25 Years after 9/11, Bin Laden has achieved one of his major goals

On Sept. 10, 2001, I got into an argument with one of my friends about our planned day trip to the World Trade Center the next day. He told me he did not want to wake up early. I argued that we should get there as soon as possible, so that we could maximize our time both at the top of the towers and in downtown Manhattan.

He won the argument. The next day, instead of being in downtown Manhattan, we stood on Garret Mountain in Clifton, N.J. and watched the towers come down.

Like millions of Americans, I struggled with what I saw. I joined the thousands who enlisted in the military out of a sense of duty. I also felt an immense amount of hatred in my heart. I hated Osama Bin Laden, terrorists, people who made excuses for what happened, and those who thought we should not have plunged headfirst into what we called an expanding “War on Terror.” I told myself that going into Iraq (where I went as a Marine) was a mistake, but that the larger goal of fighting terrorism justified our expanding military operations around the world. And boy, did we expand the fight to include a litany of countries bombed and trillions of dollars spent.

But we accomplished our goals, right? Well, 25 years later, it has become apparent that we have not defeated terrorism. The world is a less safe place despite our actions, and Bin Laden achieved one of his main goals: to bleed America dry and force its economy to buckle.

Although he initially wanted the U.S. to withdraw its forces and influence from the Middle East, he realized rather quickly that the U.S. had made a huge blunder by expanding the war into Iraq. In 2004, he released a video that then sounded like a madman yelling nonsense on the street corner. The truth is, it hit very close to home then — we just didn’t want to admit it because of pride. As........

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