Osama Bin Laden is going into caring corporate mode.
First of all he praised the knickerbomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who is alleged to have tried to blow up an aeroplane but only burned his pants instead. So you think he’d be taking him to task for screwing up so badly, but in the training that is given to management there is what is called a “praise sandwich. Managers do not act like Alan Sugar and bark that you’re a hopeless, idle, useless idiot and you’re fired (literally true in Abdulmutallab’s case). No, they stress that they appreciate the efforts you’ve put in, and um ah you do lend the tissues on your desk to your colleagues, then indicate, as obliquely as possible, that you are an idle, useless idiot, and could they offer some training to rectify this.
So Osama Bin Laden described Abdulmutallab’s botched attempt at mass murder like this:-
"The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the September 11.”
You see – heroic warrior. And comparing him to the September 11 pilots, who should protest from the beyond that at least they hit their targets. But that’s corporate speak for you. Thanks to my team, says the department manager, and there are some in the team who are irritated that skiving Susan, champion work dodger, is bracketed along with them, who have really pulled out the stops and gone those extra miles. But note that Osama Bin Laden did not call Addulmutallab a competent or successful terrorist, merely an “heroic” warrior. Perhaps he was thinking of heroic failures, i.e. those who deserve credit for trying but who fall flat on their faces.
He’s also going green in his concern about global warming. There must be recycle bins in his cave and Fair Trade tea bags at his coffee point. At the end of his message, did he urge people not to waste paper by transcribing it and printing it out?
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