With friends like these you don't need a terrorist.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Corporations won.
Well, the few wealthy people who own the largest chunk of most 500 companies, won. Corps are just executioner's masks.
Good point.
I keep seeing this article reposted all over Lemmy and I feel like I need to comment on it.
I remember 9/11. I was a senior in high school when it happened. After the dust settled (so to speak), the common explanation for the attacks was that Osama Bin Laden wanted Americans to be enraged at the local attack on our soil and rise up against Bush Jr. and the government. Potentially overthrowing him and replacing him with a less warmongering leader who stayed out of Middle East affairs.
That never happened. In fact, the opposite happened. An attack on our soil turned Americans super patriotic and we became even more involved in the Middle East. We were so blindly enraged, we went after any foreigners who supported the attacks. And our government used it as an excuse to raid the Middle East of resources (oil, in particular).
We started a war with Iraq (which had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian), and after ousting their leader, we turned our attention to hunting down Osama hiding in Afghanistan with the Taliban. And we spent the next 2 decades heavily involved in Middle East affairs. Instead of staying out of their politics, we instead tried to push our own on them, promoting Democracy everywhere we set up camp. I know; I was in the US military during that time and served in Iraq briefly in 2007.
And no, I didn't sign up because of 9/11. I already had a contract to join the US Air Force, which I had signed in August 2001. A month later, 9/11 happened and I thought, 'Shit. I'm gonna die in some foreign war now.' Thankfully, that never happened, but I wasn't proud of our government's response to the attack and our foreign involvement since.
Osama Bin Laden's attack on America has led to our downfall as a country, as our response led to more invasive government policies that took away our rights in favor of security. But as far as Osama's goal for attacking us? He completely failed, and it eventually ended with him hunted across the globe as America's most wanted terrorist, and eventually dead and buried at sea. He greatly underestimated our culture and how revenge-prone we'd be.
I can't read the article because it's behind a paywall, but from what I can read, this article doesn't seem to remember history correctly. Osama simply wanted a regime change, not the entire collapse of America. He was just trying to incentivize Americans to start a revolution, not understanding how blindly loyal we were to our country at that point in history, and how strongly we'd defend it from foreign attacks.
Osama may have been deeply involved in politics and pissed off at America's involvement in the Middle East. But the average American was completely blind to politics back then, having no real knowledge of what our government was up to. 9/11 woke up a lot of people, but our involvement in politics was misguided and quickly redirected away from what our government was up to, and instead what our government was doing in retaliation. We focused on the wrong politics for far too long and let our government take advantage of the confusion to restrict our rights and assert more power and control instead. And we've been on a steady decline ever since.
To this day, even with a dictator-wanna-be as our president, we still haven't started a revolution and overthrown our own government. And we have WAY more incentive to do it today than we ever did in the early 2000s. Osama completely failed in his goal; Americans just aren't used to fighting against their own government. Not since the Civil War, anyway, and no one alive today lived through that. We've been too fat and happy in our lives these past 161 years, and our government, on both sides of the aisle, are very careful to promote peaceful discourse instead of violent revolution. Unless Trump isn't getting his way, then he's all about violent revolution in his favor (see: Jan 6th attacks).
We're so focused on peaceful discourse that politicians have learned no consequences will come their way if they break laws, especially if they can pay their way out of it. So we're stuck in this situation where we need a revolution to change the current system, but nobody wants to be the martyr to start it. And what few people have actually attempted to start something have been quickly demonized and punished/killed (see: Luigi, the Trump "assassination" attempts, etc.).
Our media is blindly loyal to the government and true journalism is dead in our country, so most Americans aren't getting actual news anymore. And our lives are disrupted, but not completely unlivable yet. We're still limping along with a promise of a better day coming. Americans haven't hit that point of hopelessness where risking death for government change is worth it to them yet. So for now, our dictator government, which is still heavily involved in Middle East affairs, persists while we do practically nothing about it. Osama Bin Laden lost.
We started a war with Iraq (which had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian), and after ousting their leader, we turned our attention to hunting down Osama hiding in Afghanistan with the Taliban.
It was the other way around. Afghanistan first. After routing the talibans Bush turned to Iraq
Osama Bin Laden’s attack on America has led to our downfall as a country, as our response led to more invasive government policies that took away our rights in favor of security.
That was exactly his objective. We know, because he straight-up said so in a number of interviews. That was his goal for attacking us, and we have responded exactly as he foresaw. This article (which is easy to read by clicking the Reader Mode button in Firefox) correctly remembers that he knew that the attack would inflame American jingoism, and lead to imperial overreach and eventual self-induced collapse. The idea that he was seeking "regime change" sounds like empty-headed Bush administration projection, since he was playing the long game, and even expected to be a martyr himself before it ended.
The USA is at the end of its ability to project hegemonic power in the middle east.
That was more the objective than causing a revolution in the USA, although that revolution (away from christo-capitalism) may be about to occur anyways.
But as far as Osama’s goal for attacking us? He completely failed,
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it sounds pretty nonsensical. Osama thought that attacking the US would make the populace overthrow the government? Attacking a country only leads to people unifying behind their government. Every country in the world that has been bombed by the United States knows that. The only people who don´t know that run the United States Air Force.
The story I understand, that makes a lot more sense, is that Osama bin Laden wanted to drag the United States into a land war that would drain its resources and galvanize the Islamic world into uniting against the US. The results were mixed, I'd say, definitely not a "complete failure." The US committed to a 20-year-war in Afghanistan that it lost, and a separate war in Iraq which it "won", but at great cost. But it did completely fail to unify the Islamic world against the US; though ISIS was definitely an expression of that, ME governments stay aligned with the US.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it sounds pretty nonsensical.
Quoted from my comment above:
I know; I was in the US military during that time and served in Iraq briefly in 2007.
Personal experience working for the US government. It was a common news thread at the time, and our government was afraid of people learning more about Osama's specific intentions. Sure, there was a lot more to it, but the main story our government wanted squashed was the idea of revolution. They worked hard to redirect our attention toward revenge on the attackers instead of questioning why they attacked us in the first place. They didn't want the public poking into what our government was doing that justified an attack on our nation, and they definitely didn't want anyone showing sympathy to any degree for Osama.
Again, Americans were politically blind back them. We had no idea what foreign affairs our government was up to at the time, or what atrocities we might be committing in the Middle East. This brought a warfront to our front door and got the average citizen involved in worldly affairs overnight. Our government found themselves suddenly needing to control the narrative and refocus our anger at the scenario that played out in our own backyard, as well as those involved. We put a target on Osama's back once he claimed responsibility for 9/11, and that became the headline for every news story going forward.
Americans knew. At least the ones that gave a shit. There were protests and fights every year over bullshit the government was doing.
Sounds like maybe you didn't know? And once in the military they had their propaganda for you.
You really didn't hear people talking about all the devastation the US brought to do many people for decades? People are still dying to this day in the country that had more bombs dropped on it than used in all of WW2, and the US wasn't even at war with them!
In other words, you've got personal anecdotes, not anything of substance.
Osama’s manifesto is available on the web. We have a first person source for his motivation and goals.
Hint: It had nothing to do with triggering a revolution in the US
Yes, sweetie, that's how I know this internet rando doesn't know what he's talking about.
The article was a more accurate account than whatever you copy pasted from ChatGPT, sunshine.
You kids and your AI bullshit. Back in my day, we wrote proper discourse, with full paragraphs, proper sentence structure, and lengthy diatribe. You could learn a thing or two if you stopped letting machines write your retorts. Now get off my lawn! 😉
I'm older than you, kiddo. And I know better than to trust internet randos' vague recollections of something that happened a quarter century ago.
Another poorly informed US terrorist writing a 10 paragraph comment without knowing what he is even talking about.
Another anonymous commenter who believes that anyone who worked for the US government blindly supports everything they do. Real life is more complicated than that.
I'm actually very anti-US government right now. I specifically retired because I had spent years advocating for a different direction than our government was heading, and being involved in military/politics wasn't enough to enact change at my level. I'm an activist nowadays and believe that revolution is probably the only way we're going to actually change our government for the better.
Once again. You are an ignorant terrorist.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/11/1/full-transcript-of-bin-ladins-speech
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
You're also incredibly misinformed, sparky.
America's middle class is destroyed but that makes the upper class only more powerful. Europe still does what the US wants, even though they hate Trump. What but a sign of a powerful America is that?
Just to correct: Europe and Asia are decoupling from the US at a breakneck speed. Sure, it’ll take years to reduce our relience of the US, but that delay doesn’t mean that Europe or Asia are being passive about the US.
Trump’s actions will echo far into the future. With the rate things are going, I doubt the US will have much sway anywhere in the world just ten years from now.
Europe and Asia are decoupling from the US at a breakneck speed
Breakneck speed would be denying the US access to EU biometric data for visa applications. What gives you the impression that we are decoupling? We need US gas and US AI and US weapons for Ukraine. If anything we are intensifying our bonds.
A weak and servile Europe? Besides, America is squandering its overseas power at a rapid rate while destroying exactly the strengths that allowed it to maintain that power in the first place. America is obviously still the strongest country in the world, but it's also in terminal decline that will become more and more visible over the years.
Edit: Also note that weakening popular forces and an unrestrained upper class are a recipe for disaster historically.
weakening popular forces and an unrestrained upper class
Those AI drones for the trenches in Ukraine will also work in the suburbs of Berlin and Rome.
This is silly. Bin Laden's plan was that 9/11 was going to scare the US into withdrawing from the Middle east just as the Soviets had ghosted Afghanistan. Spoiler: that didn't happen. If 9/11 kicked off America's decline, it's not because Bin Laden was doing some 4/D chess; he got lucky.
That is not, in fact, Bin Laden's plan.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
Either way it was a bad plan and did not work at all, probably made it worse
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
Reminds me a little bit of the delusional attitude of the current US administration towards the war with Iran.
Not at all. You should read his letter he stated basically what happened since then. The US debt has gone into overdrive as he predicted and the economy is trash.