Post 9/11: Did bin Laden win?
THERE was muted commemoration in the US and in its allies of the worst attack ever on American soil that totally destroyed the World Trade Center Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,996 people. There were very few articles and opinion columns in US newspapers about it, several significantly even ruing that Americans seem to be forgetting the horrific event and its implications.

It was only Ben Kritz, an American colleague in this paper, who wrote about it the other day, in a bitter tone. He reported that his and a CNN broadcaster’s comment as they watched live the towers burning was: “Our world has forever changed.” Several paragraphs later, however, he writes: “The only thing that has really changed is that everyone’s execrable attitudes and behaviors have gotten a lot worse. The same theocratic authoritarian regime in Iran that carefully cultivates one brand of extremists to maintain its hold on power is still there.” He misses what really happened in the 23 years after 9/11.The subdued commemoration of 9/11 in America and elsewhere arises from a creeping feeling that two decades after that horrifying attack, Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian architect of that diabolical deed has achieved what he actually intended to do.Born to a billionaire family and educated in that oil-rich nation’s best universities, bin Laden was certainly not stupid to think that the attack would frighten America to withdraw its interventions in the Islamic Middle East, and give up its massive financial support that has made an Israel exist.
What bin Laden wanted was to anger Americans so much they would intensify their wars against Muslims so as to even invade nations they deemed to nurture terrorist groups.The result of such American vengeful wars would enrage Muslims all over the world so they would intensify their jihad against the World Satan, Osama bin Laden calculated.
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