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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Yes. History will record that bin Laden won. There's a pre-9/11 book about bin Laden, "The Man Who Declared War on America". Bin Laden was interviewed.

Consider the situation at the end of the Clinton administration. The US was at peace. The Soviet Union was gone. The US got along with China and Russia. No major enemies remained. The federal budget was balanced. Bin Laden looked at that, and realized that America had to be weakened before it could be defeated. That was his plan.

Mission accomplished.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden:_The_Man_Who_Declare...

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Bin Laden’s ultimate objective was to evict US military forces from the Middle East. In response to 9/11, we massively expanded our footprint in the region and formed even deeper relationships with the Saudi government (whom Bin Laden hated for in his view, “[suspending] Islamic laws, and replacing it with statuary laws”). You can read it all in his original, late 90s declaration of jihad against the United States[1] and decide for yourself if you think he ultimately achieved what he wanted, but for my money, he lost basically everything. In the strictest sense, we did stop “occupying” (stationing troops) in Saudi Arabia itself after we kicked off the Iraq war and concentrated our forces in Iraq and at Al Udeid airbase, but I don’t think that was really the spirit of the thing.

[1] https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Declara...

> Bin Laden’s ultimate objective was to evict US military forces from the Middle East

Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” photo op was, ironically, on the same day US troops complied with bin Laden’s demand for them to leave Saudi Arabian soil.

Ironic? Or timed specifically to overshadow it in the news?

But the US troops are still there.

Yes, sixteen years later troops returned.

Stay tuned to see if it incites another massive terrorist attack leading to permanently diminished civil rights.

I think there's a reasonable case to make that 9/11 broke American politics in a fundamental way, by fully unlocking and granting a permission structure for politicians to reach for nativism and xenophobia to justify basically everything.

It's clear that Bin Laden did not "win" in any immediate sense, but America might have still lost, so there's a claim to a Pyrrhic victory.

The truly erratic and unstable nature of the US regime in this moment unlocks strange possibilities that would otherwise have been unthinkable - for example, the current regime seeming to throw Israel to the wolves in order to cover its own military blunders.

> America might have still lost, so there's a claim to a Pyrrhic victory.

Might have??

America has spent - at the lowest possible estimate - at least 8 trillion dollars on the "war on terror". Probably more like 20-something. Trillion.

That's enough money to have transitioned to entirely clean energy, housed every homeless American, and solved world hunger. With change.

The DOW is over 50 thousand though, I guess, and the Epstein class are richer than ever.

> for example, the current regime seeming to throw Israel to the wolves in order to cover its own military blunders.

Uh, what?

Israel threw themselves to the wolves, if 'wolves' are what we're calling the consequences of doing ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide.

America have been the single greatest force by far holding the 'wolves' at bay. If they stop because the 'wolves' are threatening their own stability, that's not really "throwing Israel" anywhere.

9/11 was just a bloody blip compared to the decades of spiraling indoctrination with varying focal points.

the same way that now "progressive leftists" are completely working themselves into an anticapitalist frenzy, and before them the (performative) woke and the reactive antiwoke mania spread like wildfire, before that it was the homophobia and islamophobia (triggered by 9/11), and before that the red scare, and the reefer madness, and whatnot.

https://www.npr.org/2004/12/15/4229442/from-direct-mail-to-a...

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con (2012 by Rick Perlstein)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_the_Un... (Richard Hofstadter, 1964)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-682x.... (Three Kinds of Anti-Intellectualism: Rethinking Hofstadter, 1991 by Daniel Rigney)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2018.1... (Anti-intellectualism is a virus, 2018 by Michael A. Peters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teqkK0RLNkI (Conspiracy, 2025 by ContraPoints)

All this due to US want to be hegemon, based all around the world. Why cannot live in harmony with others in a multi-polar world?

> Yes. History will record that bin Laden won

Or as The Onion has put it:

https://theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-...

The problem started way before Bin Laden; in a large part due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb and his brother Mohammed who taught Osama Bin Laden.

Many Muslims weren't political before the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood got enough influence.

What surprised me, was the indifference of people when all this was happening. Saying that the American response to the terrorist attacks was essentially the aim of the terrorist at first place and that they won just went unregistered - no counter arguments or rage or anything, no one cared about this claim.

Oh come on. You’re trying to be edgy without any understanding of reality.

It’s like saying History will record Gavrilo Princip as having won WW1. Huh?

America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits. Both of which are happening in every developed country, having nothing to do with 9/11. The foreign interventionism is a 100 year tradition in the US, nothing new under the sun.

The only thing Bin Laden accomplished is making air travel annoying, making some military contractors filthy rich, and getting hundreds of thousands of his Muslim brothers killed over values that are slowly eroding in the Middle East anyways.

The American global military empire was always going to decline over time, if anything, his actions reversed that decline and led to more American intervention. He got the opposite of what he wanted.

I do think spending a trillion dollars on Iraq might have something to do with the deficit.

Did France, Germany, the UK, etc. spend a trillion dollars in Iraq? How did they get themselves in the same ballooning deficit death spiral?

The US did spend a Trillion on Iraq. But during Covid they spent nearly $5T...in 1/4th the time they spent 1 in Iraq. They also spent $9T on QE.

Iraq is a drop in the bucket. The real problem is a structural one with modern democracies. Turns out when you can legally take your citizens money at gunpoint and also tax the entire world via inflationary money printing with few short term consequences, this power gets abused.

Germany dont have the same ballooning debt problem: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/germany/usa?sc=...

Their economies have problems, but USA leads in debt.

They do have the same problem.

You're not adjusting for growth rates.

Also, Germany's debt isn't in the global reserve currency, so their problem is arguably worse. The actually have to pay for it using their 0 growth economy.

The US will just tax the entire world to pay for its debts by printing more of the global reserve currency and inflating it away.

If the problem is booming deficits, then the cause isn't taking citizens money at gunpoint, because that doesn't cause a deficit. The cause is the voters, they want the benefits now but they don't want to pay for them, so they pass the bills onto their children and grandchildren. The government is doing exactly what the voters are asking for.

This is very true. However, institutions being granted this power in the first place (unlimited taxation via threat of violence, unlimited deficit spending power, unlimited money printer access on the global currency) is what enables the abuse by the politicians and voters all acting in their short term self interest.

If the US didn't have the world's reserve currency like Germany/France/UK/etc, the bill would come due via the bond markets. The demand for Euro-denominated debt is not near-infinite in the same way the demand for USD-denominated debt has been (at least up until now).

> America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits.

American problem is one sided right wing radicalization, not polarization. If left of center moved the the right even more, the issues would remain.

I will call this Exhibit A in proving my point about polarization, thank you left-leaning person lacking in self-awareness.

Now we just need a right-leaning person who lacks self awareness to offer a rebuttal to you and we can complete the picture.

Are Americans really more polarized? I guess it depends on when you choose your baseline.

It's certainly true that the political parties are more polarized, didn't used to be as ideological as they are now. To a large extent, the southern Democrats all left to join the Republican party, and the "compassionate conservatives" have mostly abandoned the Republican party. I expect with the split between MAGA and the America first people we are beginning to see another realignment.

It’s an interesting question if we are more polarized now than at some point in the past. Hard to say, I wonder if there is some way to measure this? Maybe you could compare the amount of “undecided” voters over time.

You always here people say one half of the country is red and the other half is blue, but in reality is probably more like 1/3 each red/blue and another 3rd who don’t subscribe to the dogma of either side and are fed up with the endless bickering between the two teams.

One thing that’s for certain is the tech giants tech giants and news companies are attempting to manipulate us more than ever. It might feel like we’re more polarized that ever, but I think much of that is because it’s good for business, and they are shoving division in our faces on a daily basis.

There is real evidence of this by an awesome project called “Tech Watch Project” (https://techwatchproject.org/). They have a data dashboard with real time charts at https://americasdigitalshield.com/.

The idea is that tech giants are purposely trying to manipulate voters in the middle by feeding them more biased search results, notifications, et cetera. The thing about this, is that on close election they can literally swing elections the way they want them to go by manipulating undecided voters algorithms.

In elections with wider margins it’s not going to have an effect, but in close races it only takes a point or two to get the desired result. This is a power they should not have and it needs to be talked about more.

The U.S. is simply one of the developed countries where right wing populism has grown in response to mass immigration. If center-left folks flipped on immigration, the current right wing populism would collapse, just like happened in Denmark: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4yo

> If center-left folks flipped on immigration, the current right wing populism would collapse,

This theory is false, it does not work. It was tested to destruction in the UK this year and tl;dr: it's how to annoy everyone. When the centre-left party chases the right-wing, they disillusion their base and lose votes there, without gaining any significant number or right-wingers, who still prefer what they see as the "real thing". And the right-wingers are emboldened, not collapsed - they take one step back for every step taken towards them.

The long version is here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zbmp3_v2

It does work. It’s exactly what happened in Denmark: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4y. But you have to actually mean it and follow through on it. People need to believe the party has genuinely changed its position on the issue, instead of merely changing its messaging. Every thing Starmer said indicated he was soft on immigration and he took no meaningful steps to stop it and send refugees back.

Your article is 404 not found. Thank you for your opinion that "centre-left parties should actually be right-wing, it works, trust me". However, I do not share it and nor did the UK. Nor does the linked study, whose analysis and methods I find more persuasive than yours.

> Every thing Starmer said indicated he was soft on immigration and he took no meaningful steps to stop it and send refugees back.

Immigration into the UK is steeply down (1), the "took no meaningful steps" is just not true. But this is not how the topic is reported. I do believe that Home Secretary Mahmood truly does believe the hard-line things that she says (2) and that it is in no way winning any votes for Labour. Again, actual Labour voters are repulsed, and Reform voters are not attracted.

This underscores my point that ceding this issue is not how centre-left parties win. I refer you to the study linked above as to how this backfired due to these perceptions.

1) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyp1ekd584o

2) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/21/shabana-mah...

Try this one: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4yo

What i’m describing is literally how the Danish left got back in power. In the UK you’d need someone in Labour at least as aggressive as Fredrickson: https://theconversation.com/denmarks-prime-minister-has-led-.... Immigration isn’t “left wing” or “right wing.” It’s just neoliberalism. It’s based on viewing people as fungible units of labor output.

> Immigration isn’t “left wing” or “right wing.”

I do not agree. This is obviously an issue that the far right continually talk about. In racist terms.

In academic language from the linked study:

> Thus, accommodating the radical right on immigration could benefit the radical right by increasing the salience of an issue on which it has long been perceived as having a comparative advantage

> This is obviously an issue that the far right continually talk about.

That’s labeling. Neoliberals coined the term “far right” to refer to a group that to the left of the conventional right on economic issues.

> increasing the salience of an issue on which it has long been perceived as having a comparative advantage

The Danish left predicted (imo, correctly) that the issue would remain and get more salient due to external factors. Then they got on the right side of it.

The alternative approach is to hope the issue will reduce in salience. The problem is that the unruly coalitions that you need to stop far right parties can’t meaningfully give their constituents anything else they want. This is the problem in Germany, France, and the UK.

Yes, describing political groups is literally "labelling". The idea that the UK's anti-immigrant far right aren't actually far right is just laughable.

Definitions must be consistent with each other. Conventionally, “right” means more capitalist and “left” means more socialist. To be consistent with that existing definition, the “far right” would be the folks trying to privatize social security, eliminate banking regulations, eliminate barriers to free trade, etc. It would refer to libertarians, not anti-immigration populists.

> To be consistent with that existing definition, the “far right” would be the folks trying to privatize social security, eliminate banking regulations, eliminate barriers to free trade,

Yes, the far right parties in the UK are trying to do most of that (1) as well as inciting race riots against immigrants. I don't think that you have a point here.

1) not so much on the free trade, they talk a good fight on potential global trade deals, but their record is not so great - spurning actual EU free trade, going along with the USA's attempted trade wars.

On that last point, the USA now is a counterexample to your criteria.

The U.S. isn’t a counter example, it proves my point. People call the Trump GOP “far right.” But Trump abandoned the Bush GOP’s project of privatizing social security and promised not to touch Medicare. And Trump eliminated taxation of social security benefits. It hasn’t tried to repeal Obama’s additional regulation of banks. And it has destroyed the Reagan/Bush free trade framework. In all of those areas, the Trump GOP is to the left of the Bush/Reagan GOP.

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left vs right was never a good framework. there are traditional fascists who believe in a state controlled economy and nazi style race laws. libertarians who want gay rights and no social security. socialists can be progressive or conservative on issues like abortion. if you want to collapse it all into one axis you lose all the differences.

Of course, collapsing to one axis can only be reductive. Reducing means losing information, simplifications simplify; and the question is if you are losing a meaningful signal, or losing mostly noise.

It is true that "there are ... libertarians who want gay rights and no social security" - they do exist. But are they a significant percentage of the voters, compared to the more regular right wing (e.g. UK Reform / Restore) who get double-digit percentages of the vote? No, they are not.

> The Danish left predicted (imo, correctly) that the issue would remain and get more salient due to external factors. Then they got on the right side of it.

I see that you added this. There's a lot going on. "External factors" sounds like fixed facts of the world. But as I pointed out above, Immigration into the UK is steeply down (1), but this is not your perception or many other perception of the topic. It's not driven by facts.

Would you describe a mega-rich person in the USA using their social platform to stoke racial hatred in the UK and promote conspiracy theories as "external factors", fixed facts of the world? (1)

The far right engages in endless grievances and stoking of culture wars. It's what they do, they are not going to be satisfied with a minor concession, they will just be emboldened instead. And win or lose, if they have to abandon the current grievance, they will find something else to turn into the next grievance. Facts are secondary to this.

The idea that a rational centre-left party can meaningfully "get on the right side" of this escalation - and do so by agreeing with the hate-mongers - is not just wrong, it's nonsensical. Again, Mr Starmer tried it and got nothing.

If you think that's the "right side" then what you want is a right-wing party, no centre-left party is ever going to be the one for you - and this is in common with most voters as I said above.

> The alternative approach is to hope the issue will reduce in salience.

Nope. As they say, "Hope is not a strategy". The right is not going to stop stoking culture wars, as as it works for them, it's their main weapon. This is not a thing that will "naturally" reduce in salience by itself, as it was a political choice in the first place.

1) https://www.trtworld.com/article/18192985

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/elon...

If you think radicalization is only a problem on the side of Team Red and not so for Team Blue, I would urge you to reevaluate your opinion.

whatabout the other side!?!?!?!1

> bin Laden won

are his people better off or are they worse off?

Al-Qaeda is larger and their allies in Afghanistan have further consolidated their rule. I might not call that "better off" but it's certainly in the direction bin Laden wanted things to go.

Most of the funding for the campaign came via Saudi Arabian citizens [0], and they have absolutely benefited from the change in political power in the Middle East.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20060311045338/http://news.bbc.c...

> Saudi Arabian citizens

"Saudi Arabian citizens" == literally the House of Saud, and their direct associates.

Bin Ladin came from a wealthy family of construction magnates with ties to the royals. It's like if Barron Trump decided to move to rural Ontario and start a Christian Identity movement.

Was his goal to provide for his people? I thought his goal was to bring down the Great Satan.

As mentioned above his main beef was American troops in the holy Land in Saudi Arabia.

No Bin Laden's beef was the flow of history. The Islamic world has lost its power and influence to control events.

What really hurt Bin Laden was the knowledge that the Saudi elite WANTED American troops in the holy land. His real enemy was never America, the West or crusaders it was his fellow Muslims- who have for the large part rejected his insane ramblings.

Whilst I think there’s some truth to this, America’s elite would have brought us to this point anyway. Trump is a symptom of unfettered neoliberalism exporting jobs and destroying communities rather than a cause. Bin Laden drew America into forever wars and solidified their enemies in some dimensions. But America’s great downfall has been the ruthless pursuit of self-interest by its elite. They smashed the social compact and destroyed its institutions in the pursuit of profit.

I think Bin Laden will get a chapter in the book on the fall of America, but Reagan will be on the front cover.

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