Often, a terrorist’s goal is to cause enough damage through attrition to negotiate better terms than what they’re currently getting. For example, a Supreme Court justice has 1/9 control over decisions of the court. That’s pretty good and not likely to get higher, so justices don’t become terrorists. If you’re part of a marginalized group, though, you might want a bigger stake in the decision-making. You don’t have the power to seize it yourself, so you decide to hurt those that do have that power. Hopefully, they’ll throw up their hands and cut you a chunk of the power pie.
So what power does bin Laden want? The power to influence governments to enact Sharia law, Osama-style. He can’t seize this power directly, so he commits terror acts to make the governments listen to him. Look at the Madrid train bombings- after the attack, the government pulls out of the war. That’s the idea right there. bin Laden couldn’t pull out the troops, so he terrorized those that could.
I’d say that overall, he failed miserably to get the U.S. government to listen to him. Unfortunately, now the Pakistani government is feeling the pressure. Did 9/11 have something to do with that? Recruitment-wise, yes. And that, I’d say, was bin Laden’s biggest success- his organization’s street cred grew.
Had we crushed al Qaeda back when the trail was hot, 9/11 would have failed. We screwed it up by letting them get away.
Actually we do know what his goals were as he was pretty explicit about it.
He achieved his tactical objective which was to terrorize the US populace hurt the economy and get us to run around in a paranoid frenzy bolstering our security measures and spying on our own populace. All of that was achieved.
His strategic goal of removing the US from Saudi Arabia has yet to be achieved, but 9/11 was one salvo in a protracted war.
So I think it is indisputable that he won the battle, but hasn’t yet won the war.
Not this again, Spaniards were opposed to the Iraq war that had bupkiss to do with 9/11. The fact that the past Spanish government tried to blame Spanish terrorists for the attracts was the last straw and they left Iraq as many others did when it became clear that Iraq was something else.
But Spain still supports the efforts in Afghanistan. Even early this year they actually increased the number of troops over there.
I still remember that a year ago about 60 Spanish soldiers died in a plane crash in Afghanistan. You tell me if that is a pull out from the war on terror.
Well shortly after 9/11 there was a host of Saudi royalty that suddenly found themselves dead. So no it wasn’t proven TO US, but they certainly cleaned house.
I think you’re missing the point here. You are creating an arbitrary distinction that has no bearing on real life. The Saudi royal family was matching US funds in Afghanistan dollar for dollar during the Jihad against the USSR. Osama bin Laden was a major spender of that foreign largesse, and also a major benefactor of contracts started with that money, such as the building of roads to transport material to the front and to build up the infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Trying to disentangle Saudi royal support from that is like trying to cut a Gordian Knot. The same people who were the Jihadis against the Soviets were the Jihadis against us, and the Saudis definitely supported them. They weren’t nearly as dilligent with their accounting as the CIA, and even the CIA worked very much in a grey area as evidenced by the trouble caused by the Stinger buy back program.
Basically Saudi royal money has flooded Afghan Mujahideen and other Salafist groups throughout the world. It wasn’t until that money was used to attack the US in such a spectacular way that they moved to cover their tracks. Were the Saudi Royal family directly behind 9/11? Probably not, did they back Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Most certainly without a doubt.
Think of it this way. Think of Afghanistan’s Mujahideen as a swimming pool, now thing of Saudi Arabian money as the water in that pool. The Saudi water utility keeps filling the pool, and all the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world swim in it. Trying to distinguish which dollar came from where and went to whom is like going to the bank and asking to get the specific dollars you desposited back on your withdrawal.
I also think that was the case, but unfortunately I have seen no official support so that could be just wishful thinking. How do we know that they got rid of the guilty royals? I have the suspicion that the Saudis have told the US in secret; but I do wonder if, just like they did with some of the inmates of Guantanamo bay, the natives just gave us some scapegoats.
The thing is 9/11 from an Al Qaeda standpoint is till occurring. The United States is still mired in Afghanistan and Iraq. The big wild card really is Iran and the Shiite bloc, that’s the unintended consequences that I think Osama hadn’t banked upon. This has strengthened the Shiites immeasurably. So yes the US is mired and has less ability to project force around the world, but that benefits Iran more than anyone. Then again, the Pashtun/Taliban are becoming more and more powerful not just in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, and the Baluchi provinces are starting to agitate. That means that Pakistan our main conduit of supplies to Afghanistan for the last 30 years is having trouble containing both Tribal forces that seek to destabilize it, that means it could very soon be a whole lot harder for American forces to fight in Pakistan.
If you think that 9/11 was supposed to achieve long-term objectives in the short term then you don’t really understand the goals. The goals are very far reaching and the gaze looks a long way into the future. The Soviet Union did not topple overnight as a result of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
I’d say 9/11 was successful beyond all expectations. No one ever expected it to be a Coup de Grace on the Great Satan, but it definitely hurt us and continues to do so every minute our troops are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There’s no way to know any of it, and that’s the point of secret wars. The idea that the Saudi Royals are picking and choosing their Muj based upon filial loyalty to the US is ludicrously naive. The Saudis dumped far more money on Afghani Mujahideen over the course of the Jihad against the Soviets than the CIA did, and they weren’t exactly providing Swiss due dilligence on where that money was spent.
I think 9/11 was incredibly successful in altering our way of life at home. Fearmongering in the media is now common; Americans have cheerfully allowed their rights and liberties to be eroded or removed; we are breaking our economy (and some good will, both at home and abroad) on a war in Iraq that had fuck-all to do with any of it…
Nicely done. They are standing back and watching us screw the pooch, all by oursleves.
Why are we assuming there was a deeper motive than “do as much damage as possible to our enemies”. It was really successful on those terms. I think the 9-11 attacks were meant to be the beginning of a long series of similar attacks with the sole intention of doing as much damage as possible, and OBL just underestimated how hard it is to pull it off more than once.
I assume so because I take what OBL says his goals are at more or less face value, and he says there is a deeper motive.
It’s really interesting how people try to analyze the motives of someone while completely eliminating what they declare their motives to be from the equation.
They have pulled off more since, just not on the level of 9/11.
The Trade center attack had symbolic value. It was in the biggest, richest city in America. It was a huge center of trade and a financial office for many countries. They showed they could get us where we thought we were safe. It also made the Bin Laden soldiers get energized. We were not the powerful country that could not be hurt.
My brother served in Afghanistan, and it was his feeling while there that we nearly had AQ taken apart, but then we took our eyes off the ball and focused on Iraq, thus enabling the warlords and AQ to quietly and efficiently regain their strength and position in Afghanistan.
Certainly they are holding off 100,000 Western troops handily…
Why are we proving anything to bin Laden? Seems to me that a truly powerful nation would have long since seen him dead.
Our failure to kill him leaves us looking impotent. I expect that image of America suits OBL and friends just fine.
Are you sure they are on the run? They are about to take over the middle of Afghanistan after owning the north for a long time. Because we say so, does not make it true. We have been attacking the Middle East for a long time now, what have we accomplished? We have killed a lot of Iraqis. Do you think they should thank us for that? Millions have fled, most of the educated and professionals are gone? We blew up one of the most beautiful and historical cities in the world. Should that please them?
Afghanistanis will not be happy about America dropping bombs all over the place.
I like how when everyone says that Iraqis are so mad at us for ruining everything, no one mentions the Kurds. They’re perfectly happy with their relatively low level of violence, functional public works, and autonomous government. Same for cities in the south like Basra.
AQI is most definitely on the run. As for elsewhere in the world, they’re not doing so hot.
He WANTED us to bomb Afghanistan.