September 15, 2005--Wanted: Dead Or Alive

It looks as if $25 million doesn’t buy you very much these days.

One would have thought that placing a $25 million bounty on Osama bin Laden’s head (remember him?) would have assured either his capture or, better, his head. Recall, we began with $5 million; then doubled it; and finally upped it to $25 million. Back in January we even thought about doubling that again to $50 million.

But still no bin Laden.

One would have thought (a) he would not be difficult to spot considering he is six feet six inches tall and needs to lug around a dialysis machine and/or (2) considering the life style of Afghani or Pakistani folks in the Tora Bora region, $25 million could get the one who turned him in a nice house, satellite TV, even access to MTV. After all, isn’t that what we are trying to make possible for all these people?

Thus I was surprised to read in the NY Times that the “Islamic Army in Iraq” was offering just $100,000 to anyone who would assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari or any other high-ranking members of the new government (see article attached below). And this seems to be working—the same group announced in an Internet posting (there they go again using our Western technology) that it had killed a high-ranking Interior Ministry official.

So here’s my suggestion:

(1) Lower the bounty on bin Laden’s head to $100,000

(2) Turn the assassination work over to the Islamic Army in Iraq

Outsourcing appears to be working well for at least half of US companies so why not outsourcing this as well?

And save $24,900,000 to boot.