O Julius Caesar! thou art mighty yet!

According to this report in The Times, bin Laden is planning to follow an ancient western tradition, and fall on his sword rather than be captured:

Bin Laden refuses to allow Americans, or members of the Northern Alliance, to kill him, and also refuses to be taken prisoner by them, because that will be a major defeat for him. So, he has instructed those aides who remain with him until the end to shoot him if he is surrounded by American special forces or the Northern Alliance.

The USA is playing the role of Caesar to Osama's Cassius: "Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords/ In our own proper entrails."

Of course, this shows further that Bin Laden doesn't understand the West at all, in that he gives up his chance to make the West squirm a la the worries about Hitler expressed below. Now were the anthrax letters precisely targeted (to engender maximum panic in the media and Congress) or badly targeted (thinking Brokaw and Daschle were tools of the President)? The answer to that question will reveal whether it was Bin Laden or domestic terrorists at work.