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>"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I hea

>"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Bin Laden's goal was to get the US mired in an extremely expensive and prolonged war of attrition. It's the same strategy that helped bring down the Soviet Union. It makes sense, at face value, to get a vastly more powerful adversary bogged down in such a war. >"Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining..." I feel you. It's pretty disheartening.

mschuster91 5y ago
And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).
- randompwd 5y ago
  > local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan The US only momentarily devoted its attention to Afghanistan, until the Administration was able to redirect its energy to the preconceived war on Iraq it initially wanted to use the 9/11 attack to justify but was thwarted by the evidence leading elsewhere too clearly. That's a big part of the reason the long occupation on Afghanistan was such a failure. > plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general Uh, for the point of view of the right-wing party in America that launched that war and the next, that wasn't an unfortunate unintended consequence, its part of the reason many of the people in that Administration had been trying to get a war against Iraq off the ground since shortly after the previous one ended.
austhrow743 5y ago
Really? I’ve read that seeing the US lose its shit and pull out of Somalia after losing a couple helicopters and a dozen or so troops gave him the idea that it culturally couldn’t handle losses. That he thought scaling up the losses would increase the scale of the withdrawal and that he could get the US to pull out of the Islamic world completely. They seem like mutually incompatible motivations.

mschuster91 5y ago

And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).

randompwd 5y ago
> local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan The US only momentarily devoted its attention to Afghanistan, until the Administration was able to redirect its energy to the preconceived war on Iraq it initially wanted to use the 9/11 attack to justify but was thwarted by the evidence leading elsewhere too clearly. That's a big part of the reason the long occupation on Afghanistan was such a failure. > plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general Uh, for the point of view of the right-wing party in America that launched that war and the next, that wasn't an unfortunate unintended consequence, its part of the reason many of the people in that Administration had been trying to get a war against Iraq off the ground since shortly after the previous one ended.

austhrow743 5y ago

Really? I’ve read that seeing the US lose its shit and pull out of Somalia after losing a couple helicopters and a dozen or so troops gave him the idea that it culturally couldn’t handle losses. That he thought scaling up the losses would increase the scale of the withdrawal and that he could get the US to pull out of the Islamic world completely. They seem like mutually incompatible motivations.