2018.09.11 Seventeen Year Realization
There is another term for terrorism: asymmetric warfare.
When you consider the 3 thousand that died in the attack, the subsequent 5 thousand allied soldiers lives that have been spent since then, and the staggering 5.6 trillion dollars flushed away by directly inspired military operations abroad security fetishes domestically - you can make a pretty solid case that the terrorists made a comprehensive tactical victory. Anybody who blusters about having bombed them back into the stone age completely misses the point about how that's exactly where they started anyways. That's why they did it: they already had nothing to lose.
As sickening as that is to contemplate, it is nothing compared to my realization today. They didn't just manipulate the United States into wasting titanic amounts of money and desecrating the lives of dutiful soldiers. They succeeded in scaring the United States so badly that the country figuratively shit its bed.
Because what else is the election of Donald Trump other than the exact manifestation of mindless fear?