The men stepping aboard four flights on the morning of September 11, 2001 were determined to topple an empire. Are they succeeding?
Oh, I don’t think all of the men getting on those flights were about the empire-busting. The 19 individuals we are presumably talking about were of Middle-Eastern or North African descent, were adherents to a certain religion of peace, were big on box-cutters, were misogynists, and had illusions of grandeur, and had several other personality flaws.
Did they succeed in being the beginning of the end of our Republic? Not in the least. America is as strong as ever, and now at least half of the population thinks that terrorism is a serious threat. (Thus ensuring that we will use our strength to fight terrorism.)
Yes. They’re succeeding. “[…]cross the river Halys and you shall destroy a great empire” Herodotus 1:88-90. Though empire is perhaps the wrong term for such a pathetic little squalid thing they had going. Sure they’re succesfull in toppling their own empire of delusional minds.
See also this article Time Out of Joint, Western dominance, Islamic terror, and the Arab imagination by Sadik J. Al-Azm.
[…] this violence will be the prelude to the dissipation and final demise of militant Islamism in general […] Islam is simply too weak to sustain in earnest any challenge to an obviously triumphant West. […] The two supposedly clashing sides are so unequal in power, military might, productive capacity, efficiency, effective institutions, wealth, social organization, science, and technology that the clash can only be of the inconsequential sort. As one literary metaphor says, If a stone falls on an egg the egg breaks, and if an egg falls on a stone the egg breaks too.”
In the long run the only eggs breaking are those of the terrorists boarding those four planes. It was inevitable in any case, but their actions has only helped to further it.
Do empires fall with a crash… or do they crumble slowly ?
I think they crumble slowly… and we might be seeing the cracks in the armor. Or the US was already in “decline” relatively speaking ? US’s percent share of world GDP is falling since post WWII. Eventually the US will be only another major power ? Might take time… but it will happen. At least for foreigners it has become clear that the USA isn’t a benevolent giant that will police the world for us… any illusions or admiration in that sense has been hurt badly.
Well let’s see, the attacks of 9/11 have gotten us shaking in our boots so badly that the majority of us may actually reelect the worst president since Hoover.
The terrorists succeeded. I highly doubt their goal was to launch massive attacks on a yearly basis. They only needed that one big strike to scare us into an extremely panicked state from which we would make rash and foolish decisions. Look at the news. Look at the cheers everytime Bush makes a point about 9/11.
We played right into it and people don’t even realize it. 
Hey, some of us do realize it.
The above two statements can’t both be true, can they?
I’m not going to stand here and let you slander Herbert Hoover like that! Seriously, though, Hoover was a brilliant leader compared to this clown. Some have said that you have to go back to McKinley to find a worse President, but even though McKinley was also a whore for big business, and took us into a war under false pretenses, the war-mongering had more to do with the press and the Congress than with McKinley, so even he comes out ahead of Bush.
You’ve heard of opinions, yes? 
There isn’t too much about this whole terrorism thing that isn’t in dispute, so most of the conclusions depend on how you consider the question. I don’t agree that those hjiackers were setting out to topple an empire. I think they felt they were striking a blow to start what would become a war between civilizations. Whether they were successful in that aim remains to be seen.