Maybe this topic is unnecessary to talk about, but it’s still one worth thinking about at least. In his most recent speech, President Bush made sure to remind us that the Iraq Fiasco (I refuse to label it a ‘war’ any more) is still related to Al Qaeda and 9/11, either via explicit linkage, saying that they will have a haven or are the cause of the insurgency, or via implicit linkage, that “we learned the lessons of 9/11.”

A rash of articles came out after Saddam Hussein’s execution criticizing it not because of the barbarism, but rather because what should have been a monumental event was a circus sideshow. The execution of a brutal dictator, relegated to fame a cell phone video on YouTube rather than heralded as a triumph of justice for the good of mankind.

That got me thinking. As little as anyone paid attention to Saddam prior to his execution, and as quickly forgotten as it already seems to be, the fate of Osama bin Laden seems entirely removed from the American conscience.

Within minutes of being told that Osama bin Laden and his henchmen of Al Qaeda were responsible for the deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens, I saw the United States live up to its name in a way I doubt we’ve had since Pearl Harbor and I doubt we’ll see again within my lifetime.

Remember that? There was no one who sympathized with Osama. Even the “sympathizers” were of the more pragmatic “I wonder what pissed him off that much” variety, certainly no one was calling for anything other than his head on a platter. There was Osama’s face on toilet paper, Bush’s approval was over 90%, and when the war in Afghanistan was announced, the only complaint even the most liberal people had was “just try not to kill too many civilians.”

In 2001, as well as for a fair amount of 2002, the entire country was calling for the blood of Al Qaeda, but mostly its front man, Osama bin Laden. It is now 2007, and not only was Osama never captured in the interim, but people stopped caring.

Last September, it was widely reported that Osama may have died of typhoid fever. May have died, it wasn’t certain. What happened to the followup? The last we heard, it was uncomfirmed.

Unconfirmed. This is a step beyond not knowing where he is these days, it’s not knowing IF he is these days. The way-out conspiracy types will suggest he’s already dead, and it appears Israel agrees. Whether or not that’s true is another debate, but let’s suppose he is. The glaring question then, is why we haven’t been told.

I have, in the past, suggested that Osama is Bush’s best friend. And for some time, he was. But that’s faded away over time, and I myself was fairly blind to how far along that had gotten even when I wrote about it. Bush never mentions bin Laden, and he hardly gets any news coverage. The latest tapes were in the media briefly, and then vanished.

It hardly matters any more.

Osama bin Laden was directly invoked to get us into war with Afghanistan. His group was invoked to get us into war with Iraq. His style of attack is used to keep us afraid and at war with whoever Bush wants us at war with. The enemy shifted slowly from Osama himself to Al Qaeda, then to terrorism as a whole.

At this point, there is no “enemy” any more, and the death of any one of them is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter, to the men in the White House, if Osama is alive or dead. He has served his function, and now they’re done with him. He has been slowly erased, and at this point he only exists in memories.

It’s a fantastic metaphor, or at least an indicator, for the Faux-War on Terror at large. Everything about its beginning has slowly faded away. It was not eliminated, it was not taken care of, it was just ignored as it proved to be either difficult or incorrect, passed over for the next short-lived target.

Then, as we followed our misguided leader further and further away from the point of origin, it, and the man who personified it, disappeared over the horizon.