Daily Times

Sir: In the age of media overkill, the most gruesome casualty is the truth. It dies a thousand deaths every second. While the US President Barrack Obama delayed his East Room press conference to officially announce the death of the US enemy, Osama Bin Laden, conspiracy theorists came up with their own theories about how the whole incident had been conjured up. The following are two of the theories being floated around:

i) Osama may still be alive and Obama has found it convenient to declare him officially dead so that he could whip up hysteria in anticipation of the upcoming US presidential elections.

ii) Osama was on dialysis; it is quite possible that he might have died of natural causes long back, as medical facilities in the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan mountain ranges can hardly be efficient enough to sustain a fragile skeleton for so many long years in the wilderness. Keeping Osama alive in the media was a US need to continue using his doctored speeches released on the CNN and the world electronic media at convenient times to whip up American emotions so that defence projects and forays could be smoothly sanctioned. With presidential election close at hand and his Republican adversaries hounding him over his lukewarm responses to Arab uprisings, Obama and his party must have realised that a graphic killing of Osama would be the best way to turn the tide.

It is time we accepted the reality.

MUHAMMED JAMIL ATHER

Karachi