bin Laden's economic delusion

Think bin Laden has a clue about real economics? He mentioned that one of al Qaeda's goals was to ruin the US economically by forcing us to spend all our money fighting terror. Now read Megan McArdle on Instapundit this morning:

Iraq and Afghanistan together have cost us less than $300 billion, including the money Bush is going to ask for next year. In the same period, the US economy will have grossed about 36 trillion dollars, meaning that the war will have cost us less than 1% of our income.

If Osama really wants to gut the US budget, he's going to need to try something more drastic, like opening up a chain of Medicare clinics. His efforts so far haven't even done that much damage to the deficit, much less the US economy.

Funny, but we've been able to do this on LOWER taxes, too. The guy is a lunatic, plain and simple. A dangerous lunatic who's a magnet for other dangerous lunatics. We have severely crippled his operations and before long we'll have beheaded al Qaeda like they've brutally done to so many.