Bin Laden Myths

Early news reports this morning are suggesting that the Saudi Secret Service and French Secret Service both believe that Osama bin Laden died in August in Pakistan of tyhpoid. Whether this story is true or not has yet to be determined, but this does remind us of other bin Laden rumours we've all heard over the past decade. Hugh Hewitt had Lawrence Wright, the author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, on this past week, and he had some interesting things to say about bin Laden and the history of al Queda. He mentioned two myths that the media has erroneously propagated: Bin Laden is 6'4". Wright says this is ridiculous, and bin Laden's true height is actually around 6'0"-6'1". Bin Laden has kidney failure and requires dialysis. Nobody's sure where this originated, but it is false.