As long as we're talking about blaming God's wrath for the tsunami, let's speculate, along with Jerry Tundag in the Freeman (Cebu, Phillippines), about what Osama bin Laden must be thinking. Let's leave aside for the moment that we don't know whether bin Laden has access to news at all, and some of us, frivolous though we may be, steadfastly refuse to change our opinions that he is dead, all the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
But here's what Tundag suggests:
A few days ago, I was asking seriously about how people can say that God (or Allah) is punishing the victims of the tsunami and especially about an imam who said it was because Muslims are killing Muslims. Maybe if Osama is as shrewd as people say, he will be forced to conclude that God/Allah is in fact punishing Muslims for trying to kill Americans.Bin Laden has been preaching to whoever cares to listen that America and its allies are out to eliminate Muslims from the face of the earth. What happened on December 26 proved he had been lying. Worse he had been given a sign by Allah to shut up.
The earthquake and the resulting tsunamis were acts of God, no matter how He is called. To bin Laden and his fellow Muslims, God is Allah. Be that as it may, it was Allah, in His infinite wisdom that we cannot fathom, who willed the disaster to strike where and when it did.
Supposedly devout, bin Laden was silenced because he could not dispute that fact. And he will continue to be silent in face of the huge international humanitarian response to the disaster that has not seen a shadow of his own involvement.
Ha, ha! He's just as likely to be dead.
|