Reflections 25 Years After 9/11
It’s been twenty-five years since the September 11 attacks, and there’s something I feel needs to be said, even if it’s not a popular opinion among many Americans.
In a way, it seems like Osama bin Laden is winning.
He couldn’t overpower the United States in a conventional military sense. Instead, he aimed for the long game, pushing us to exhaust ourselves and fundamentally alter the way we operate as a nation.
Although he didn’t claim victory in the traditional sense—American forces tracked him down in Pakistan in 2011, shot him, and reportedly disposed of his remains in the Arabian Sea—his influence still lingers. Al-Qaeda never toppled the U.S. government, nor did they establish the sprawling caliphate he envisioned.
But let’s be clear: bin Laden had a clear strategy. And disturbingly, much of it succeeded.
One of his primary goals was to remove American troops from Saudi Arabia. The presence that expanded after the Gulf War was significantly reduced by 2003, though the U.S. maintained a degree of military involvement.
He also sought to entangle the U.S. in prolonged wars in the Middle East. We certainly fell into that trap, and perhaps exceeded his expectations.
In 2004, bin Laden explicitly stated his intention to “bleed America to the point of bankruptcy.” Now, while he hasn’t bankrupt us yet, the national debt skyrocketed from about $5.8 trillion in 2001 to around $40.6 trillion today. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t account for all of that, but they did consume vast amounts of funding. By 2009, Congress had allocated more than $800 billion to military operations in those regions.
We spent two decades in Afghanistan, launched an invasion of Iraq, and eventually withdrew from Kabul as the Taliban regained power.
Throughout this period, we maintained the belief that the U.S. was an unstoppable force on the global stage.
My former professor, Angelo Codevilla, voiced concerns early on. After 9/11, he established a tough benchmark for what constitutes victory: You succeed when your enemy is forced to adapt their way of life, while you keep yours unchanged.
By that measure, bin Laden appears victorious. He’s no longer alive, but certainly, we have changed.
We established a permanent state of security, embracing widespread surveillance, watch lists, intrusive airport security, and a vast homeland security apparatus as part of everyday life.
We poured trillions into conflicts without a clear sense of our political goals. What did we expect to achieve by occupying Afghanistan for two decades? Or by going into Iraq?
What would victory have looked like?
Our leaders never fully answered those questions, especially not the last one.
Instead, we equated military strength with strategic acumen, mistaking our capacity to destroy for the ability to achieve desired outcomes.
This misunderstanding played right into bin Laden’s plans.
He couldn’t defeat the U.S. through military might; he needed us to exhaust and radically transform ourselves. And we have.
Then something curious happened after his death. In November 2023, young people began sharing bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” on TikTok. Some claimed it altered their perspective on U.S. foreign policy. Many of those engaging with his writings had no direct recollection of 9/11.
They weren’t joining al-Qaeda; rather, some found themselves reflecting on the logic behind the perspectives presented by the man who orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans.
Sure, bin Laden is gone, but his narrative seems to resonate even now.
Moreover, America today is more religiously diverse, with a significant Muslim population compared to when he first struck. Muslims, while still a minority at about 1.6%, have a much more pronounced cultural and political influence than in 2001.
Yet, this growth isn’t inherently alarming. The majority of American Muslims are not aligned with bin Laden’s ideology. Many might wonder why resort to acts of terror when it’s possible to engage in politics, such as electing co-religionists to office in local communities.
There’s a balance to be struck here. While the principles of religious freedom are vital, it’s also crucial that religions adhere to our constitutional principles and the norms expected of citizens. With citizenship comes duty.
George Washington captured this sentiment well in his 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, where he asserted that the U.S. gives “no sanction to bigotry,” yet requires that those under its protection act as good citizens.
There’s a mutual obligation here. The nation offers protection, and in return, citizens owe it their allegiance.
Yet, as a society, we’ve become proficient in discussing one side of this equation while almost shying away from the other. That’s a grave error. Practicing Sharia law, in its strictest form, stands in contrast to our Constitution.
Nations can falter without being outright defeated. They can dilute their own power, misinterpret their reputation as strength, and conflate previous superiority with current realities.
Moreover, they can change so profoundly in reaction to an adversary that they lose sight of what victory was meant to safeguard.
Bin Laden is no longer with us, but Codevilla’s question lingers: Who transformed whom?
Our foes didn’t reorganize themselves around us; we adapted ourselves around them.
And so, a quarter-century after 9/11 and fifteen years since bin Laden’s death, the uncomfortable truth emerges: He appears to be winning the long game, while we are losing.
