This is going to sound facetious, but it’s not:
The War on Terror is over and We Lost.
Osama bin Laden never wanted to conquer America. He didn’t want to live in the White House or take a dump on Ronald Reagan’s grave. What he wanted to do was change America and he succeeded beyond belief.
He turned us into a country that attacks first, a country that spies on its own citizens, that watches us almost everywhere we go, that has turned our airports into places even more unpleasant than they were before. He made us suspicious of our neighbors, scared of foreigners and taught us to hate other religions.
He destroyed our economy, turned our government from one in surplus to one mortgaging our future for security.
It may be hard for people to believe, but before 911, the anger between red states and blue states was real, but didn’t involve the hatred it does now.
Get the point?
Osama didn’t conquer us, he made us flush much of what was good about our country right down the drain.
Without bin Laden and what he accomplished in 2001, there is no possible way Donald Trump would ever have been president. So much of his campaign — indeed so much of his presidency — was all about fear and loathing of foreigners. Whether it was Mexicans sneaking across our border or Muslims defacing Baby Jesus in Christmas creches, Trump was about hating people who weren’t like us.
What bin Laden hated about our society was its tolerance toward difference. What he wanted was to take that away from us, to make us hate those who are different.
We were badly divided over the issue of Vietnam in the ’60s and ’70s, but while there were certainly Archie Bunkers and Abbie Hoffmans among us, there were still plenty of people who might disagree with what you said but would still defend to the death your right to say it.
And most people on both sides were reasonable. By 1980, Charlie Daniels came out with a song, “In America,” in which he sang of how the country was coming back together.
It was, too. Except for the far right, the religio-fascist types like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, most folks were getting along pretty well. Part of it was that as far to the right as Ronald Reagan was, he was never negative or mean.
In fact, one of the smartest things Reagan ever said was that it was amazing how much you could accomplish if you didn’t cae who got the credit.
It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Reagan had been president on 911 or later instead of the somewhat dimwitted George W. Bush or the egomaniacal Donald Trump.
It’s tough to imagine Reagan saying he was the greatest president ever, or calling himself “your favorite president.”
Yes, bin Laden may be dead, but he left us the legacy of Donald Trump.
And the young woman holding up the Trump sign at the beginning?
Her name is Noor.
Noor bin Laden.