Who would Osama vote for?

That question is posed to me whenever I see a little sticker at one of the parking meter machines on my way to work. It always makes me think.

I’m not sure who Osama would vote for. For one thing, I have only the barest idea of who he is and how he thinks. Is he an evil madman, or an evil mastermind? Can he be both? Evil is certainly in the equation, at least by any decent set of values. He probably sees himself as some kind of revolutionary, but he’s a cowardly thug who hits and runs. He’s evil, sure, but I doubt he’d agree. (Or maybe he might. Maybe he knows he’s doing evil, and is intentionally sacrificing his own soul to achieve what he thinks is a greater good. It’s a creepy idea, to be sure, and probably doesn’t describe his mindset – but my point is, we don’t know.)

And also, he doesn’t seem like much of a small-d democrat to me. Charlie don’t surf, and Osama don’t vote.

But who would he want to win?

See, this gets me to wondering what the intention is of the person who posted the sticker? That mindset, I might be able to get into – if I could just figure out what it was. Does he think Osama would vote for Kerry (expecting him to pull out of Iraq), so we should vote for Bush? Or does he think Osama would vote for Bush (expecting him to stay in Iraq), so we should vote for Kerry?

Because wherever Osama is, it probably ain’t Iraq. By keeping our forces there, Bush a) diverting needed resources to find OBL, and b) fostering the feeling of a holy war between Christianity & Judaism and Islam, which will just feed the anger in the Middle East and grow Al Quaeda’s ranks. I think by going to Iraq in the first place – even though yes, it’s a good thing for Iraqis to have Saddam out of power – Bush played right into OBL’s hands. I’ve heard reports that Al Quaeda is back up to full strength since the initial (and deserved) war in Afghanistan, and I fear it will only get stronger, the more we persist with our current Middle East strategy.

I don’t know how to get out. But I know I don’t trust the guy who got us into this mess to do it.

Rob