BIN LADEN'S LEGACY
Death may have ended Osama bin Laden's terrorist career, but analysis of his legacy is just beginning.
And it is shaping up to be a truly astonishing legacy.
With a few hundred, or even just a few dozen operatives, and about a half million dollars, bin Laden did what the German Kaiser in WWI, Hitler and Togo in WWII, and Stalin and Khrushchev in the Cold War couldn't: starting America on the slow but inevitable decline from greatness to ruin.
Bin Laden consciously provoked an America newly governed by leaders bent on conquest in the Middle East, to over react to his pinprick attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon using flying lessons, airline tickets and box cutters. He set a trap that America willingly dove into by launching utterly unnecessary wars against nations instead of the rag tag but clever criminals under his spiritual guidance.
Here we are ten years later bogged down with semi official wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya plus military action in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and God only knows what other places we aren't told about. Against bin Laden's half million we've squandered a trillion and a half so far, with trillions more yet to come.
Meanwhile, we barely invest pennies in rebuilding an America crumbling physically as well as spiritually. Heroic teachers face larger class sizes while warding off assaults against decent wages and working conditions. We ignore truly fixing the worst health care delivery system in the industrialized world. Fourteen million Americans are still looking for work that has been largely shipped overseas. On top of the unsustainable cost of endless war we give unsustainable tax cuts to the rich.
Bin Laden knew America better than we Americans, and exploited those insights brilliantly to begin our decline. Just when we might be having a real debate about obscene military spending his killing will stifle any legitimate criticism. A military that can track and kill bin Laden is above spending cuts.
Americans may be high-fiving bin Laden's demise and spiking the figurative head nearly blown off his torso, but they would better serve their interests by observing the quicksand spreading under their American feet. Quicksand provided by Osama bin Laden.
Also published in the Daily Herald, May 13, 2011
And it is shaping up to be a truly astonishing legacy.
With a few hundred, or even just a few dozen operatives, and about a half million dollars, bin Laden did what the German Kaiser in WWI, Hitler and Togo in WWII, and Stalin and Khrushchev in the Cold War couldn't: starting America on the slow but inevitable decline from greatness to ruin.
Bin Laden consciously provoked an America newly governed by leaders bent on conquest in the Middle East, to over react to his pinprick attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon using flying lessons, airline tickets and box cutters. He set a trap that America willingly dove into by launching utterly unnecessary wars against nations instead of the rag tag but clever criminals under his spiritual guidance.
Here we are ten years later bogged down with semi official wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya plus military action in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and God only knows what other places we aren't told about. Against bin Laden's half million we've squandered a trillion and a half so far, with trillions more yet to come.
Meanwhile, we barely invest pennies in rebuilding an America crumbling physically as well as spiritually. Heroic teachers face larger class sizes while warding off assaults against decent wages and working conditions. We ignore truly fixing the worst health care delivery system in the industrialized world. Fourteen million Americans are still looking for work that has been largely shipped overseas. On top of the unsustainable cost of endless war we give unsustainable tax cuts to the rich.
Bin Laden knew America better than we Americans, and exploited those insights brilliantly to begin our decline. Just when we might be having a real debate about obscene military spending his killing will stifle any legitimate criticism. A military that can track and kill bin Laden is above spending cuts.
Americans may be high-fiving bin Laden's demise and spiking the figurative head nearly blown off his torso, but they would better serve their interests by observing the quicksand spreading under their American feet. Quicksand provided by Osama bin Laden.
Also published in the Daily Herald, May 13, 2011
posted by Walt Zlotow at 4:04 AM
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