maybe he would cash himself in? (Re: A Billion for Bin Laden)

[Dave Howe]

Adam Back wrote:

> Maybe Bin Laden would turn himself in in return for a billion $ for
> his cause (through a middle-man of course).
> 
> Seem to remember that Bin Laden was relatively wealthy himself (>100
> M$?), but you'd have to balance these rewards to not be too
> excessively much more than net worth of the individual.  As a rational
> adversary would include in his game plan swapping himself for the
> money for the cause.
> 
> Especially if it could be arranged in a way which tends to cast Bin
> Laden in the martyr role him and encourage the hydra effect where it
> galvanizes leutenants to step in.
> 
> Bin Laden would have to balance also with how valueable he thought his
> leader ship was.
> 
> Of course the lieutenants themselves might do the calculation and
> figure they would be closer to their goals after cashing in Bin Laden.
> 
> Adam
> 
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 03:37:32AM -0400, Sunder wrote:
> 
>>Yeah, about as brilliant as a turd.  Didn't they recently call Al-Qaeda's 
>>network a hydra?  correct me if I don't recall my Ancient Greek myths, but 
>>when you cut off one head on the hydra, two more grow back, so are we to 
>>assume that future heads that grow back will carry such bounties?
>>
>>A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real 
>>money.
>>
>>I guess they do realize that these guys are idologists and the allmighty 
>>dollar is anathema to them, so they have to raise the bounty in order to 
>>get someone to betray him...   Never discount greed, no matter how 
>>ideological someone may be, at some ridiculous sum, someone somewhere will 
>>rat him out... perhaps just before the elections.
of course someone *really* cynical might think they already had him, but 
needed to spring a billion towards shrub's reelection campaign....