The Man, His Legacy

Infamy his reputation in the West, inspirational and honoured in the East.  He is dead, but his legacy lives on.  A Saudi from a wealthy construction-industry family, Osama bin Laden detested the Saudi dynasty, and hated even more its American connection.  He deplored that the United States was the major beneficiary of Saudi natural resources, buying its oil and making the country wealthy beyond anyone's dreams, including his family's.

Scions of wealth often become defenders of the downtrodden.

Osama bin Laden just went a bit further; he meant to free all of the Arab and Muslim world from American domination.  And what better way to do that than to diminish the country's fabulous wealth that enabled it to buy Arab/Muslim loyalty and energy resources?  He had a two-pronged vision; one, to demonstrate just how powerful his influence could be in recruiting idealistic jihadists to surrender their lives for the greater purpose of destroying the enemy; two destroy the enemy's power.

A handful of trained and dedicated Islamists prepared to martyr themselves for the greater good of Islam would in one fell stroke - or, in the case of 9/11 - four separate attacks, murder thousands of Americans.  Symbolically selecting the centre of American finance in the Twin Towers, the military power of the Pentagon, and a failed attempt at targeting the White House which nonetheless had more than its share of horror in a Pennsylvania field, en route to Washington.

That was an immense humanitarian blow; the deaths of thousands in one fateful day.  The terror and insecurity, the fear and horror of the atrocities and their far-reaching after-effects.  And the immense costs.  Of clean-up, of reconstruction.  But above all, of defence.  Inconvenience and expense related to a heightened awareness and the inevitable intention not to be surprised in such an unimaginable manner again.  Security upgraded and tightened, costly new procedures undertaken.

The stock market rallied, and life returned to normal but not the normal of before; a new-normal.  Of closer scrutiny, new rules and inspections, a slowing down of trade between countries to check baggage and airline passengers, to impose new regulations, design and implement the use of new technologies specifically meant to apprehend any unusual activities meant to target the U.S.  And drawing in its allies; they too targeted.

And then there was the planning and the mounting and the expense of launching counter-attacks to roust the master planner and his enclave.  Afghanistan and Iraq cost trillions of treasury, leaving a hugely weakened American economy in their wake, one that was further demolished by its heedless financing of the American dream that collapsed, leaving behind an international economic disaster.

And every time some quirky new line of attack or imaginative new kind of explosive partnered with a hitherto-unsuspected delivery system was detected and apprehended another layer of security was imposed; more slow-downs, more expense.  The strategy of Osama bin Laden to beggar the United States of America, the most powerful country on the face of this Earth, was amazingly effective.

Its results can be seen to the present day; the Fiscal Cliff would never have eventuated without all that preceded it, resulting from the esoteric malevolence of hatred directed toward the West in general, America specifically, by the arch-enemy of tolerance and liberalism, qualities that do not reflect total surrender to the religion and ideological values delivered to a nomadic community by a Prophet they revere.