Media Crusade Hellfire Misfire

In February 2002 headlines were abuzz with speculation that a CIA Predator drone might have killed Osama bin Laden with a Hellfire missile. (In passing, wouldn’t it be nice, as long as we are fighting a Crusade, not to use religiously tendentious names for our advanced weapons systems?)

As it turned out, it was not bin Laden, but a villager named Daraz Khan.

When this became clear, the headlines disappeared. The murder of Khan was erased. And because the Predator is such a remote control weapon, who even knows who the murderer was?

The thing I find remarkable is how the news media knew this was no longer a story. (There was of course follow-up on the victim. Briefly. But no follow-up, to my knowledge, as to his murderer.)