Decoding Osama

The US government spent years and years and millions of dollars to nab Osama, but if only they had asked me for help! I had some definite clues long ago how the end would come about. And I would have given this information to the CIA for free, in the cause of world peace. Now in all the time when US presidents were taking a good, sharp look out for this terrorist, I was instead taking a good sharp look at his name. And look what I found:

Rearrange the letters of ‘Osama Bin Laden’ and what’s the anagram you get? Obama Nails Den! Rearrange it once more, and you’ll see exactly what happens next: A Bad Omen, Slain. Wait! Let’s do it again. And we’ll get what they did with his body: Bad Ol’Man In Sea.

See? Well, we know how frustrated the US has been, right from the time when George Bush was hoping that a quick capture of the dreaded terrorist would get him re-elected as president. But then along came a determined new candidate, and that too a Black, named Barack Hussein Obama. Right then the world should’ve known he would succeed where Bush would fail: as a re-arrangement of the letters of that unusual name read:
‘Bush, I can break Osama’. (Now we know exactly what he meant with his campaign slogan, Yes, We Can.)

And so the hunt began, based on a vast data of intelligence reports. However, if I may add (at the risk of sending all clairvoyants, psychics, astrologers and soothsayers permanently out of business…) I had clues where the US should look for him, in the first place.

Is Osama hiding in Pakistan? Or in Afghanistan? These questions plagued us for years. Ah ha. Now why didn’t someone ask me! Because I had once seen this headline in a magazine: Is Osama Bin Laden Yet Alive? The letters swam about — and neatly re-arranged themselves for a clue where his hiding place could be (even if one had to excuse the bad English). ‘Yes. It In One Islamabad Vale.’

With this valuable clue, all the US intelligence had to do was, look at suspicious places in a valley near Islamabad. And they’d have got to Abbottabad in a jiffy. Of course, Osama’s parents themselves should have known better right at the time when they named him as a baby. Osama bin Laden is also ‘I, A Damnable Son.’ Or when he went past his teens, his name showed up as ‘A Bad Man, No Lies.’ And a bit later, when his career path was fully established, The Terrorist Osama bin Laden anagrammed itself into ‘Arab Monster Is No Idle Threat.’

And I know there are some amateur anagramists out there who also arrived at conclusions about Osama bin Laden, like: Is a Lone Bad Man.’ But if there’s anyone out there looking for a pro at decoding names, don’t go looking for Dan Brown. Just get in touch with me!