As painful as it is for me to say this, it must be said; Osama Bin Laden has won his war with America.
Bin Laden's charge on the United States on September 11, 2001 achieved all that it set out to do and much, much more. Whether Bin Laden lives or dies now, he has achieved victory. He has survived unscathed despite efforts to kill him (I can't say 'best efforts' because we didn't try as hard as we could), despite millions of dollars of recompense money, despite our technology; he has survived living in cave while ambling over the mountains of Afghanistan with relative ease.
He's won plain and simple. In our hearts, and genuinely in the minds of our politicians, we all know it. Our response to Bin Laden and our inability to kill or capture him has shown our impotence to the world and in some ways to ourselves. It may be time to pack up, come home and live to fight someone else day.
As our soldiery trudge their way straight through Afghanistan, following on the dusty footsteps of the many prior invading armies in history, their heroic combat and sacrifices ring empty. What are they chasing? Why are they there? Why weren't they there in October 2001 when we knew where Bin Laden was hiding?
If we add up what Bin Laden's charge has cost us we will perceive that his relatively small investment in attacking us yielded staggering, unimaginable, results. One could argue that Bin Laden's charge went a long way to nudging the U.S. Toward our fiscal crisis. He costs us everything.
There is the priceless loss of the lives of the innocents who were killed on that fateful day and the many who have been sick since. In addition there were the costs of the payment paid to their families, the airplanes, the world trade center complicated destruction and replacement, the loss of the businesses housed in and around them, the loss of enterprise straight through the no-fly time duration and the constricted question for commercial flying after that.
Add to that the increased worldwide protection in terms of time and money. Our, and our allies, war dead and wounded. Loss of materiel in the theatres of battle; the war in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated at trillion. The death of an estimated 1 million Iraqis and payment paid to their families; the cost of supporting Iraq during the course of rebuilding, with increased Naval and Air Force alertness in patrolling Middle East waters. The upping of the ante in the Middle East, to the current state of tinderbox readiness for war has kept our soldiery in high state of alert for years. The trashing of the U.S.'s reputation in the world by the way we responded to the attacks. There's more but you get the point. The costs are near incomprehensible in their enormity. Perhaps the most indispensable cost has been our governments assertion of authority over us and the gross erosion of our freedoms. Bin Laden could never had foreseen this and must be chuckling still behind his straggly beard.
Bin Laden's actions have emboldened the despots of the world. That's why Iran and North Korea no longer fear the U.S., assuming they ever did.
A lesson learned many times in history demonstrates what one person can do if they set their mind to it. While Bin Laden's success is not quite a David and Goliath story, it's darn close. And that is a lesson for us all. You don't need a nuclear weapon to turn the world; just the will to dare and the potential to deal with the consequences. In Bin Laden and his followers cases death would have been a welcome and proud release.
I don't want to delve into the fantasy theories that Bush in some way protected Bin Laden. Granted the Bushes and the Bin Laden house are friends. One must ask the sure question as to why Bush was so intent in seeking justice in Iraq - a country we all knew was not harboring the enemy? Why did the government suddenly switch gears from Afghanistan to Iraq when we were so close to killing or capturing the enemy? Why did Bush and his banditos allow Osama Bin Laden to slip straight through their fingers?
Only history can contribute the answers because our politicians can't, or won't.
Osama Bin Laden Has Won His War With America
