Always the last to know: Taliban find out their mythical leader was killed 2 years ago, rush to elect new one

Had a good laugh today when I read the news that the supreme council of the Afghan Taliban reportedly elected a new leader on hearing of the death of their old leader, Mullah Omar.

The election was “confirmed” by “anonymous Taliban commanders to several news agencies”. Apparently the Talibaners didn’t know that their leader has been dead for 2 years, and had to hear it from the government in Kabul, at which point, they rushed to elect a new one because, ya know, everyone needs a leader!

An alleged image of Omar, more myth than man who has been “killed” several times just like Zarqawi and Osama, was circulated around the time of the US invasion of Afghanistan pitching him as the leader of the Taliban. Omar has, however, never been seen by a single Westerner and even the only alleged telephone interview with him by the BBC cannot be confirmed as having actually involved Omar.

So much like al-Zarqawi of Iraq and bin Laden, Omar was little more than an appropriately scary image of an enemy around which the US govt. could rally the public and military to justify war and conquest against no real enemy whatsoever, unless you class ordinary civilians as an enemy, which of course, the US government always has.