&Remember those terrorists we were going to smoke out of their caves after 9/11? We are still going to do that but instead of Al Qae’da it’s going to be mosquitoes. After Afghanistan and Iraq, there’s still some fight left in the old commander-in-chief and he’s training his guns on the pesky mosquito. The United States has declared a war on malaria because now it is “our obligation to act.”

If it sounds a little familiar, the grand vision to reshape the world, don’t worry. Only cynics says the administration hasn’t taken the lessons of Iraq to heart. They no longer want to go it alone. Mrs. Bush told the Africa USAID dinner in New York that we are going to have a multilateral coalition in the battle against malaria. “Partnerships are vital in eradicating malaria,” she said.

Good to know. I am glad we are taking the fight right to the enemy, spraying them out of existence before they attack us on our streets and in our supermarkets.

It’s also a much more fiscally responsible battle. 1.2 billion over five years sounds like the kind of fight Americans can get behind instead of say, the war in Iraq which is costing $177 million per day!

And the ungrateful world which just won’t pull up its socks and get on the democracy bandwagon might just appreciate liberation from killer mosquitoes. In the end if they can’t have democracy, let them have quinine.

It might be a slightly bitter pill to swallow but it’s just the birthpangs of a new malaria-free world order says Washington. I can imagine the headline already “Today in the War on Terror (sorry malaria), ten thousand mosquitoes killed. President says Mission Accomplished is within reach. Bipartisan malaria study group agrees.”