Digging Out.

A decade later, it is clear that the damage Osama Bin Laden did to American society went far beyond the visible carnage in New York and Washington.  Bin Laden’s raid triggered a reflexive military excursion- two wars which will end up costing trillions of dollars.  After an initial period of “pulling together”, the country split apart, and a decade later, our politics is riven with anger deeper than anything we’ve seen in forty years.  We were also thrown off our game economically, first a shallow recession, then a shallow recovery, then a catastrophic recession. A decade on,  no income gains, damaged business and investor confidence, and now, record persistent unemployment.

Bin Laden’s strike might not have brought on the global caliphate he sought.  But the blow he struck against the United States - with a few hundred thousand dollars and four of our own airplanes- did as much damage to our country as any foreign enemy in the history of our republic.