FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2001 — Terrorist mastermind, evil genius, or prattling fool?

The recently released, much-ballyhooed videotape of the Osama bin Laden rap session is said to provide incontrovertible proof that the bearded one was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US. Perhaps it does, but it reveals a lot more besides. In today’s news reports, the American public is said to have responded to the tape with varying degrees of shock, horror, outrage, awe, fear, etc. Yet the tape seems to expose Osama and his band of would-be world beaters for what they are: an ugly, shabby, ignorant, somewhat ridiculous bunch.

Surrounded by a coterie of swooning cronies, Osama sits there throughout the bull session with such a daft grin on his face, it raises the distinct possibility that he had partaken in a doobie or two beforehand. At one point, Osama stares directly into the camera and raises his eyebrows a fraction. It’s the kind of foolish, arrogant gesture we’d expect of a frat boy, not a man who feels the weight of history on his shoulders. "This event made people think [about true Islam]," Osama says. "Which benefits Islam greatly."

Osama, really, what are you smoking?

On Imus in the Morning today, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman alluded to the possibility of mind-altering substances playing a part in the Osama powwow, saying the attendees reminded him of half-cocked ’60s radicals. In fact, the tone of the session was more in keeping with an episode of MTV’s Beavis and Butthead. "Heh-heh. We blew up a building. Heh-heh."

I, for one, was less affected by the fact that Al Qaeda had apparently neglected to inform some of its jihadi fighters that their mission involved a fiery death (we know bin Laden’s an asshole, right?) than I was by the overall tone of the meeting. At one point, for instance, an attendee compares viewing news reports of the terrorist attacks to watching a sporting event. "Do you know when there is a soccer game and your team wins?" he burbles. "It was the same expression of joy." At this remark, Osama throws back his head and jerks his thumb in the direction of the speaker in an "Oh, you!" kind of way.

No matter how many times "Allah be praised" is thrown about, no matter how many times Osama quotes Islamic scripture, you get a clear sense that these guys thought September 11 was, you know, kinda cool. "A plane crashing into a tall building was out of anyone’s imagination," says one of the sheiks. Well, not quite. The teenaged perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine attack actually entertained the same twisted fantasy. Despite all the talk of its brilliance, the idea of crashing a plane into the World Trade Center was a no-brainer. The fact is, if this tape is anything to go by, Osama bin Laden has less in common with Hitler or Stalin than he does with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

The air of adolescent over-excitement permeates the entire sorry affair, right down to the obsequiousness of the sheiks in attendance, who are clearly enamored with Osama, the coolest kid in the room. "I’m sorry to speak in your presence," says one drooling sycophant at the tail end of a long, waffling monologue, "but it is just thoughts, just thoughts." All the while, Osama maintains a look of mock humility, his finger toying with a nub of beard just below his lip. You can just see him trying — and ultimately failing — to stifle that self-satisfied smirk. The neglected, rejected, poor little rich boy finally gets the approval — the adoration — that he so craves.

But look who’s doing the adoring here.

In her 1963 book on the Nazi SS, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt spoke of the "banality of evil." Arendt’s concept reaches new heights, or depths, in the Osama tape. One of the sheiks, expressing pleasure that the meeting was taking place in an actual house rather than a cave, says, "I was surprised at the guest house and that it is very clean and comfortable.... The place is clean and we are very comfortable." Another sheik gushes about a "positive" sermon given in Saudi Arabia following the attacks: "It was videotaped and I was supposed to carry it with me," he says, "but unfortunately ..." But unfortunately he fucking forgot it.

Perhaps the most comic moment comes when the attendees start one-upping each other with tales of friends, and friends of friends of friends, who had dreams foretelling the event. "She saw the plane crashing into a building," says one sheik. "That was unbelievable, my God." One of the assembled actually says something along the lines of, "Go on, Osama, tell them about the dream your friend had," and Osama, that half-witted grin creeping across his lips again, starts in about a buddy of his: "He came close and told me that he saw, in a dream, a tall building in America, and in the same dream he saw Mukhtar teaching them how to play karate."

Huh? Tall buildings? Karate? Another puff, anyone?

At the end of the tape, the happy few wax rhapsodic about "the old days" and how September 11 marks the beginning of "the greatest jihad in the history of Islam." These are clearly not the words of men who have fully come to terms with the enormity of changing the course of world history. Holy warriors? They seem more like malign teens — à la Harris and Klebold — marveling at their derring-do, flaunting their rebelliousness. The most devastating terrorist attack in history is thus reduced to a sophomoric fuck you.

This fact is both frightening and reassuring. We should not forget, after all, that this tape was supposedly made November 9, the very day that Mazar-e-Sharif fell to Alliance forces. And now, at the time of this writing, Osama bin Laden himself is reportedly surrounded by his enemies in the hills of Tora Bora, with no real power at his disposal and no means of escape.

Maybe this week will prove to be Osama’s last on this earth, at least as a free man. Let’s hope so. That — heh-heh — would be kind of cool.