The demonic action figure of Osama Bin Laden
If you’re desperate, the notion of a bad idea is non-existent, and in the early 2000s, Osama Bin Laden made America incredibly desperate indeed.
Bin Laden’s legacy has left a lasting scar on the most famous city in the world, so when the US tried to respond in kind with the war on terror, they tried literally everything they could to tip the scales in their favour. The attempts to get revenge were countless, long before you got to the real crimes against humanity.
However, it wasn’t just the opinion of the Western world they were trying to influence with all these culture war tactics. They were also trying to turn the opinion of the countries they were invading against their leaders. In their desperation, they made some truly bizarre decisions, including this one revealed by The Washington Post in June 2014. Ever since the Cold War, part of America’s tactics of winning over the people of their enemy nation had been to provide them with contraband banned by their government.
This was especially effective when providing stuff for kids, and at the height of the war on terror, the US government explored handing out rucksacks full of school supplies for kids. However, it wasn’t just going to be books, pencils and sports kits going in them. No, they were also going to put toys in them. This gave them a left-field idea, called operation ‘Demon Eyes’, and they planned to manufacture several dolls depicting Osama Bin Laden himself.
The thought process was for these to be dolls with a difference, which they hoped to send to children of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and then, after a while, those kids would discover the hidden secret.
The doll’s face was actually a mask, one that, when removed, showed the true face of Bin Laden, a demonic countenance with red skin, green eyes with jet black pupils and black marks like scars covering the Al-Qaeda leader.
The idea was to make the children of his own country scared of their leader and push them more over to the side of the United States. When the idea was pitched to Donald Levine, one of the key creators behind the wildly popular (and wildly jingoistic) GI Joe, he was all in and ready to manufacture when the CIA gave the word.
Then, after three prototypes were made, the agency declined to go ahead with the bizarre scheme. Today, those dolls are, naturally, rarer than gold dust.
In 2014, one did make its way to auction. It was listed for an already steep $2,500, but remarkably sold for nearly $12,000, showing just how much money people are willing to put down for American follies.
It’s highly unlikely that the other two will ever see the light of day, although rumours abound to this day that at least one of them takes pride of place on the desk of an extremely high-ranking CIA official. While unverified, it does make a certain degree of sense. When you finally find the moment that desperation gives way to lunacy, you want to remember it, I suppose.