In many ways, Osama bin Laden accomplished every wish he had against America, and then some. That’s not commonly understood, because it’s very uncomfortable to contemplate.
First, and I guess most importantly, America is no longer an island nation beyond attack. An ocean on each side and a friendly nation top and bottom is comforting, but we’ve experienced a terrorist attack so abnormal and impossible to understand that the plot couldn’t survive a work of fiction. I doubt any of us who saw it will ever forget the images.
Secondly, and way more to the point in many ways, bin Laden accomplished an event way beyond his expectations.
What, you say? It took us a while, but we killed the guy, and there’s no way you can count that as a win.
I understand what you’re saying. It wasn’t a win, and in no way am I sympathetic. But consider his publicly stated motives:
To attack America spectacularly, (he certainly achieved that)
demonstrate that America was vulnerable, (spectacularly done)
provoke an enormous American military response, (Iraq, Afghanistan)
make that response financially and politically ruinous, ($8 trillion +)
radicalize Muslims against America, (more externally than Internally)
and disrupt U.S.-backed Middle East governments, (Israel, Saudi, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan)
force America out of the Middle East, (not accomplished, but hostile)
overthrow those governments, primarily Israel, (not yet done) and
create a new Islamist political order (the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, called by some the budding “Muslim NATO,” representing a massive shift away from total reliance on a U.S. security umbrella).
Among the other costs.
At least 940,000 people, probably more, have died directly from associated wars, with several million additionally estimated indirect deaths. Tens of millions were displaced, and those numbers continue to increase.
Meanwhile, America blindly created something hastily called the Department of Homeland Security.
Outright panic created a piece of legislation no one bothered to read before its congressional approval, and it enormously expanded U.S. domestic surveillance.
We remain chained even today to the murky waters of that legislation by DHS, hooded and roaming the streets of our major cities and kidnapping whoever they want without even the flimsiest legal consultation. We deport at will, terrorize others, and put the lie to future president John Adams’ statement in 1776 that we were created as “a nation of laws, not men.”
We fought two major wars, one of which (George Bush’s Afghan war,) was the longest ever fought by America, five times the length of WWII. During those undeclared wars, we tortured our adversaries, established abu Ghraib, and operated an indefinite detention center at Guantánamo, all without trials. Guantanamo was chosen because it was not on American soil, apparently caring more about the soil than the victims.
All of this before the eyes of the world, a world that initially was 100% on our side, and willing to support a wounded America in any way possible. If that didn’t radicalize Muslims against America, I don’t know what would.
Osama bin Laden knew he could never destroy the United States.
His gamble was that, frightened and enraged, the United States would do much of the damage itself. If there was any win at all for bin Laden, it was that.
We Americans have for too long failed to recognize the damage we have done, and continue to do, all by ourselves, in the fury of our loss and mistaken belief that might means right.
Those who died on 9-11, and the many who have died since from its result, deserve a more accurate accounting of what they gave their lives for.