James Hollomon
I've spent many decades learning from US foreign policy blunders.
Yes, I agree with this article in The Nation, where Terry Englehart says, 14 Years After 9/11, the War on Terror Is Accomplishing Everything bin Laden Hoped It Would. He notes that, "Al Qaeda goaded us into doing what it had neither the resources nor the ability to do."
We launced a botched attempt to get al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. With his eyes on Iraq, George W. Bush deliberately let the guilty parties escape Tora Bora. We launched the truly disastrous war of choice against an Iraq we knew had no WMDs and no role in 9/11. We've trashed our constitution and democracy, turned to constant hair-on-fire fear mongering as the pro-war ads about Iran now showcase, and turned America into a playground for elite oligarchs. We've lost 4,000 good people, left hundreds of thousands of veterans damaged for life, killed who knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, made an unstable mess of the Middle East playing right into Iran's hands, and wasted $4 trillion to accomplish all this. Bin Laden got a great deal of mileage out of 19 men and a few box cutters.
ISIS Executions in Iraq
He's also provided a true panacea for conspiracy theorist who now are certain that the same government that cannot fix the potholes in our streets has pulled of a worldwide conspiracy involving millions of government agents and agencies across the entire planet and kept it all secret for 14 years. You see, the conspiracy theorists know this for certain precisely because all evidence of it has been so totally suppressed, showing just how deep the conspiracy runs. Why my own grandmother was in on it, and she's been dead for 35 years.
Charles Fletcher
Al Qaeda was driven into hiding. Prior to 9/11, Al Qaeda had launched a series of attacks with increasing devastation on the West. Since then they have not come close to repeating a 9/11 style attack. They lost their ability to establish and maintain safe havens in friendly countries.
The world is less accepting of Islam than ever before and Islamic terrorists have given that religion a reputation such that only their own internal purging of Islamic terrorists could ever allow them to recover from.
If bin Laden was out for the undermining of the religion he claimed to support, I’d say he was remarkably successful. Otherwise, no.
Randy McDonald
studied at Queen's University at Kingston
I have said in the past that the experience of 9/11, where with two dozen or so volunteers and a half-million dollars spent Osama Bin Laden forever altered the shape of the world, shows the ability of one man to change the world.
I stand by this claim. Why wouldn’t I? With one single act of highly visible hyperterrorism, Osama Bin Laden managed to change forever the way in which Islam, individual Muslims, and Muslim countries were perceived around the world. He managed to trigger a series of catastrophic wars that shows no sign of ending, and, worse, managed to get enough people dealing with issues of religious diversity in the wrong ways to trigger a tidal wave of misunderstandings with potentially dire consequences.
Gus Manuel
studied at Wellesley College (1973)l
Paul Marks
The objective of Osama Bin Laden was to drive Western (“infidel”) forces from the Middle East, and to overthrow the governments in the Middle East that are in alliance with the West.
He failed - Osama Bin Laden failed, he was a loser and he is in Hell. Where all his followers will also go.
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