Victory For Al Qaeda?

[UPDATE]:

There's a Central American version, too:

Nicaragua's Ortega says crisis is God punishing U.S.

"It's incredible that in the most powerful country in the world, which spends billions of dollars on brutal wars ... people do not have enough money to stay in their homes," former Marxist guerrilla Ortega said in a speech late on Thursday.

-------------------------------------
As the stock market tumbled to new lows this week, a commenter on one of the blogs--wish I could remember where/who--observed that destroying the American economy was Al Qaeda’s purpose behind both World Trade Center attacks. So as the American economy slides further into the danger zone, and the ripples reach far around the globe, I have to wonder if this isn’t Al Qaeda’s “Mission Accomplished” moment.

Remember this tidbit from the 2004 presdiential election?

Bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, proved he's kept a close eye on U.S. politics as he detailed al Qaeda's strategy of bleeding America bankrupt, even as Americans weighed their presidential votes largely on the issues of terror and the economy.

He provided a financial analysis of al Qaeda's destruction in his latest 18-minute video, a full transcript of which was posted Monday on the Internet.

According to bin Laden's math, each $1 al Qaeda has spent on strikes has cost the United States $1 million in economic fallout and military spending, including emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

"As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers," bin Laden said, estimating the deficit at more than $1 trillion.

In reality, spending in the war against terror and other factors have resulted in an expected $377 billion shortfall for 2003 — the highest deficit since World War II when inflation is factored out. The total U.S. national debt is near the $7.4 trillion statutory limit.

That was November 2004, of course. As I posted in yesterday’s “Memory Hole,” the National Debt Clock had to be reconfigured to accommodate the latest $10 trillion figure.

My fellow prisoners, this is something to think about, long and hard.

Memory Hole

Ah, good times:

National Debt Clock Goes Dark–or Is It Just Snooze?
September 10, 2000 in print edition C-6

It was a sign of the times. And so, too, is its demise.

New York real estate developer Seymour Durst conceived the idea of a National Debt Clock in the late 1980s, and put it up near Times Square in 1989.

“It was developed, erected and maintained by my father to focus attention on the soaring national debt,” said Douglas Durst, now president of his father’s business. “It has served its function.”

And so, the younger Durst presided over the clock’s plug-pulling Thursday–a testament to big budget surpluses and a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility in Washington.

Heh heh. Funny thing, Mr. Durst. Seems the last eight years have seen the most fiscally irresponsible president in this country’s history run the national economy into the ground.

We’ve had a foolish war of choice in Iraq, plus a war on a country that attacked us in 2001, coupled with tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens and government bailouts of big business. The bill for all of this largesse has been passed on to the next generation. Way to go, George W. Bush.

And the National Debt Clock has to be reconfigured because it’s run out of digits.

That’s one heckuva legacy, Shrub.