Bin Laden exploited us brilliantly

Death may have ended Osama bin Laden’s terrorist career, but analysis of his legacy is just beginning. With a few hundred, or even just a few dozen operatives, and about a half-million dollars, bin Laden did what the German Kaiser in World War I, Hitler and Togo in World War II, and Stalin and Khrushchev in the Cold War couldn’t: He started America on the slow but inevitable decline from greatness to possible ruin.

Bin Laden consciously provoked an America with newly installed leaders bent on conquest in the Middle East, to overreact to his pinprick attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon using flying lessons, airline tickets and box cutters. He set a trap that America willingly dove into by launching utterly unnecessary wars against nations instead of the rag tag but clever criminals under his spiritual guidance.

Here we are 10 years later bogged down with semiofficial wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya plus military action in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places we aren’t told about. Against bin Laden’s half million we’ve squandered a trillion and a half so far, with trillions more yet to come.

Meanwhile, we invest pennies in rebuilding an America crumbling physically as well as spiritually. Heroic teachers face larger class sizes while warding off assaults against decent wages and working conditions. We ignore truly fixing the worst health care delivery system in the industrialized world. Fourteen million Americans are still looking for work. On top of the unsustainable cost of endless war we give unsustainable tax cuts to the rich.

Bin Laden knew America better than we Americans, and exploited those insights brilliantly to begin our decline. Just when we might be having a real debate about obscene military spending his killing will stifle any legitimate criticism.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn