How Bin Laden Bankrupted America

This is a very interesting editorial on the http://www.anti-war.com website. It discusses the how the political confluences of the neocons and the"fundementalists" with the wars in the Middle East contributed to bankrupting the US.

The genius of bin Laden's pinprick attacks, costing a few hundred thousand dollars, has left America reeling with two unending multi-trillion-dollar wars it doesn't know how to get out of. He knew that his own strength was mainly in his appeal to the minds of men, particularly to the lost dignity of Muslims trampled under the heel of their own dictators, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and America's military. Getting rid of the "far" enemy was the way to take on the "near" ones.

The article talks about five ways this has happened. What is very interesting is that some of the pundits have actually predicted something like this. From the article:

Editor John Feffer forecast the wars' consequences precisely in 2002:

"The successful realization of bin Laden's secret strategy will happen not with a bang but with a whimper. Having failed to use the unipolar moment for the world's advantage, the United States runs the risk of following the examples of Russia and England and Turkey, all faded empires whose ambitions overreached themselves. In the worst-case scenario, the U.S. will become the sick man of North America, a victim of military hypertrophy, extremes of wealth and poverty, decay of civil infrastructure, and loss of competitive economic advantage."

Read it. Interesting stuff.

But what is more interesting is this last quote. See the link for the full article. Here is an excerpt from that article. Remember this is written in 2002.

Bin Laden has apparently absorbed the Reagan strategy. It is difficult to know whether he really thought that a handful of terrorist acts would hobble the United States or that al Qaeda and the Taliban could defeat the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan. What he must have anticipated, however, was the predictable U.S. response: to throw money at the Pentagon.

The Bush administration has obliged by lifting defense spending into the stratosphere. The proposed 14 percent increase brings the military budget to $379 billion. Another $17 billion will be spend on defense programs outside the Pentagon. By 2007, Bush predicts a staggering $451 billion military budget. These figures don't even include the enormous sums devoted to paying for past wars through veterans' payments and interest on the debt associated with military spending ($229 billion in 2001). Coupled with tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy, the proposed defense budget will eliminate the budget surpluses and do nothing to improve the health, educational level and long-term employment opportunities of U.S. citizens.