doodledee

So Bush asked for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq. Jesus that's a lot of money... so much it's really kind of hard to comprehend. $87 billion is like $300 for each man, woman and child in the US. $87 billion would be enough to build a new stadium for every team in every major pro sport. And if my math is correct, there'd still be enough money left over to give away every ticket to every game for like 5 years.

Cha-ching!

When you bundle Bush's request for a quasi ludicrous amount cash with last week's signals that we're about to go crawling back to the UN for help, you're basically begging the I Told You So Club to work themselves into a tizzy. Molly Ivins wastes no time:

I opposed our unprovoked, unnecessary invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it would be a short, easy war followed by the peace from hell. I predicted that every terrorist in the Middle East would be drawn to Iraq like a magnet.

I was right, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

Well that's big of you, Molly.

Personally, I'm waiting for all the pre-war mega-doomsdayers to step forward and admit they were wrong. I think Amnesty International predicted *millions* of civilian deaths or something. So even though Iraq had one of the worst human rights records on the planet, AI felt it was too risky to go in and do anything about it. It was going to be a massive humanitarian disaster. Swingandamiss.

Anyway, while reading the rest of Molly's column, my mind wandered a bit and I think I came up with an as yet undiscovered conspiracy theory. It goes like this:

Let's say that Bush & Co. never expected the whole Iraq thing to go smoothly. Let's say that they never actually tried to capture Saddam. Let's say that by [not] doing so, they counted on Iraq remaining highly unstable and volatile environment, and, as a result, a gathering place for terrorists and the like.

And what happens next? A few truck bombs go off, some buildings and mosques get blown up, and some people get killed. Then the US backs up the money truck and man, it really, really looks like we're trying to make it better. But maybe we're just perpetuating the problem. After all, $87 billion mostly just pays our military and intelligence costs. Seriously. So while some things will undoubtedly improve - like the icky torture stuff, obviously - maybe they don't improve as much as they should.

So we keep hanging around, working to make things right, and as we do, the terrorists focus their energy on kicking our asses out of Iraq instead of attacking us over here. Sure, they'll score a few points, probably even manage to kill a handful of Americans, but at least they're not gassing any subways or poisoning the water supply.

In the end, $87 billion buys our safety by providing plenty of tempting targets far, far from home.

I don't really believe it, but it's crazy enough that I bet I could get others to. Wee!