks Osama was the enemy, rather than merely being one of many soldiers of the enemy.
Either way, this article sounds a lot like the kind of bravado you’d hear in the stands of a middle school football game.
“Or perhaps “Jihad Dot Com” might have worked better. That one stays true to your heretic killing roots, but ropes in the all-important iPad-carrying youth market. You’ve got to think of the children, Mr. bin Laden. They’re the future, after all.”
Laugh if you will, but, unfortunately, al Qaeda was all too successful in recruiting young people throughout the Middle East, and still is. All they have done is shifted their base of operations from Afghanistan and Iraq to Yemen and Somalia and other failed nation states. I wouldn’t be laughing too hard at these people if I were you. They have suffered a number of setbacks over the past ten years thanks to the CIA and our military. But they are far from defeated and have killed literally thousands of people in western Pakistan. And almost all of their members are very young people, usually in their 20s or 30s (if not younger). Anyone that thinks they are finished is simply playing into the pre-9/11 mindset we had in this country, a mindset that got 3,000 Americans killed. If 9/11 taught us anything, it was that a lot of people could be killed by a small band of psychotic maniacs. Don’t ever forget that.
I watched a news segment on Osama, and the Z man had a falling out. Z, his number two, wanted to focas close to home. Osama did not. Osama’s dead.
Where is the Z man? Did he make a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood he was with in Egypt before moving to Afganistan? Mubarak, the Col., some other smaller Arabic countries, and now Syria. Add in OBL, and I see a pattern. Are we seeing region 4 of the GATT being formed with the Muslim Brotherhood as it’s leader with one coin?
AQ could be considered the military arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and OBL was hiding/being helped by Pakistan. I smell global politics, and the CFR.
Marketing has nothing to do with the facts or reality.
So long as there is a widespread perception that a war between Muslims and the West exists, Bin Ladin wins. The trick for the West is to market the perception that no such war exists (even if it does at some level).
The Western Brand, what makes us attractive, is that we are open, free, and tolerant which stands in direct opposition to Islamist dominated societies. If we have faith in ourselves we can leverage that.
Marketing is all about selling the sizzle, the steak is irrelevent. We should not fool ouselves about the continuing threat from radical Islam. What we do about that is the steak. At the same time from a marketing point of view the strategy is quite different.
Bin Ladin understood the value of marketing. He was able to produce a product of murder and oppression under the guise of peace and divine justice. We need to be better marketers than he was in order to win.
I think you misspoke. Here, let me fix that for you:
Osama bin Laden — or “Usama” if you prefer — was many things.
bin Laden was a POS fanatic who BHO allowed to breathe for at least another 8 months after learning his whereabouts in the summer of 2010.
Jack Keane retired 8 years before ObL was killed. He is an employee of Fox News. If he is so smart, how come he didn’t kill bin Laden during the years that we weren’t bothering to look for him? Follow the money: Keane is paid to say what his employers want him to say.
I hate the idea that Obama got him and Bush didn’t but facts are facts and Keane is a hack.
The issue is not how smart Keane is, but whether he’s telling the truth. Is it a fact that Obama knew the whereabouts of bin Laden in the summer of 2010 or is Keane lying? If he is lying because Fox News is telling him to, why isn’t Fox running with the story? One mention on Huckabee is hardly pushing the story. Your comment is a hack job.
Oh C’mon, cut Bin Ladin some slack. Compared to We are the ones we are waiting for, Yes We Can and Hope and Change, The Base is positively brilliant.
If Obama had been able to use the Marxist sloganeering he would really prefer his campaign slogan might be People’s Uprising For Return The US to the Oppressed Masses or Even Great Composite Significant Others Cared For By Great Composite Healthcare to Insure.