Is Osama bin Laden still among the living? I know this question is asked often, and speculation about the al Qaeda leader's possible death has been common in the past. Still, bin Laden's recent silence does make me wonder. The last time we saw video of bin Laden was in 2004, and he did not look healthy. He released a few audio tapes in 2005, but experts say that his voice sounded weak on those tapes. Considering all of the things that have recently happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, you would think that bin Laden would be making more tapes (audio or video) to address these events to his followers. Instead, we only hear from his No. 2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri, or from people like the Taliban commander who has recently been interviewed by the Al Jazeera network.

This Taliban leader claims that Osama planned the alleged attack on Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan this past February, as well as the ongoing terrorist operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, there has never been evidence that bin Laden does any actual operational planning for al Qaeda. He is thought to be mainly a spiritual leader for the network, while actual planning for operations is conducted by his deputies. Also, there is no proof that the attack on the air base where Cheney was visiting was anything other than a coincidence. Al Qaeda did not claim that the attack was aimed at Cheney until the worldwide media had been reporting for hours about Cheney's presence at the base. The terror network probably had no prior knowledge of Cheney's visit.

Al Qaeda clearly wants to believe that bin Laden is alive, and they want the rest of the world to believe it as well. So, why won't Osama show his face, or at least his voice? There has been speculation that bin Laden died last summer in Pakistan from typhoid fever, but of course there is no confirmation that it is true.

It wouldn't be the first time that there was a three-year gap between bin Laden videos. After a pale-and-frail Osama appeared in a November 2001 video which was deemed demoralizing to his followers, he did not issue another video until October 2004, just before the U.S. presidential election. So it is possible that he is simply staying invisible for another three year period. But, again, it seems unlike him to be silent in times like these.

I'll paraphrase what President Bush said during that previous three-year gap between bin Laden videos. If Osama is still alive, we'll get him. If he's dead, then we got him.