Some anniversary

Wow, the third anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. There’s something to drink to. I wish it would hurry up and be over, so the country could spend that money on the war on terrorism.

Imagine, having $200 billion, the cost of the Iraqi action so far, available to fight the war on terrorism. The main network, the Osama network, might have been totally smoked out by now.

It is aggravating to know bin Laden is still at large and plotting various forms of doom for the Westerners. He must feel either very lucky, that the U.S. has burned the $200 billion in Iraq, or very smug. Could he have known that one of the consequences of 9/11 would have been the Bush administration’s decision to attack the wrong enemy?

It is interesting to wonder how much bin Laden did understand, about how deeply the 9/11 hit would wound this country. Destruction of icons, yes, and installation of fear, and he no doubt knew about the financial records that would be destroyed in the attack, and the immediate blow to U.S. financial institutions.

But did he foresee airline bankruptcies? Insurance industry crises? Security paranoia, and accompanying political polarization? Administration attacks on the Constitution? Polls showing 60-plus percent disapproval ratings of the President of the United States? The U.S. Treasury being bled dry, through all these holes blasted into it by 9/11?

Saddam Hussein was no Mr. Rogers, but if in 2003 you stood him side-by-side with Osama bin Laden, and handed the average American a rifle, it’s not hard to predict who would have gotten shot first. By calling it a “war on terror,” Mr. Bush must have meant he was at least aiming at bin Laden. How did he miss him, and hit Saddam?

That question was not meant to be funny. It’s still hard to suppress a chuckle, though, when you remember Mr. Bush aiming at a Supreme Court nominee and hitting Harriet Miers instead, or aiming at disaster leadership and saying, “Brownie you’re doing a heck of a job,” or watching his own political army duck and beg him please to put the gun down before the fall elections.

Strange to suppose, that the strongest voice for Iraq withdrawal would turn out to be the Bush political base. A strange way to get out, but totally appropriate, given the way we got in. Let’s just do it, stop the drain, give bin Laden some disappointment for a change.