The Priory's challenge to Osama Bin Laden.

[raum]

ruff, ok, ok,.. back on topic. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

you know how I can tell you're a combat vet... you don't do what you're told, and expect to stay here. hehe

All kidding aside, Osama is not likely to respond, though he will certainly understand the English. But it is not for his response this was written. It is for the honor of Islam that Saladin possessed, and Osama manipulates.

The Templars bowed out to Saladin as a worthy opponent, and a formidable Man of God. In that truce, there was a peace the Church despised, and ultimately the Templars paid a price for that... but with Osama, who as of late has sought to emulate Saladin; for Osama a sword has been forged for the purpose of kissing his neck. a sword that will touch no other flesh.

[Lightfoot]

QUOTE(ruffriders23)You would be surprised that Osama can actually understand and read English. I'd bet he could speak it if he HAD to. However, I would gladly hand deliver that letter to him if I was given the chance.
the bin laden family are surprisingly cosmopolitan. osama will no doubt be fluent in english, from his contacts with the us military, if nothing else. as to the challenge, he would be a fool to accept. honour and pride are no substitute for wisdom and strength. a vastly out-matched force such as osamas would be insane to practice anything other than guerilla tactics (the tactics of war, oddly enough). this has always been the way of smaller forces: hit and run, then disappear into the general population.

it is certainly interesting, though, how rarely our governments mention this particular boggyman nowadays...

[raum]

Osama has been reduced to barely a man, and even if he would be willing to bear to arms against the Grand Prior, he would physically be incapable. which is why the challenge makes provision for him to have a proxy (or "second"), to serve in his stead in the challenge, though he be executed in the event of his champion's demise. much like a maiden who has to have a knight fight in her place.

that is to say, "Osama, we know yo ass is too rotten with darkness to lift a nail file much less a blade, so be the little bitch with people doin ya deeds for you are famous for being, an get ya strongest boy to man up, come scrap wit me cause yo dyin ass caint, and afta I shave him, I'ma scalp you!"

[ruffriders23]

I agree. Osama is a pathetic afterthought to the world now, but one that still needs to be captured or killed. We should have taken him out when we had the chance, but we didn't and we payed the price for it.

Osama's family is rich and they reject him... allegedly... for what he has done. They own large portions of AOL stocks and I can see him just typing away on a lapper with satelite uplink from inside a cave somewhere. YOU'VE GOT MAIL!!!

[emanon]

Please do not take this comment as frivolous:

How does one travel to Pakistan with a"holy sword consecrated to our Order-a sword that was forged to destroy evil" aka a "sword has been forged for the purpose of kissing his neck. a sword that will touch no other flesh" do they allow such things in your checked luggage with all the restrictions in place these days?

[raum]

Where the challenge was issued, there the sword awaits the breaking of its seal which bears the creed "In hoc Signes Vinces". It was forged in Damascus, per the way and tradition of the swords that could cleave an Infidel's horse from his legs. From Damascus, it travelled on the road travelled by Simon magus, through Lebanon where Solomon's rule was assured, and onward to Israel where his Temple was erected and where the attendant knight to the blade sealed it with his blood. Then, it flowed down the Red Sea, which Moses parted, to the lands of Ethiopia, where Sephora, wife of Moses was born; and out into the Arabian sea. Many swords pass this way... then, instead of heading Northeast into Hormuz and onto Al-Jubayl and other parts, they headed West, to Pakistan.

What must be understood is that this would not be the knight's own sword. Just as the treasure secured by the Templars is not theirs. This is God's own... procured by his followers and secured by his warriors. This sword would never be used again, and would enter the halls in which every banner of every nation that bears a cross finds purchase on marble walls.